S02.E09: The Bargain of the Blood Shroud

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Quote

Nancy and the crew strike a deal with Gil Bobbsey; Carson runs into a distraught Bess.

Promo:

Original air date: 3/24/21

[Shorty186]

Can they just put Nancy and Ace together already? Either that or keep the actors in separate rooms because their chemistry is getting distracting.

Edited March 25, 2021 by Shorty186

[Jenniferbug]

50 minutes ago, Shorty186 said:

Can they just put Nancy and Ace together already? Either that or keep the actors in separate rooms because they have too much chemistry.

Right?! But I'm also ok with them slowly building toward putting them together. If only because it will cut down on the "stupid reason to break up, then get back together, then break up" cycle that shows seem unable to resist. I just want them solidly together when it does happen. 

So Ace is probably a Hardy boy now that we know his sibling is a brother, right? 

I really love this show. It has grown on me so much since the first few episodes to become one of my favorites. 

[Cranberry]

Really expecting Ace to be a Hardy Boy, yeah.

It's interesting that the writers chose to make Odette a lesbian and then put her in the (presumably) straight girl's body. How is this going to pay off? Are we going to get some Bess/Odette shenanigans while she's still in George's body? That brings up some real consent issues. (Also, being a lesbian ghost trapped in a straight girl's body would be pretty uncomfortable, so Odette's meanness makes sense to me. I do hope she grows to care for everyone in the Drew Crew, though.)

I'm not sure I could remain attracted to someone who planned to basically murder my friend and had zero remorse over it, but you do you, Nancy Drew.

Poor Carson is slowly becoming the default father figure for all of these young adults. He was cute with Bess, and I liked that she figured out what he was doing. She can act ditzy sometimes, but she's not stupid.

The promo for next week's episode is... something. It looks like it'll be fun. Someone's certainly excited:

 

[Destiny007]

If Ace is a Hardy Boy, he should be Frank.  Frank and Nancy always had a thing in the crossover books.  Plus, he was always painted as being smarter than Joe (book smart at least).  I was always rooting for those two to end up together in the books.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

If Rosemary Bobbsey is in Santa Fe, why is she shipping her paintings to a gallery in Horseshoe Bay? I assumed she had run away and stayed away to keep the monster she sees away from her kids, so it would make no sense for her to leave clues for them to come find her.

Awww, I love that Carson took the time to distract Bess and get her off the couch.

When Nick and Odette had that conversation next to the bed, I started thinking about how terrible this must be for Odette. I mean, yes, she killed a lot of people as the Aglaeca but she is now trapped in a human body a century later. It reminded me of The Vampire Diaries/The Originals when Klaus would stake one of his siblings for a hundred years because he was being a petulant brat (as usual) and when he unstaked them, the whole world was different. I remember when Rebekah was unstaked and she was complaining about the loud music and the slutty clothes. On top of that, she's trapped in the body of a heterosexual girl so I can't imagine how it must feel for her to be observing George and Nick being intimate. And that's before you factor in missing Mary (whose name we finally know!).

[AnimeMania]

2 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

If Rosemary Bobbsey is in Santa Fe, why is she shipping her paintings to a gallery in Horseshoe Bay? I assumed she had run away and stayed away to keep the monster she sees away from her kids, so it would make no sense for her to leave clues for them to come find her.

It might be that that gallery is the only one that was familiar with her previous works (which were probably all local), so they were probably the only gallery that was interested in her current works.

[thuganomics85]

Enjoyed seeing the Bobbsey twins again, but the show will have its work cut out for them if they wanted to make Nancy and Gil a thing, after he almost doomed George.  I get that his need to find out the truth about his mother was effecting his judgement and I can even see why Nancy would relate to that, but he didn't even seem to be showing any kind of conflict or doubt over using the shroud, even though he knew full well that it would kill George.  Wish this episode handled that aspect better.  At least Ace and Amanda seem more natural and enjoyable, but I do wonder if the show is heading down an eventual Nancy/Ace path in the end.

The George/Odette stuff certainly went in a darker direction, by showing how this little issue isn't all fun and games, with it not only effecting Nick and George as a couple, but showing the toil it takes on Odette, and why she is even considering just ending it all, because this is probably worse in some ways than just simply being dead.  Curious to see how this conflict gets resolved, since I don't see her being stuck in George forever, nor them killing George (hopefully.)  Still wonder if they might find a way for her to inherit another body and stick around for a bit.

