Season 3, Episode 6:
The Spider's Net
With the help of Drew, the gang makes a daring plan to retrieve the Core, but their loved ones’ lives hang in balance.This episode contains examples of:
- 13 Is Unlucky: Referenced by Frank when the gang sees on the blueprints that the public elevators of Sparewell Tech skip the 13th floor. Since Hurd is very much not a superstitious man according to Drew, they deduce that the 13th floor is just one that's off limits to the public, but is there, and can be reached with Hurd's private elevator.
- Ambiguous Situation:
- It's unclear if Agent Driscoll dies or not after being cornered and shot by Olivia. He's not moving afterward, and Belinda and Chet certainly think she killed him, but they also don't see his body when this happens, so he could still be alive. It's answered for sure in the following episodes.
- With The Reveal that Drew has been framing Hurd this whole time and she's the one who's really evil, it's unclear how many of the stories she told the gang in the previous episode about her father being emotionally abusive to her (and we saw brief flashback snippets of) are technically the truth or close to it but missing vital context about why Hurd acted that way to her, vs how much of it she just completely made up like she did with everything about Orrin.
- Archnemesis Dad: Hurd Sparewell to his daughter, Drew. He was so emotionally abusive to her growing up that she's positively eager to join the gang in bringing him (and her sister Olivia) down. Except it actually turns out to be the other way around; Hurd's innocent of at least the plot that Drew accused him of, and his two daughters are the ones who are evil.
- Batman Gambit: As Chet and Belinda run from Olivia, she shouts after them that they'll never get "down there" in the Sparewell labs to get the Core, and they tell their friends about it, thinking she slipped up. This was actually very much intentional to further deceive the gang about where the Core really is and make it easier to lure them into a trap, and Olivia spells it out to the boys once she nabs them.
- Big Bad Friend: Drew Sparewell acts as a Sixth Ranger to the Hardy Gang and has become close with Callie in particular while they've roomed together at Rosegrave, only for her to reveal and rub it in to the Hardy Boys after capturing them that she was the real mastermind all along.
- Cliffhanger: The episode ends on the boys being hit with the familiar Knockout Gas by the Sparewell sisters and passing out on the floor.
- Comedic Sociopathy: The gang discovers that they need Hurd's fingerprint to activate his private elevator. Joe insinuates that they should cut off his hand or at least a finger, though this may be just to mess with Chet after he's horrified by the suggestion.
- Continuity Nod: Once Olivia has the Hardys captured, they confront her about having killed Paul McFarlane and many other remnants of the Circle, which Fenton told them about back in "Hunting an Intruder" but hasn't been brought up for a while since then.
- Distressed Dudes: The Hardys are captured near the end of the faked heist, and learn that Drew was Evil All Along and was luring them into a trap from the start. They're hit with Knockout Gas and fall unconscious to the floor, and Drew plans to take them somewhere else by helicopter.
- The Dragon: Though Olivia was already known to be this, the twist is that she's not the Dragon to her father Hurd, but rather her sister Drew.
- Elevator Failure: The Hardy Boys and Drew get stuck between floors in the elevator when the power goes out. The boys escape through the door in the top of the car and then a vent shaft nearby. It turns out Olivia deactivated it, and this was All According to Plan for Drew.
- "Eureka!" Moment: Phil and Biff work on figuring out the "clicking" noises in Hurd's phone calls to JB and them, and Biff notices that the number of clicks in the whole message is equal to the number of letters per word plus one for each word, except for "twenty-four", which only has three corresponding clicks. A frustrated comment Phil makes that it could be "any number of things" causes Biff to realize that it's a number, and if you write it as "24" instead, it does fit the pattern; however, since that wouldn't make sense with someone talking, they realize the words were actually typed, and the sounds they're hearing are the clicks on a keyboard. Phil then notes that you would only type instead of talk if you're trying to fake someone's voice, and sure enough, it's revealed soon after that it's not really Hurd speaking on the calls.
- Evil All Along: The big twist for this season is that the True Companions' new friend Drew Sparewell is actually the Big Bad who stole the Core, is working with Olivia, framed her father for her own actions, and was manipulating them the whole time largely just because she could.
- Evolving Credits: Drew's actress has previously been listed in the beginning credits with "And Bailee Madison as Drew Darrow". Now that her real name has been revealed, this and all subsequent episodes instead say "And Bailee Madison as Drew Sparewell".
- Fish out of Water: The fact that Chet's lived in a more rural small town his whole life shows when they reach Fenton's and Laura's old apartment. He first seems a bit surprised that it's locked—while Belinda replies, "Of course it's locked, we're in the city"—and then scoffs at her suggestion to check underneath the floor mat for the apartment key, only to indeed find it there.
- Frame-Up: Hurd Sparewell may not be the warmest or kindest guy around, but he has nothing to do with kidnapping the kids' parents and doesn't even know what the Core is, let alone having any kind of Evil Plan for it. The true Big Bad, and Olivia's real partner, is her younger sister Drew; they used computer technology to fake Hurd's voice in all the phone calls to JB and the gang so the latter would think he's responsible and Drew could remain a Hidden Villain.
- Heist Episode: Even billed as such, with Drew asking at the end of the previous episode how the Hardy Gang feels about "daring heists." They spend most of the runtime plotting to break into Sparewell Technology, steal back the Core from Hurd, and save the kidnapped parents. Sadly for them, the whole thing is doomed to fail from the start because it's a trap set by the Sparewell sisters to capture the Hardy brothers.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Despite Driscoll being annoyed at Chet's and Belinda's accusations, and being suspicious himself about why they're at the apartment, when they hear Olivia coming, he has them go through the door and lock it behind them to get away from her, stays behind himself to buy them time, and (to their horror) gets shot as he no doubt suspected he would (though whether or not he dies remains to be seen).
