Nancy Drew: All 4 seasons ranked from worst to best

1. Nancy Drew season 1

It should come as no surprise that season 1 is at the top of this ranking. Not only does it reintroduce and re-imagine who Nancy is for a new audience, the season does the same for all the beloved book characters in the series. This is not your great grandmother’s Nancy Drew, and it’s not trying to be, but it does its best to honor the core of who the titular character is while pulling her into the 21st century.

We meet Nancy in the aftermath of her mother’s death. She’s a waitress at The Claw, not a sleuth prone to digging into the mysteries of Horseshoe Bay. In her mind, those days are behind her but, of course, when Tiffany Hudson is murdered in the restaurant’s parking lot after Nancy hands her her food, that’s not something her investigative spirit can let lie.

The pragmatic, analytical, and logical Nancy Drew has her world turned on its head when she must contend with the supernatural happenings surrounding Tiffany’s death, particularly Dead Lucy who helps her solve the mystery of this twisting case. Throughout the season, Nancy learns that she can’t go it alone. Nick (her boyfriend at the time), George, Ace, and Bess have all been thrown in this with her, and she’ll need their help to get to the bottom of what happened.

Season 1 took us on a journey with Nancy as it slowly became evident that Lucy Sable’s connection to her was biological, and that her life as she knew it wasn’t entirely true. This was expanded on in season 2, but identity was a big part of this freshman season as well.

Nancy stepped back into a role she had abandoned as a sleuth and had to face her grief over her mother’s passing which was affecting her ability to let people in. George sought better for herself after recognizing her relationship with Ryan Hudson brought her nothing but shame. Bess yearned for family and found that in her friends, but still wanted to connect with the Marvins. Ace’s life was peeled back layer by layer like an onion revealing he’s more than a dishwasher with a surfer vibe, and Nick was able to begin processing the time he spent in juvie and how it’s not a reflection of who he is as a person.

The biggest drawback of the season is George and Ryan’s relationship especially given the reveal that he is Nancy’s biological father, and the writers intended on keeping him around. While Ryan does grow to be an integral and lovable member of the family cultivated on Nancy Drew, it can’t be forgotten that we met him as a philandering, man-child who was engaged in a relationship with a teenage George which damaged her self-esteem, sense of self, and self-worth.

While this was addressed in the series, and George did have a scene where she got to tell Ryan he was wrong for getting into a relationship with her and got to explain how his treatment of her ultimately affected her, it’s still a part of the show I, and other fans, struggled with.

Still, even given this, the first season of Nancy Drew outpaces its subsequent seasons in storytelling, plot, characterization, and the mystery at the heart of its connecting arcs and narratives.

Highlights of season 1

• Nick and Nancy’s relationship. The pair’s romance was heartfelt just ill-timed considering Nancy’s grief. But it did set the ground for a friendship that would become important to them both as they figured out how to remain in each other’s lives despite breaking up.
• The birth of the Drew Crew. Nancy was a go it alone type of investigator, but the Tiffany Hudson case and Dead Lucy made that impossible as she had to rely on her budding friendships to help solve the mystery.
• Dead Lucy. I loved seeing her assist Nancy on the case, and finding out that this was a mother-daughter team up the whole time was a gut punch and added even more depth to their scenes.

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