Bess certainly didn't take getting dumped by the Marvins well, but since it was only about a day, I'm fine with her having a bit of a pity-party.  Plus, it led to her scenes with Carson, which I never knew I wanted.  I feel like Carson is going to end up adopting the entire Drew Crew when this is all said and done!

Looks like Ace's brother is finally going to come into play.  The theory about him (and Ace) being the Hardy boys is intriguing.

Edited March 26, 2021 by thuganomics85

[catrice2]

So now Nick/Ned loves George so much he is willing to die for her?.....OK...

[quarks]

1. Uh, CW and CBS? I realize that the only reason you are releasing this show in the U.S. at all is so that you can market it to international interests as an American broadcast show. With that said, there is no need to advertise this show to me -- poorly, at that -- while I am watching it through the CW app. Advertise your other shows. Like, Supergirl is coming back soon, right?  Or, since this is a CBS Studios production, not a WB production, tell me about Charmed. 

2. Irritated note: Legal blindness covers a wide range of vision impairments. It's perfectly possible for someone to be legally blind and still be able to paint. The nurse probably should have known this. Nancy, with her font of useful facts, certainly should have known this. 

3. So, what I got from this is that Rosemary Bobbsey is still alive - but the ghost thing she said was following her is also alive (well, in the ghost sense of being alive) since someone made that lightbulb spark. What I don't get is why the ghost thing would want Nancy to find the truth - or even care? Did it just spark because it's now a lonely ghost thing and was grateful that someone knocked down the wall hiding the paintings it was haunting?

4. Speaking of lightbulbs, what is it with all of these people putting washers and dryers in their basements (as in this house) and yet apparently not bothering to put any lightbulbs near the washers and dryers - while simultaneously going to the effort of putting lightbulbs near other basement areas? Look, it helps to have light when you're folding the laundry, is all I'm saying.

5. I know the answer to this is "plot contrivance" and "pacing," but it's still....something when an art gallery director can immediately identify an artist from a cell phone picture several feet away from him.

6. Carson is just going to end up being everyone's dad, right? And maker of properly buttered grilled cheese sandwiches. 

7. Those properly buttered grilled cheese sandwiches may have made me love the Carson/Bess scenes despite the extremely clumsy callback to them later in the episode, apparently to justify their inclusion in this episode which....you don't need to do that.

8. Oh, and I see I was wrong to identify Shannon Kook as the thief at the end of last episode - though I remain convinced that he's going to be involved in some plot. But speaking of that theft --

9. If the plan was to make Gil Bobbsey so irritating that I would cheer on Nancy/Nick, Nancy/Ace, Nancy/Bess, Nancy/George or even Nancy/annoying cop as an alternative, consider it achieved, show. I mean in one episode, dude:

a. didn't just rob a place, but trashed it - damaging stuff that presumably belonged to the line cooks and Shannon Kook, none of whom ever did anything to him, like, dude, what is wrong with you?

b. stored valuable stuff in a public cemetery, like, again, dude, what is wrong with you?

c. for all his fixation about his mother and her murder/disappearance, completely failed to realize that his mother wasn't even dead, something it took the Drew Crew just a few hours to figure out.

d. scrolled through his adult sister's texts, like, how many times do I have to ask this, what is wrong with you?

e. was willing to let George die just on the slim hope that the coma dude would even be able to tell him anything about his mother's murder, like, coma dude has been in a coma making amnesia not at all unlikely, like, dude, this was not a good plan.

f. let the car of the perfectly innocent nurse roll down a hill, risking major damage to the car and/or to something else, like, Gil, what if another car had been heading up the hill at that point? Or a cyclist? 

g. let the Drew Crew know what he was planning, so they could arrange to get coma guy's body removed before he could use the shroud, like, Gil, even short term planning is not one of your strong points.

h. stole a banana cream pie.

(he also damaged coma guy's basement, but I'll let this one go since everyone on this show has damaged someone else's basement at this point.)

I'm with Ace on this one - Gil Bobbsey is not trustworthy. But more to the point, he's also not intelligent enough for her, and, most importantly, this is not a nice guy. I could handwave that, a bit, since Nancy is not in the best of places right now - but she knows the difference. She was just with a genuinely good guy, Nick, not all that long ago, and an ok guy, Owen, also not all that long ago. 

