The CW’s Nancy Drew is back for its fourth and final season, and this time we are going all-out on the supernatural. But I need to admit that, for some reason, I just cannot wrap my head around Kennedy McMann as Nancy Drew. She doesn’t appeal to me as the teenage sleuth that I read stories of as a kid. But maybe that’s because my early-2000s image of her is different from what this 2019 series has shown for three seasons. Here’s what happens in Episode 1.
Spoilers Ahead
The Living Dead
Horseshoe Bay is about to host its annual Lover’s Vigil the next night, and Nancy Drew Investigations is sponsoring it. Plans are underway. All are spreading the word. But Nancy has work to do. Eight bodies are missing from their graves, and she has to figure out what happened to them. It’s been five weeks since someone tipped her off about the graves, and there’s been no development in the case whatsoever. There’s a new police chief in town, Chief Lovett, but she, too, hasn’t shown any interest in it yet. The only thing that connects all eight dead people is that they were all under 30. On top of all this, she cannot locate Chunky Velez, the missing weasel. And finally, Ace is arrested for stealing the dead bodies. A chat with Lovett reveals to Nancy that Ace has been arrested after a hand was recovered from behind his house. The house is technically his parents’, and he has been taking care of it for weeks. So naturally, he will face the charges. George manages to take a picture of the hand without anyone noticing so that they can analyze it later on. Nancy, Bess, and George will have to identify the body and see how it ended up where it did. This will help figure out why it ended up there (behind Ace’s house). Ace’s arraignment is a few days away, and they will have to solve the mystery by then so that Ace isn’t sent to prison. Dogs are a crucial element in the case, as it was two dogs that brought their owner into the house at exactly 10 p.m. There have also been complaints about dogs barking from all across the neighborhood. So it seems that barks are the signal Nancy should wait for. It takes only a single night’s walk into the woods for her and Nick to realize that the bodies were not stolen. They spot a walking corpse, or a zombie, that has just risen out of its grave. That’s useful because it proves that Ace didn’t steal the bodies. But how do you explain it to the police?
Old Horseshoe
It is Lovers’ Vigil Day today. Bess and Ryan receive guests Shelby and Jonas over at the Historical Society, where Bess is the curator. This is a result of some relics that belonged to these guests and that Ryan has sabotaged. As a result, his Porsche, which they had as collateral, is now in danger. So he has offered them a sit-down with Bess for a profitable deal in return for the loss he has caused them so that he can get his car back. Shelby and Jonas offer to monetize Bess’s relics, many of which are off the books, for her. But she declines. Of course, there are other matters to attend to, and selling relics is beyond her, especially when she is trying to save them and make the people of Horseshoe Bay understand their importance. Surprisingly, Shelby and Jonas return Ryan’s car. This is weird, but Ryan is just glad to have his car back. On the other hand, Nancy decides to visit the yacht where India Burnett spent her last days. India is the one whose arm’s picture George took at the police station. No one has set foot inside the yacht. Inside the yacht, she finds a diary with scribbled pages, but before she can look further, a cop comes around the harbor, and she takes cover on another boat, where she meets Tristan. After sending the cop away, they have a short conversation, and Tristan seems to to be drawn to her. Nancy returns with the diary. The mission is a success! The scribbles on the pages are, however, a whole different ballgame. Ryan identifies that the scribbles are an old map of Horseshow Bay from before 1999. It helps Nancy deduce that the bodies seem to be following a pattern. The only way to ascertain that is to look for complaints addressing barking dogs as they might be connected to the disappearance of the bodies. The pattern might help them predict the next location. Bess and Ryan are on their way to pick up a shipment when his car (returned by Shelby Glass and Jonas Glass) loses control and hits a tree. Under the hood, Ryan finds a talisman. The glasses are responsible for it. There is some supernatural ruckus going on, and this talisman seems to be connected to the missing bodies.
Lovers’ Vigil
At the lovers’ vigil, Bess hands Nancy a map highlighting the locations of the dog barking complaints in the last five weeks. Nancy, following tradition, writes down Ace’s name on a piece of paper and puts it inside a bottle. This just proves how much she wants to be with Ace. Had it not been for the curse, they would’ve been together. It was she who deliberately distanced herself from Ace. As fate would have it, she bumps into Ace, who wasn’t supposed to be at the event but has turned up. But the moment they come close, the bottle in Nancy’s hand breaks, thereby reminding them of the curse. This is where a question comes to mind. Do they have to make their love for each other known verbally for the curse to take effect? Because if they are in love, which they are, the curse should already be taking effect. Or is it how close they are physically that sets the curse in motion? Weird. Nancy leaves and later finds the oldest map of Horseshoe Bay framed. Then, after correlating all the maps, she finds out that, considering each location of the barking dogs corresponds to a walking corpse, each corpse is traversing the town limits as it was when they were alive. And they all converge at a place called Geiger Clearing, the very place where Horseshoe Bay was founded.
Do Nancy And Her Friends Find The Corpses At Geiger Clearing?
Nancy, Bess, Ace, and Ned arrive at Geiger Clearing and come across multiple corpses who have gathered there and ultimately freeze in their positions. It seems that Chief Lovett has also followed Nancy to the spot and is shocked to see the corpses. We do not know for sure if she followed Nancy or if she had some other intent. Be that as it may, the living dead are proof that Ace didn’t steal them. But what happens next ups the ante of the whole case. The corpses start vomiting some kind of black slime. The next day, Nancy finds out about Bess and Ryan’s accident and heads to the Glasses house to confront them. To her surprise, the Glasses are Tristan’s parents. So she leaves without speaking to them. Maybe she didn’t want to make herself look like a bad person by speaking rudely to his parents. The same night, as she is going through all the evidence that she has gathered about the corpses at her workplace, Ace turns up with the piece of paper he found inside the broken bottle that was in Nancy’s hand at the Lovers’ Vigil event. They both know that they love each other, but they cannot kiss. Why? Because they are cursed. Meanwhile, the slime (the vomit, of the corpses) slowly makes its way to the municipal reservoir’s water supply.
While Nancy and Ace are figuring out how to kiss without touching each other’s lips, the whole of Horseshoe Bay is about to turn into a hoard of zombies. How will that turn out? Nancy better speak to the Glasses about the talisman because that seems to be the closest she can get to solving the case of the walking corpses as of now.
