S02.E14: The Siege of the Unseen Specter

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Quote

Nancy's birthday dinner with Carson is cut short when Detective Tamura shows up with a warrant to arrest her for contempt of court; George, Bess and Ace work together to summon up one of their ancestors.

Promo:

Original air date: 5/5/21

[kissedbyarose]

This was a great episode especially after last week (which took me two days to finish).

Edited May 6, 2021 by kissedbyarose

[waving feather]

This one is better than last week, but I guessed roughly how the main plot would conclude halfway through it. It's heavy stuff. I wish Nancy would stop yelling at people. That seems to be her default these days, and it hurts my ears. I enjoyed the sub-plot of George/Ace/Bess, even though it was mainly silliness. George and Ace are my favorites individually, so it's great to see them interact more with each other. This show has conditioned me to the point that I find supernatural mysteries more entertaining than the normal ones.

The Everett Hudson saga is also getting tiresome now. Once the mystery of Lucy's death was solved, I have no interest in them or Nancy taking them down, Hope they wrap that up soon.

Edited May 6, 2021 by waving feather

[Jenniferbug]

I was not expecting to get that emotional during an episode of Nancy Drew, but here we are. 

That was a really good episode, and I appreciate that they're not afraid to have discussions about hard topics. Tunji was amazing. 

I thought the Arbiter set up was a fun gimmick. I kind of wish they hadn't revealed who it was so they could reuse it again at some point. 

I want Nancy to get therapy for her identity issues, but I can see how that would be hard because acknowledging her birth parents puts her in danger if Everett found out. 

I like that Ace is aware of the urgency of George's situation. We don't see them together as much, but he was one of the first to approach her about her death experience, so I like that they continue to have this connection.

A very good episode, but also one that was very hard to watch.  

[Lady Calypso]

This episode was a very strong episode. I really loved it because it was both emotional and funny (with the possessed Ace stuff), all centered around Nancy's fake birthday, no less. 

Having the episode diverge from a typical ghost/supernatural mystery to something more rooted in realism was good, and I think they did a really great job with it. And they still had the supernatural stuff on the side with Ace. 

Tunji did an amazing job this episode. He really shone as he helped figure out what happened to Dolores and him having to keep his anger in check about it. They allowed him to be more subtle about it, which is more realistic, but you could still see the pain and disgust in his face. I also love Nancy taking over as Arbiter halfway through the episode. 

I realized that Nancy was sending a message to Carson because her words were SO harsh that I figured she'd be trying to tip him off somehow. And thank goodness Carson figured it out.

I am glad this has led back to Nancy deciding to change her mind and go after Everett again. 

So, George is officially on borrowed time. I figured there would need to be a way for George and Odette to separate by the end of the season, since I don't think any of us wants a George/Odette shared body for the rest of the series, especially if it makes things awkward with Bess and Nick, so this is a good way to handle it. But I hate that George, once again, asked someone to keep this big secret. 

[ElectricBoogaloo]

This was definitely a huge improvement over last week's episode. Between Nick's barely disguised disgust and Ace channeling Aunt Mei, there was a lot of great stuff for the actors to work with. There were also some fun small moments like when Nancy told Tamura that Nick was a car guy and Tamura snarked about how he's an actual detective.

Whenever I see a show where one character is being held hostage and manages to communicate that to someone without letting the kidnapper know, I'm always simultaneously impressed and worried that I haven't come up with some secret code word for that kind of situation. I kind of loved that Nancy took over for the Arbiter because she was so fired up about finding out what really happened to Dolores.

And Nancy was named after Abraham Lincoln's mother!

[thuganomics85]

Definitely an improvement over last week's episode.  While I'm sure there are some logical stretches over how the Arbiter was able to pull everything off and I did at least suspect early on that it was former cop/councilman since he was played by "Hey, it's that Canadian Guy!" David Cubitt (although, I didn't predict Officer Hampton was also involved with the cover-up), I thought it was a fun little "Whodunnit?" story, and I liked how it all played out and how all of the suspects did have some form of involvement in the eventual outcome.  I also liked that they did address Ryan's history and how that will always be something that will stick him and he'll need to work on redeeming for.  Oh, and I have to imagine the asshole journalist was the same one who wrote last week's headline, and that explains so much!

