Horseshoe Bay is about to welcome its first horde of the walking dead, courtesy of the slime that slowly made its way towards the reservoir and must have mixed with the water by now. On the other hand, Nancy needs to speak to the Glasses about the talisman. Are the corpses and the talisman connected? Episode 2 of Nancy Drew takes things up a notch and adds to the mystery.
Spoilers Ahead
A Splash Of Water
It’s George’s first day as Judge Abbott’s new clerk. Ace needs more information so that he can come face to face with the fact that he and Nancy are cursed and cannot act on their feelings for one another. But Nancy knows that revealing anything to him will only make it worse. She also introduces him to Tristan, who is the new lobster guy at The Claw (the diner owned by George and Nick). Nick is getting ready to go on a date after a long time. Bess is also about to meet her girlfriend’s parents. So, among all of these people, George is perhaps the least tense because she has already made it while the rest are all uncertain. But her very first day turns chaotic when Abbott has a seizure followed by a heart attack (we do not know if he lives or dies). The veins on his neck turn black, and he warns George to keep away from Magpie Lake. This seems to be a result of the water she gave him from the pitcher that was in the fridge. But what is weird is that he tried to tear a file in that condition. Why?
A splash of water from Abbott’s glass on Nancy’s face doesn’t seem dangerous, and she appears alright. So, they decide to test the water in the pitcher. This makes no sense as it’s the same water that was in the glass. It is only later on that we notice the veins on Nancy’s neck also turning black momentarily. Then when she, Bess, George, Ace, and Nick (who had to leave in the middle of his date with Jade) are together, everyone notices Nancy’s behavior to be like a “dude.” It seems to be the result of the water somehow. In any case, they have two things to look into, one is the file Abbott was trying to destroy, and the other is Magpie Lake. The file is the summary of a 1996 case presided over by Abbott. Logan Rhodes, a teenager, is the name of the accused, but the charges were dismissed. Rhodes lives in Eastville, while the nearest Magpie Lake is 3000 miles from their location. Eastville is closer. Once they solve what happened to Abbott, they will be able to bring Nancy back to her real state. Nancy and Ace will be meeting Logan. George and Nick will speak to Abbott. So, he is alive.
A Lake That Is Not A Lake
While George and Nick come to know that Abbott is undergoing surgery, Nancy and Ace find out from Logan Rhodes that Magpie Lake isn’t a lake but a person, i.e., Margaret Pyne Lake, aka Maggie. Logan faced the charges because he broke into her house. Interestingly, she almost died in an accident in 1996. Nancy tries to provoke Logan, but Ace stands in her way. She snaps at Ace for not letting her carry out the investigation properly. She visits Maggie Lake not with Ace but with George. Maggie’s accident was a result of her hitting the curb. So there’s no apparent motive. Nancy notices a horse statuette at Maggie’s place that she had also seen in Abbott’s office.
Keeping in mind that Logan gave a small gift to Abbott after he dropped his charges, it won’t be wrong to assume that Logan stole it from Maggie’s house and gave it to Abbott as a gift. Abbott’s poisoning is somehow related to Logan’s case. He was trying to destroy it. Or we can say that he was trying to hide the truth about the case forever. Maggie’s medical records reveal that the mark on her head is caused by the accident. Throughout these events, Nancy has been mocking Ace like he is, as he tells Bess, an old steak. All that he can do is maintain distance so as not to feel bad. Meanwhile, Bess needs to find an antidote for the poison that is affecting Nancy’s behavior. But she has to hurry because Nancy attacks Ace, and he would have been hurt had he not locked her inside a room. Bess’ tea works like a wonder, and Nancy’s “removed perspective” reveals that her true emotions have been locked away and taken over by anger. In other words, her mind is reacting to the pain that’s inside her with aggression. But thanks to the Glasses and their supernatural stomach pump that Ryan has come across, Nancy can get rid of the poison.
Supernatural Pump
Nancy and George make a deal with Tristan at the docks. Tristan gets to keep Nancy’s locket until she returns his parent’s pump. She will also get him his boat back [it was impounded (Episode 1)]. The pumping is a success, and Nancy returns to her normal self after vomiting the sludge that looks like the one that came out of the zombies (Episode 1). The discussion that follows is really confusing to me, and I had to listen and process each sentence carefully before moving on to the next. Ace pulls out Maggie’s medical record from 1996, and it seems that that record and the new record are different. In the old one, Maggie has two marks on her head, of which one seems to have been made with a blunt object, e.g., a horse statuette. The new one has only one mark.
After much speculation, they conclude that Logan hit Maggie with the statuette, after which both of them lost the memory of the incident. The same happened to Abbott. The poisoned water somehow brought back flashes of the attack, and he had a heart attack as a result. Nancy trying to hit Ace in the head with the horse statuette is akin to Logan trying to hit Maggie with the same object. However, a question arises as well. Did Logan and Abbott carry out a supernatural cover-up after Logan attacked Maggie? If yes, then what does that have to do with the poisoned water, the sludge, and the walking corpses? And why is all of it unfolding now?
Why Did Abbott Cover For Logan?
Logan admits that he attacked Maggie after Nancy and Ace swapped his regular water with the poisoned water. However, it was Abbott who changed the photos in Maggie’s medical records. Meanwhile, Abbott, in his hospital bed, denies answering George and Nick about how he covered up the case. George and Nancy then visit Maggie and tell her the truth. She didn’t hit the curb. It was Logan who attacked her, and then somehow, she was made to forget the incident. But how? How can three people forget about an incident in which they were involved? And how is the water bringing back memories? Nancy returns the supernatural pump to Tristan and takes her locket back. Tristan has already started to like her, and maybe Nancy is reciprocating too, even though she doesn’t know it yet. She then apologizes to Ace and tells him about the curse. Nancy Drew Episode 2 ends with George realizing that there’s something in the water. What water? Well, the water that everyone in Horseshoe Bay is drinking.
Abbott mentioned how things would fall apart if George tried to delve deeper into the case. What did he mean by that? As of now, we have only questions and no answers. We know that the sludge is in the water, so we can expect that many people around here will soon turn aggressive. And there’s nothing that Nancy and her friends can do about it other than look for a massive supernatural pump. Or is there any other way?
