So much of this Nancy’s story has been about the things she’s lost – her mother, the future she planned on, the bedrock of her relationship with her dad, even the sort of boyfriend she begins the series with – that there’s something poetic in the idea that she has to discover her true self before she can move forward and embrace the person she’s meant to become. That Nancy ultimately has to turn her gaze inward, and solve the mystery of her own identity, somehow feels like a necessary step forward for this character. Part of the reason this all works is the absolutely terrific performance from lead actress Kennedy McMann.Playing Nancy as whip smart, vulnerable, and utterly dedicated to the truth, McMann fully inhabits the girl detective from her very first scene. But within the world of this show, with its secrets and ghostly mysteries, the truth of Nancy’s parentage just feels like another layer of tragedy in a town that attracts more than its fair share. That the true identity of Nancy herself turns out to be one of the central mysteries of the season is the sort of story, on paper, that might make the casual viewer snort in disbelief. It takes a certain amount of guts to make a show called Nancy Drew and decide to make the big twist of its first season the revelation that our lead heroine isn’t actually Nancy Drew at all. And that’s before we even get into the fact that everything she’s ever known about her life turns out to be a lie. She’s often driven by her own emotions and biases and makes reckless choices in the heat of the moment. For starters, she’s frequently wrong – and the show isn’t afraid to show her getting things incorrect or making false assumptions in her investigations. Nancy’s not a perfect detective either, for all of her obvious skills. Her life has collapsed in the wake of her mother’s death, leading her to skip applying for college in favor of a dead-end waitressing job at local eatery The Claw, lose all her friends, and distance herself from her well-meaning but extremely messy father. This is a Nancy with trust issues and an abrasive personality she’s stubborn, condescending and emotionally closed off from almost everyone around her.
She’s brilliant, brave, and dedicated to finding the truth – even when that truth really hurts.īut she’s hardly anyone’s role model. Nevertheless, this show is the best on-screen adaptation of the famous girl detective to date, giving us a Nancy Drew that’s entertaining and deeply relatable in a way that makes sense for a modern audience. Ugh.) The CW version of her adventures doesn’t pretend that it’s got a lot in common with the original novels beyond a smart, plucky heroine and a whole lot of self-referential Easter eggs.
(Let’s just not talk about that recent comic where she gets murdered in honor of her 90 th anniversary. Nancy Drew was conceptualized as a female counterpart to The Hardy Boys, and she’s been solving mysteries in a variety of formats since the 1930s.
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Because Nancy Drew is a breath of fresh air-a series that combines the normally staid tropes of a teen drama, a procedural mystery, and a horror movie to create both a show and a heroine that feels entirely new. And if you slept on this gem of a mystery series while it was airing? Joke’s on you, folks. While Nancy Drew may share a common aesthetic with many of these other similarly-themed shows, it’s busy blazing its own new path.Ī gutsy take on a beloved classic heroine, Nancy Drew is a show that knows exactly what it wants to be, and trusts its audience to come along for the ride, no matter how weird, creepy or downright terrifying it gets. So, in a world that’s crowded with Riverdale rip-offs, do we really need another gritty young adult drama centered in a small town with an absurdly high murder rate and an over-saturated color palette? Yes, if that show is Nancy Drew, the CW’s smart, sparkling small screen adaptation of the famous Carolyn Keene novels. Negligent parents, murder, drugs, and even cults abound, as our youthful heroes try to navigate their early adulthood in a time and place that’s marked by darkness of increasingly bizarre varieties. From cynical high school narratives ( Riverdale) and vengeful cheerleader stories ( Dare Me) to tales of witches ( Chilling Adventures of Sabrina) and post-apocalyptic dystopias ( Daybreak), virtually every network is pushing shows with similar themes and tropes.
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Our current television landscape is full to bursting with moody young adult dramas. This Nancy Drew article contains some spoilers for Season 1.
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