I have been recapping the old The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries episodes from 1977 to 1979 and this week I am skipping ahead a bit to a Christmas one from season two entitled just “Will The Real Santa…?”

Yes, there are just dots there.

This is the second to last episode Pamela Sue Martin was in as Nancy before leaving the show due to the writers making her role smaller and smaller each episode. Her last episode was one I will write about later and creeped me out a bit —The Lady on Thursday at Ten.

After The Lady on Thursday at Ten, the show featured actress Janet Louis Stevenson as Nancy Drew for four  more episodes. Then after Season 2 episode 21, Joe and Frank Hardy dominated all the episodes. In the next season, which was the shows’ last, it would even be rebranded as The Hardy Boys. It was canceled ten episodes into the season and replaced with The Osmond Family Hour.

This episode starts with a man with a white beard running to catch a train. He is pulled up into one of the cars with the help of another person and then we see two men running out of the darkness, guns pulled.

“This train will stop in River Heights,” the one man says. “We’ll get him there.”

The man with the white beard rides away in the train car and then we switch to Nancy decorating a tree with some woman. Her father, Carson Drew, is sitting on the couch.

Carson and Nancy call the woman George, but this is not the actress who played George before. The previous George had dark hair. This George is a blond.

The tree is huge and so 70s too, by the way. I don’t know how else to explain what I mean by it being “70s”. It just has a lot of red bulbs and popcorn strands on it and — it’s just has a 70s/80s look.

So, Nancy is up on a ladder that is perfectly capable of standing on its own because it is freestanding, but she asks George to hold it anyhow. Nancy is trying to place the tree topper on the top of the tree, when Carson asks George a question and she lets go of the ladder to show him an article in the newspaper. This happens about the same moment when the front door slowly opens, and we see a young man wearing a dark suit and with dark hair peering in.

His knock and him calling out “Mr. Drew?” wasn’t loud enough for them to hear him so he just walks in. It’s a good thing he does too, because at the same time he peeks in, Nancy starts flailing around like the ladder has been pulled out from under her (it hasn’t), yells “George!” and starts to fall.  

In rushes our hero to catch Nancy before she falls and say the words, “I never had a girl fall that hard for me. Not at our first meeting anyhow.”

Har. Har. Cue my gag reflex.

Carson introduces the young man as Ned Nickerson. Color me confused.

The problem with this is that there was a Ned Nickerson in the first season and this is not him.

Ned was his dad’s legal assistant and close friends with Nancy but clearly in love with her. He was in several episodes in the first season and disappeared by season two.

Now we are supposed to pretend that whole season never happened and this is the real Ned Nickerson — some dude who works for the Boston DA.

This new Ned is played by Rick Springfield (…I kid you not! ) and I guess the first Ned never existed. So, it was like they were trying to reboot Ned’s origin story like Marvel keeps rebooting Spiderman’s origin story and DC keeps rebooting Superman’s origin story. Sadly, poor Rick never got to flush out his role as Ned because Pamela Sue Martin left the show after the next episode and Ned’s character was written out of the show.

Also…. I guess Ned was more interested in Nancy than Jesse’s Girl at this point.  *Cymbal shot* Yes that was a bad joke.

[If you, like me, do not know a ton about Rick Springfield — he is a popstar from the 70s and 80s and has also acted. He also has either taken a youth elixir or had a lot of work done because at 76 he looks like he is 56.]

Okay, moving forward . . .

So, George is clearly enamored with Ned and is very excited when Carson introduces them. Then Carson says, “And I guess you’ve already met Nancy.”

Laughter all around and then Ned starts to mansplain to Nancy how to put a tree topper on.

“Beautiful tree but you’re putting the topper on wrong,” he says.

Ummmm…’kay….it’s just a topper. How is there a different way to put it up there?

Dude. Please.

So he puts it up there and says, “There. It’s how it should be.”

And Nancy shoots daggers at him with her eyes. Dashing? Maybe. Total arrogant jerk? Absolutely.

This is setting up the “enemies to lovers” trope that will continue throughout the episode.

Scene shift. Now there is a man dressed as Santa breaking into a house and stealing things while in the other room a white-haired man is on the phone asking Carson Drew, “Hey, cousin, where are you? The party is getting lit over here.”

He doesn’t actually say lit – I summarized for you. What he does say, in a sort of creepy old man way (and also sounding fairly drunk) is, “Ah, cousin, where are you all? The party’s flagging, especially without your beautiful daughter here to liven things up.”

Carson laughs and says they’re just getting ready to leave but wants to know if he can bring Ned along.

“Sure,” the unnamed cousin says. “The more people are here the more Christmassy I’m going to feel.”

Huh? Was that sarcasm or ….? I don’t know but it was weird.

