This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the series being covered here wouldn’t exist.When Hulu’s The Hardy Boys premiered back in 2020, the serialized young-adult mystery series had a very distinct tone. While updating the landmark book series’ 1920s setting for the more recently-nostalgic 1980s, the show followed Frank (Rohan Campbell) and Joe Hardy (Alexander Elliot) as they moved to the small town of Bridgeport following their mother’s (Janet Porter) death. There they found a new group of friends, started to rebuild their lives with their aunt Trudy (Bea Santos), and became embroiled in the mysteries surrounding their maternal grandmother Gloria Estabrook (Linda Thorson). Now as the series comes to a close with the third and final season, it stands to reason that the stakes would be higher than ever, especially given the events of the Season 2 finale. But does The Hardy Boys manage to wrap everything up neatly before taking its final bow?

At the end of Season 2, Frank suffered a literal out-of-body experience when his great-grandfather George Estabrook (Philip Craig) took over Frank’s body through the use of an artifact called The Eye while pushing Frank’s spirit to reside within the in-between dimension in his place. Season 3 picks up shortly after these events, with Frank’s now-ex Callie (Keana Lyn Bastidas) off to a summer program at the prestigious Rosegrave Academy. There she meets her new roommate, Drew Darrow (Bailee Madison), who soon proves to be far more than just the scholarship student she claims to be. Back home Joe, with the help of Biff (Riley O’Donnell), Phil (Cristian Perri), Belinda (Krista Nazaire), and Chet (Adam Swain) are stuck trying to figure out why Frank doesn’t seem quite right these days, while Frank and Joe’s father Fenton (Anthony Lemke) is left reeling after the sudden reappearance of his deceased wife.

Unlike other teen-focused mysteries of this sort, where each season brings with it a new mystery to solve, growing exponentially in scale, The Hardy Boys was unique in that the central mystery from Season 1 — namely the Circle of the Eye and the threat they present — is still the central mystery of Season 3. What heightens things for the final go-around is Madison, whose Drew shakes up the familiar dynamics of the Hardy Boys and friends without resorting to tired stereotypes.

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Bailee Madison Brings Something New to ‘The Hardy Boys’ Season 3
Image via Hulu

Where the first two seasons progressed at a slow-burn pace very appropriate for a small-town mystery — supernatural elements notwithstanding — Season 3 moves at a remarkably quicker pace, a lot of this due to the new elements introduced by Drew. On the one hand, this is refreshing for a mystery series that doesn’t ask the audience to assume that the characters lack basic perception. On the other hand, sometimes the series moves too fast, resulting in the plot pushing past the familiar Circle elements that occupied so much of the first two seasons in favor of a story that is related but feels very detached considering how late in the game it arrives. If The Hardy Boys had been the type of series to change the mystery entirely from season to season, it would have felt much less jarring and instead would have allowed viewers to reflect on how relevant the central mystery is to the present-day, more so than seasons past.

The series has always skewed supernatural/sci-fi lite, but that too becomes a much greater part of the overall narrative in Season 3. That was definitely to be expected when Season 2 literally ends with a man’s spirit taking over the body of his great-grandson. But as the mystery grows deeper in the final season, and thus requires more time devoted to its set-up and explanation, we wind up missing out on a lot of time with the ensemble cast, and this is particularly felt with the character of Drew.

Madison is a fantastic addition to the season, and her years of experience with genre projects like this really jump out in the way she commands the screen whenever she’s on. However, what winds up happening when she takes such a central role is that everything else falls to the wayside. I am all for a third-act twist — in the macro, series-long sense — but if we are to believe that Drew’s arrival is somehow this inextricably connected to the mystery of the Circle and the Eye, it begs the question of why this is the first time we are hearing any of this. Suspense builds better when the audience has information the characters don’t possess and can follow along on their efforts to catch up with what we know already. Skip that, and you’re left with a central tension that feels out of step with the rest of the story.

‘The Hardy Boys’ Season 3’s Nostalgia Beats Are Its Best Aspect
Image via Hulu

One of the true highlights of the series is, and has always been, the times where the whole cast is together solving mysteries the old-fashioned way. The show is soaked in nostalgia for those of us who grew up in the analog days before every bit of information was available in our pockets at a moment’s notice. Even if we weren’t reading The Hardy Boys specifically, solving mysteries and finding clues were such a part of the ’80s and ’90s childhood experience that it was a treat to see it come to life on screen. These are rendered in examples like trying to lift fingerprints using a piece of tape, or decoding a secret series of clicks on a phone line with pencils and paper and good old-fashioned logic. These were the beats that made earlier seasons so fun — timeless, even.

These same beats are some of the final season’s strongest, not just for the nostalgia, but for the way the cast brings it all to life by sheer virtue of their chemistry. It is crystal clear that for all the stumbles in the plot, the core cast is having the time of their lives. It’s enough to make you long for a mystery-of-the-week-style Hardy Boys series where they are simply allowed to solve grounded, local mysteries in the vein of the original novels, rather than getting swallowed up by a supernatural-esque story.

Despite a more complex mystery for the final outing, the moments that truly shine are the scenes with the charming ensemble cast. As far as finales go, The Hardy Boys Season 3 delivers a conclusive, satisfying ending for the Bridgeport crew sure to please the fans of the series, with some surprisingly relevant commentary about the state of the modern world.

Rating: B

The Hardy Boys Season 3 begins streaming on Hulu on July 26.