- I Lied: Though in this case, revealed by someone other than the liar. While there's some ambiguity with what Drew has told the group about her relationship with her father, what is completely false is everything she told the Hardy Gang about her "brother" Orrin. Hurd reveals to Callie, Chet, and Belinda that he's never had a son at all, just his two daughters, Olivia and Drew.
- Irony: Previously, when Phil tried to broach the topic of their relationship (whatever it is) with Biff, she shut it down after a moment or so and just wanted to focus on the task at hand. Now, Biff tries to bring up how Phil previously called her his best friend and sounds like she's going to say she feels the same way, only for him to be too absorbed in their decoding efforts to pick up on it.
- Knockout Gas: Like their dad and the other parents/guardians before them, this time the boys themselves get subjected to this at the end.
- Lured into a Trap: The Episode. The Hardy Gang plans a Heist Episode to steal back the Core, but their inside informant, Drew, is actually their Big Bad Friend who only suggested the heist as an elaborate way to screw with them and separate the Hardys from the rest of the group to kidnap them more easily. To top it off, Drew reveals that the Core was never even in the Sparewell Tech building to begin with, nor are they right now.
- Manipulative Bitch: As Hurd Sparewell tells Callie, Belinda, and Chet, his daughter Drew has always been this, having a pathological need to lie and manipulate people largely For the Evulz and because It Amused Me, and she doesn't have "friends", she has "game pieces", with Drew's older sister Olivia and family chauffeur William being the only people she ever really bonded with (until her father sent the latter away). Drew and Olivia have been tricking the gang into believing that Hurd is the evil one, screw around with the boys on the heist just because Drew finds it enjoyable, and successfully sucker everyone. Drew even initially pretends to be captured too when her men bring her into the room where Frank and Joe are cornered by Olivia, only to then quickly reveal herself as the real ringleader, just to enjoy the looks on their faces.
- Nobody's That Dumb: Chet is incredulous when Belinda tells him to check for a spare key to Fenton's and Laura's old apartment under the doormat, asking who would hide it there, only to indeed find it mid-sentence.
- Red Herring: A brief one. As Belinda and Chet search the apartment where the parents were previously Lured into a Trap, right after they find Trudy's keys, Driscoll walks in and says, "I was looking for those." This makes the pair very suspicious, but Driscoll explains that he actually just found Trudy's van parked down the street without the keys anywhere in sight, and has a reasonable explanation for every question they ask, pointing out that he's done a better job explaining why he's there than they have (which they can't tell him; Chet actually knows Brian was there thanks to a vision from the Eye, and that would require them to admit they still have it). Then they all get chased by Olivia soon afterward.
- The Reveal: A couple that are directly related to each other:
- Whoever he may be as a person (it's a bit ambiguous), Hurd Sparewell is not the Big Bad, nor does he want the Core or even know what it is. Olivia and her real partner have been using computers to fake his voice in all of the phone calls to frame him as the bad guy.
- Olivia's actual partner, the real Big Bad, is her younger sister Drew Sparewell, a Manipulative Bitch who's been Evil All Along and just faked her friendships with Callie and the rest of the Hardy Gang.
- Rewatch Bonus:
- Drew's conversation with Bob reads very differently on a second watch knowing she's the bad guy and he's helping her. His total confusion at her words and behavior doesn't quite seem to fit what you'd expect if she really was blackmailing him, but makes a lot more sense when you know that she was going off-script winging it to be convincing in front of Frank and Callie, and Bob was trying to play along with her.
- There's a lot of Foreshadowing to something being amiss about the heist that jumps out quite a bit more on a re-view, like that we never actually see Drew driving up to the gate of the parking garage, just Frank and Joe listening to her on comms from the trunk of the car; also, that there's no fingerprint sensor in the elevator they're in with her, as she just pushes the stolen print against the actual floor buttons.
- Sheep in Sheep's Clothing: Agent Driscoll is briefly hinted to be on the bad guys' side and involved with the abduction of the kids' parents when he shows up at the old Hardy apartment, and Chet and Belinda do become suspicious of him at that point, but he's exactly who he appears to be: a slightly-obstructing and uptight but honest government agent, and gets shot by Olivia while helping them escape.
- Suddenly Shouting: When the Sparewell sisters have Frank and Joe captured and Drew is explaining the whole plot to them:Drew: No, [it's] not [Hurd]. No, I AM THE FUTURE, JOE!
- Unspoken Plan Guarantee: The gang goes over the Sparewell heist in great detail and even makes multiple adjustments after hitting the first few snags. But then Frank, Joe, and Drew get stuck in an elevator when the power is cut, Callie apparently gets caught and chased by Olivia, and then the boys get captured by Olivia and realize they've been Lured into a Trap. Specifically, that the heist was a hoax from the beginning because Drew is actually their Big Bad Friend who was messing with them the whole time and framing her father as the one behind it.
- Wham Line: When Drew seemingly gets caught by Sparewell goons along with Frank and Joe and brought into the room with them:Olivia: Drew. Nice of you to join us.
Drew: Join you, Olivia? You wish....Kinda makes it sound like you're the brains of this operation. (Waves away the thugs who "captured" her) Go.