All the actors did good, but Tunji Kasim really did some great work here.  He avoided going too broad with it, but you could really see Nick's disgust and simmering anger over the injustice and excuses that were made over Dolores case tanking like it did, and how it was just another case of a black woman's death/disappearance being pushed to the side.  It is a story that is all too familiar now and Tunji was really able to show that through Nick's responses and even reactions to everything.

Heh, of course Nancy and Carson would have some kind of secret code, so he would figure out what was going on, sort of.  And would quickly spring into action to get George and Bess, and be willing to do anything to save her, like use floor mats to grab an electric door handle or even be prepared to scale some walls!  Best dad ever!

While I can understand Nancy not turning in the Arbiter after she found out her identity, I would have to imagine she would have sung a different tune if Tamura didn't survive that zap....

The stuff with George, Bess, and Ace being possessed by George's Aunt Mei was fun too, but it certainly had a dour ending for George!  Unless they find a way to get Odette out of her soon, her lifespan will shrink by a lot?  It seems like George has the worst luck when it comes to all of the supernatural stuff. 

[tennisgurl]

I love that Nancy and Carson have a whole secret code just in case of hostage situations, that totally sounds like something they would come up with. I am glad that Carson picked up on Nancy's harshness right away and sprung into action, and it led to us getting more interaction between Carson, Bess, and George which I was happy about. Nancy's not actual birthday was really bittersweet, I do hope that she can figure out these identity issues. This was much improved from last week, we are luckily back on track again it looks like, I enjoyed mixing the more topical social issue with the usual horror tropes, in this case doing a bit of a much tamer Saw take off. It probably helped that there was no creepy Gil for Nancy to be inexplicably attracted to, he's presumably offscreen somewhere stalking his sister and being jealous of her boyfriend. Ick. 

I was a bit taken out of things with the reverend though. It looked like she was in confessional in a Catholic church, but is clearly a reverend of a protestant denomination, who don't normally do confessions in that kind of way, so what gives? If they wanted to have Nancy confront her in a dramatic Catholic confessional, why not just make it a priest?  

Opening up the cold case for Nancy to solve was a nice change up, and I like that the show is finding a balance between it being supernatural threats or regular human ones, so this week its not ghosts causing trouble but institutional failings towards people of color, and I thought they handled the topic pretty well, not a lot of awkward rambling speeches with statistics that can sound forced and instead focusing more on the tragedy of this one person who was so badly failed by the system. I guessed that the cops were hiding something pretty quickly and even the basic series of events, that the asshole journalist didn't accept her not being into him, the Karen lady called the cops, then something happened and she was killed in custody, but it was still a good and compelling mystery where Nancy, with assistance from Nick and Ryan, solved a crime using evidence and deduction the old fashioned way, without Ouija Boards or anything. I also liked the reminder of Ryan's rather checkered past, he has really done a lot of work on himself lately but you cant ignore all of the mistakes that he has made. He had a really nice moment with Nancy near the end where he said how proud he was of her, and I really liked the little moment where Nick was getting really upset and he gave him a supportive shoulder squeeze. I have really come to like Ryan and Nick as an odd couple, certainly wouldn't have expected that last season. This was also a really good Nick episode, he did a lot of good crime solving and his quiet anger over what the cops did was really well done. 

We did get more supernatural hijinks in the other plot though, Ace channeling George's sassy aunt was hilarious, even though it had a real downer of an ending for George. Poor George, she just has the worst luck when it comes to supernatural things, and no one on this show has the best luck with that in general. I figured that having a ghost inside of her would end up leading to problems. It was nice seeing her and Ace getting to hang out and bond a bit, but George needs to stop asking people to keep these secrets from everyone, it never ends well. 

 

[quarks]

1. This was definitely Tunji Kasim's episode. Just great work all around, from showing the clear struggles to keep his temper, to that admission that he wasn't ok, to his scene at the end watching Tamura claim that the local cops would try to be less racist.