If the show wants to play with the enemies turned friends turned lovers trope - well, they have the annoying cop. Granted, I'm not a fan of the cop or any potential relationship there, but to give the cop full credit, he has yet to say, sure, I'll let this person die if it will help me solve a murder case I'm obsessed with. The bar could barely be lower, granted, but the annoying cop is over it. Gil Bobbsey, not at all.

It's possible that this is the show wanting to let Nancy explore her attraction to bad guys - since Nick turned out not to be one and Owen was killed off - but if so, I can't help but think this is a bit of overkill.

10. Odette, lots of us can't tell the difference between limestone and granite. Don't be so judgy.

[tennisgurl]

Ace as a Hardy Boy is sounding more and more plausible, especially now that we know his sibling is a brother. Fun seeing the Bobbsey Twins again, even if its for love interest purposes for the most part. I like Ace/Amanda alright, but Ace and Nancy really do have such great chemistry which is really hard to ignore. They always spark together, certainly more than Nancy/Gil who have that cliché "roguish bad boy meets straight laced smart girl" thing that TV loves so much. Even then I still liked this episode, interesting that they went more in the direction of Rosemary Bobbsey being mentally ill and not actually haunted. As George said, its not always ghosts. Granted, it could still turn out to be ghosts, but the mystery itself worked alright even if it did make Gil look like a pretty shit investigator. For a so called "master thief" he couldn't even figure out that his mom was alive while the Drew Crew figured it out in about a day or find the secret painting room. He had this narrative and it took the truth being waved in his face to get him to finally get a clue. It does really suck that their mom is alive but never said anything and let her kids think she was dead, that's messed up even if she is mentally ill. She can send her paintings to Maine but she cant send her kids a letter saying that she's alive?

I am not a huge fan of Gil, even though I think the actor is doing just fine. I get that he wants to know what happened to his mom, but he was totally willing to let George die to get answers and that should be hard for Nancy to just let go. Plus, him reading his sisters texts is super creepy. She's a grown ass woman, mind your business. He still has potential, but I hope they do a lot with him to make him more likable if they want him as a love interest. 

Bess is not taking being exiled from the Marvin's well (she was even taken off the group chat) but at least she has Carson around to cheer her up, who is becoming everyone's dad. That was all really sweet, its nice to see Bess thriving even with these circumstances, and Carson being so supportive of her and trying to help her. I don't think we have had scenes with just Bess and Carson, and now I want a lot more. 

The situation with Odette being stuck inside of George really sucks for everyone, hopefully they can find a way to get her out soon and she can be reunited with Mary. As much as it was awful that Odette almost murder/suicided her and George, I can understand her frustrations. 

[akg]

I hope we find out Rosemary had a second set of twins after moving to Santa Fe. It feels wrong to not have Freddie and Flossie. 

Did Gil say what happened to their dad? I remember Gil saying something about dad being in jail when their mom was "killed" but I thought that was a brief stay.

I love Carson as the Crew's dad. Other than Ace, they could all use one.

[Lady Calypso]

So, yeah, I guess they're trying something with Ace, Nancy and the Twins but I do think this is the first episode they really set up Ace/Nancy as an actual possibility. I will say that the actors displayed chemistry in one of the last scenes of the episode, and I would not be opposed for them going there.

The biggest issue with Gil is allowing an innocent person to die just for one conversation. He was literally fine with George dying just for a two minute conversation AND also cursing the guy for an inevitable death. That doesn't bode well for any kind of setup with Nancy. He doesn't seem like a good guy and I was hoping for some real potential in him, but he's not doing it for me. I do like his sister, though. Amanda can stay because I do think she genuinely means well, so I hope they don't make her just as shady as her brother.

It was good to see Odette's side to being stuck in someone else's body as a passenger. I like how they explored how she wasn't fond of the idea either and that it's a struggle for all of them involved, not just George. It does solidify Odette as her own character, even within George's body, and it shows like she's not just some evil spirit who thrives off of being in a human body to be alive. 

Plus, George/Nick is still one of my favourite couples on TV right now. I can handwave the quick succession of their relationship (I can't forget they really just got together less than two months ago in the show's timeline) just because the couple works for me. 

Bess needs to really find her place in the Drew Crew again. It was nice to see her and Carson share some scenes, especially as she's struggling with being disowned, and Carson's role was perfectly done for this episode, but poor girl is still on the outskirts of the main action.