Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Hardy Boys’ Season 3 on Hulu, Which Promises To Reveal All of Their Family Secrets

The Hardy Boys books and the original 1970s TV series, were episodic mysteries, each one tidily resolved by the titular brothers, Frank and Joe. In Hulu‘s The Hardy Boys however, there has been just one mystery at the heart of the series, and the brothers’ family has been at the center of it. Now in its third and final season, the show has gone from dramatic teen mystery to something much more supernatural, filled with conspiracy theories and even bringing central characters back from the dead. If you’ve invested time into the first two seasons, this season is finally going to start answering some big questions.

THE HARDY BOYS (SEASON 3): STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A woman is tied to a chair, her mouth duct-taped shut, in a warehouse. A cloaked figure enters the warehouse, and Fenton Hardy pulls a gun on whoever is beneath the cloak. “Don’t move,” he says. “Turn around.”

“Which is it, don’t move or turn around?” the cloaked figure asks. And when they turn, we see that the person beneath the cloak is Laura Hardy, mother to our title characters and wife of Fenton, She is alive and well, and not dead as previously thought. She knocks Fenton out with the butt of a gun.

The Gist: The new season of The Hardy Boys picks up almost immediately where the last left off: Frank Hardy (Rohan Campbell), the elder of the Hardy brothers, has become a vessel for his great-grandfather’s consciousness. He’s got the shell of Frank on the outside, but his mind has been taken over by his mother’s grandfather, George Estabrook, who is one of the three men who discovered the mysterious “Eye,” the idol everyone on the show covets and holds grat powers. The trouble is that no one, not even his little brother, Joe Hardy (Alexander Elliot), knows about the mind-swap. As the boys and the rest of the town of Bridgeport come together for the funeral of their grandmother Gloria Estabrook, who died in the final moments of the last season, Joe is aware that Frank is a little off, but he doesn’t press his brother on why he’s acting weird. At the end of last season, Frank broke up with his girlfriend Callie (Keanan Lyn Bastidas) after having his identity wiped, which prompts Callie to set out on her own. At Gloria’s funeral, she tells Joe that she plans to spend the summer at Rosegrave, the prep school she has always hoped to attend.

Stranger still, the boys watch a video of Gloria’s last will and testament, and she has left all of her estate to Frank (knowing that one day, George would take over Frank’s body) – as well as a clue to where to find the missing codexes that form a map that George had created that would ultimately lead him to idols that would bring him all-consuming power. The boys ultimately get their hands on three of the codexes, and the break into the local museum where the fourth one is hidden. Joe secretly finds it, unbeknownst to Frank.

As all of this plays out in town, Callie meets a new classmate at Rosegrave, Drew, played by Bailee Madison. Drew is plucky and smart and also has been assigned to be Callie’s roommate, but she’s also very aware that something strange is afoot in town and on campus.

Meanwhile, Frank (a.k.a. George) has plotted to meet with Stacy Nabakov and Kanika Khan under the guise of showing them the codexes, though he’s really plotting to kill them. Before that double cross can happen, the cloaked figure, Laura Hardy, detonates an explosive that shakes the room they’re in. Frank narrowly escapes, and at the same time, his father Fenton is getting downloaded on how his wife’s death was an elaborate hoax.

With Laura having been alive this whole time and Frank’s body being inhabited by an evil mastermind who runs a secret society, the stakes have just gotten so much higher for the Hardy boys.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? While the overall vibe of The Hardy Boys has the trappings of dark, teen murder mysteries like Riverdale or Cruel Summer, this season’s supernatural body-swap component feels a lot like Altered Carbon or the Buffy The Vampire Slayer episode “Who Are You?” where Buffy and Faith swap consciousness’.

Parting Shot: Joe, having caught on to the fact that Frank has been acting weird, finally understands that someone has taken control of Frank’s body. “I want to know who I’m talking to? Who did Munder upload from the crystal, because it’s not my brother,” Joe says.

“I didn’t want to have to do this. You left me no choice,” Frank tells Joe, and he points a gun at him and the screen goes black.

Our Take: It has already been announced that the third season of The Hardy Boys will be its last, and this season aspires to finally resolve all of the mysteries that have been swirling around the Hardy family since season one. Last season, the series started to lean into the supernatural, what with the mysteries of The Eye being discovered, and the fact that it led to Frank’s body being taken over, and this season leans even harder into the sci-fi of it all. (Kudos to Rowan Campbell for pulling off that tricky feat of playing another character while trying to hide the fact that he’s playing another character.)

With Laura back and Joe catching on to the fact that something is wrong with his brother, the show is simultaneously answering old questions while posing new mysteries all in one breath. The show, with its secret societies, untrustworthy associates, and numerous double crosses was complex enough to begin with. Now that we’re adding in even more complications and explanations, the show has a big job ahead. The show is going to have to move at a swift clip to answer for everything but it’s already gotten the ball rolling just one episode in.

Sex and Skin: None.

Sleeper Star: Bailee Madison, who joined the cast this season as Drew Darrow, Callie’s roommate at Rosegrave, cut her teeth on the teen mystery genre thanks to her role in Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin. You can already tell from her introduction to the show that she’s not just here to add color, she’s about to become an interesting addition to the mystery-solving gang.

Most Pilot-y Line: “So George Estabrook drew a map. Too bad he’s not here to decipher it,” Joe Hardy says when he pieces together that three existing scrolls that he’s been looking for. What Joe doesn’t realize is that George Estabrook is there, right next to him, taking over the corporeal form of his brother.

Our Call: Fans of the first two seasons better buckle in, it’s going to be an exciting ride and you’re going to want to STREAM IT so you can finally get some answers. If you’re new to the show, go back and start from the beginning so you can make some sense of it all.

Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.