So next scene we see the two men we saw at the train in a car. “I thought you said he’d get off in this town,” the one man says.

“We’ll find him and he’ll never see Christmas,” the other man says.

The man in question, white beard and all, shows up in the next scene but not near where the men are. He’s found a barn and he’s excited because he’s about to crash in the straw for a snooze.

Before he gets there, though, he looks over his shoulder and sees the burglar Santa climbing down some vines (that would not have supported his weight actually) from a second story window of the house. We aren’t sure whose house this is yet, but earlier scenes hinted to us that it is Carson Drew’s cousin’s house.

The white-bearded man shrugs and says, “Dejevu. Christmas Santas.”

He staggers to the barn, unspotted by the Santa who is still busy climbing down, goes inside and lays down in the straw to take a nap. He isn’t there long, though, before two rich kids are looking down at him and saying “Daddy doesn’t allow anyone in the barn.”

The man tells them they wouldn’t want to chase Santa away right before Christmas, would they?

Nooo. They wouldn’t want to do that.

But we scene switch again and the police are at Carson’s cousin’s house, and I don’t know how far away this guy lived but in the time that Carson was in the car to when he got there, the burglary has already been discovered and the police are investigating.

The cousin hands Nancy a card that thanks the man for his generosity and signs it as Santa.

“Not again,” Nancy says.

Ned asks if this has happened before and Carson explains it has happened four times in a week and a cheery card is left at the scene of every crime.

Ned has to get in on the action and says Nancy shouldn’t have been handed the note and Nancy shouldn’t have taken it because fingerprints could have been lifted.

Nancy, of course, has to tell the detective on scene that he’s making mistakes and didn’t notice a footprint covered in glass by the window, showing someone kicked their way into the room.

Ned says something like, “Oh yeah? How do you know?” and Nancy rattles off some nonsense about wet footprints still being there and glass being embedded in his shoes and blah, blah, blah.  It actually didn’t make sense but it’s okay…it’s a fun show so will just go with it.

They all end up back at the Drew’s house where Ned acts like hot stuff and says he can call the DAs office and ask if anyone who is a known burglar has been let out recently or lives in the area. He doubts that it would be anyone local, which offends Nancy who says, “You don’t think this town is big enough to have thieves of their own? Some of the biggest thieves are in this town. I know. I’ve caught some of them.”

I don’t know that I’d want to brag about that, Nancy. It’s kind of like when my area became the Meth capital of the nation. It wasn’t a designation we really liked to tell people about.

Nancy says she’s going to go back to talk to the cousin’s wife and make sure she’s okay. It gives her a chance to get away from Ned who is just driving her bonkers.

Honestly, Ned is a huge jerk in the beginning of this episode, bossy and pushy and essentially acting like they have Nancy act in other episodes.

On the way over to the cousin’s, Nancy notices some lights are on at a house where the owners are supposed to be out of town. She wonders what is going on so she pulls over and, of course, finds the back door broken. We’ve been seeing scenes of someone dressed in a Santa costume stealing valuables and putting them in a big bag, so we know someone is in there.

She goes in and calls the police station, telling them to send the detective over because she’s Nancy Drew and she thinks a house is being broken into.

She makes her way around the house to see if someone is in the house, and is on her way back down the stairs when a man dressed in a Santa costume and wearing a scary mask (it creeped me out!) starts down behind her. A crazy chase scene ensues where the man throws is bag at her (by the way, when it hits the wall, it does not sound like it is full of valuables. Instead, it makes no noise and seems to be full of a pillow.)

Nancy runs into the living room with the man behind her and throws a chair through the patio doors to escape. The Santa is like, “Dude…no way…not dealing with her…She’s nuts” and books it out the back door with a flashlight and his bag.

He runs and finds the barn our “Santa” homeless man is in (so this must be in the same neighborhood as the cousin, which makes this burglar very bold and risky) and runs inside to hide the stolen goods behind some hay bails. He then leaves the barn, with the old white-bearded guy still sleeping in the straw.

When Nancy’s neighbor comes home (I don’t know who called him or how he knew to come home from being “out of town”) they talk to the police detective who says he’s going to get two dozen officers in the neighborhood to track the burglar down. It makes me wonder how much of a budget this little town has that they can afford that many police officers.

The neighbor invites Nancy in for tea (umm…what? Your house was just robbed and you’re inviting this young girl in for tea??) and then says he’s going to check around the house to make sure the guy didn’t try to hide there. Nancy makes her way to the kitchen and starts filling the kettle with water so I guess she’s been here before.

Suddenly, though, the two kids we saw in the barn earlier are in the kitchen with a huge jar of cookies and a loaf of bread.