2. I, too, was kinda confused by the image of a clearly-not-Catholic pastor/priest using a clearly Catholic confessional, but...maybe that's just a very High Church Episcopalian/Anglican church that admits women as priests but also still uses Catholic confessionals? That said, since they were going with that imagery, I agree that they probably should have just had the Arbiter turn out to be a Catholic priest - especially since the presumably French Catholic Odette has ties to that confessional anyway. But oh well.

3. I did like the reveal that the Arbiter appeared as an extra in a previous episode. I feel I really need to be paying more attention to the extras here.

4. And I liked that the show is allowing Ryan to be helpful and supportive (especially with that moment with Nick there) while also not letting viewers forget for one second that he was a slimeball for years there. 

5. Naturally the reporter who named Nancy the Liar of Horseshoe Bay turned out to be a general jerk all around.

6. The "look, between our low budget and Covid, we are just not going to hire another day player/guest star here, so....in this episode, Alex Saxon will be playing an elderly Asian lady and we will lampshade this by saying she's always wanted to know what it would be like to be a tall white man" - hilarious and actually a pretty good way to work around the Covid/budget issues. The reading glasses were just the needed added touch.

7.. So....Nancy is coming after Everett Hudson, hmm? This could be fun.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Although I can see that Ryan is a different person and is trying to be a better person than he used to be, it was nice to get a reminder of what he was like so that we can understand why the rest of the town (who have not been privy to all the things we've seen in his private interactions) might not believe that the local rich kid who was known for getting into trouble but getting away with it thanks to daddy's money has changed.

The way that Carson enthusiastically told George and Bess that plan B was to scale the walls cracked me up. He was bound and determined to rescue Nancy no matter how impossible and out of his skill set the solution might be. One thing I didn't understand is that the Arbiter clearly had visuals on the parking lot and outside the building, which is why she warned Nancy that Carson was approaching the first time and told her to get rid of him. But when Carson returned with George and Bess, the Arbiter didn't care? Didn't notice? Didn't think they were a threat?

I don't mind the supernatural elements of this show but I liked that this case was all about humans and that Nancy solved it the old fashioned way without any magical artifacts, spells, or conveniently informative books with historical information. On a show like this, it can be easy to fall back on the idea that the supernatural beings are the bad guys but in reality, it's often humans causing the problems.

[catrice2]

This could have been a good show. 

[akg]

On 5/7/2021 at 2:27 AM, ElectricBoogaloo said:

One thing I didn't understand is that the Arbiter clearly had visuals on the parking lot and outside the building, which is why she warned Nancy that Carson was approaching the first time and told her to get rid of him. But when Carson returned with George and Bess, the Arbiter didn't care? Didn't notice? Didn't think they were a threat?

I wondered about this too but had Nancy taken over by that point? Sometime in there, after the phone call, it became clear that Nancy was not going to let this mystery go so it would have been fairly safe to let Carson in.

I agree with everyone above on how great Nick was in this episode. 

[akg]

I'm rewatching from the beginning and Nancy finding Rose, the missing girl who captured the town's attention was shown in the very first episode and season 1, episode 9, the Hidden Staircase (they're getting a lot of mileage out of that footage). I'd forgotten who the little girl was so hadn't connected that episode to Delores. I've been really impressed with the continuity of this show.

 

[bettername2come]

Creepy premise. I liked it. Nancy yelling at Carson to stay away was really sad, but I loved how it was code and he knew her well enough to see it. I didn't suspect the reverend, though I had noticed her and generally thought "huh, does she only do scenes at the police station?" but didn't assume she was The Arbiter.

I love that Great Aunt May just wanted to see what it was like to a tall, white man, and George just is like, okay, fair enough. I thought it was weird there was someone else doing the voice when Leah Lewis has been playing Odette. Maybe they recorded Alex Saxon saying "your face is as round as a mooncake" and were like "yeah, that doesn't sound right." George needs to stop keeping secrets from her friends.