Okay, so pause here. Nancy tells us viewers, that the family was out of town when she said, “I thought the Garbers were out of town,” when she drove by their house, but the kids were in the house? Alone?? Are these kids siblings of Kevin McAllister? Why didn’t they wake up when the burglar broke in and tried to kill Nancy?

So, I don’t get that part at all, but the kids let it slip that they are taking food to Santa in the barn.

Nancy wants to know if this Santa is the burglar Santa, so she follows them to the barn and meets the man who has been hiding there.

He’s just wearing a gray pair of pants and a gray jacket and looks tired but otherwise fine. The kids give him his food and then leave, which leaves Nancy to grill him about the burglaries. He has no idea what she’s talking about.

“You didn’t catch me the first time,” she says.  “Now you have another chance.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t think we’ve ever met,” he says.

After some more conversation, he says he did see someone dressed as Santa climbing from a window of a house, but he thought it was a father having fun with his children.

He tells her his name is Griffin.

The police rush in though and start questioning the man, asking him where he’s come from. An officer finds the stashed jewels and other valuables and the man is arrested but says he can’t be arrested because the next night is Christmas Eve and he will be busy.

“You can’t do this to the children!” he says as he is dragged away.

Nancy watches them take the man away and sees a car pull out to follow the police car, as if they were waiting for Griffin to leave.

Back at home later, Carson is woken up by a phone call but no one is there. He tries to go back to sleep but Nancy runs in and says she can’t leave Santa Claus in jail over night, which puzzles Carson who says he actually just had a dream about the man she met. When he tells her the phone call woke him, but no one was there, there is a quick clip slid in of Griffin in jail, so I guess we are supposed to get the idea that this man really is Santa and he has powers to make phone calls or hear conversations or…is omniscient like God? I’m really not sure what we are supposed to be getting here.

All I know is that Carson and Nancy rush down to the jail and post bail for the man which I think is amazing since it is 3 a.m. and most jails wouldn’t let anyone in at that time of the day. When the scene first starts we see the outside of the jail and hear a voice say, “Alright, I’ll release the old man into his custody when he gets down here.”

The officer unlocks the cell door and Griffin says, “Ah, I’ve been expecting you.”

Carson is confused by this, but they move on and offer Griffin a place to stay at their house after asking him some questions.

He tells them that he arrived in their town the night before but will only say that the train brought him — also every time he answers a question music with a little bell plays to suggest he is magical or …whatever.

As they are all leaving, Griffin sees those men waiting in a car outside and while Nancy and Carson are talking, he disappears.

They can’t find him but in the morning, there is a newspaper article saying that Carson Drew is defending Santa Claus. Griffin had told the press that he was Santa, but Carson had no idea when he gave them that information.

Nancy and Ned get into an argument when Ned says this guy is clearly running from something, maybe a crime. Nancy says she has feeling and instinct that he’s a good guy. Ned just laughs at her “hunches.”

Nancy declares she’s going to prove Griffin innocent even if she has to prove he is Santa Claus. Ned scoffs at this as she stomps out of the office.

Next, we have Nancy looking at some fabric she found at the scene of the first crime under a magnifying glass.

She doesn’t see anything that will help her, so she and George start to list what the burglaries have in common. Nancy then tells George to get her a list of all the people who have worked in the homes of the people who were robbed.

Pause here.

First, what is she doing bossing George around? Second, how in the world is George supposed to get that info when she is not a police officer?

George, however, has no doubts. She isn’t the George from season one who was timid and worried all the time. (I mean she’s entirely a different actress even). She’s bold and says she will do it.

In the following scene one of the two men who are after Griffin is talking to another man on a phone.

The man is in a nice office, wearing a suit and tie and says he wants the old man caught and killed because he witnessed “the exchange.” I don’t know what that exchange was but he witnessed it so he orders the man to find him and take him out.

Then he says, “I don’t want a witness to an exchange of $5 million for drugs to be alive.”

Scene switch again and we are in a department store where kids are waiting in line to talk to a Santa who is clearly drunk.

The two children Griffin met in the barn see him and tell the store owners he’s the real Santa. All the kids run to Griffin, and the store owners ask him if he will be their Santa at that night’s Christmas Eve party. He says he can’t because he has a big job to do that night. The store owner thinks it is a joke and hires him.

Meanwhile, Nancy has her list of employees and sees a man named Pierre Cortez, who is the gardener for everyone that was burglarized on the list.

She wants to get his prints so she can prove it was him, but George suggests she call the police first. She refuses because she doesn’t want Ned to think she’s an amateur.

She instead heads back to the barn where Griffin had been staying to find more clues and catches this Pierre man looking for his bag of stuff. There is a standoff, and he threatens to kill her, but luckily, Ned bursts in and tackles the man because George told him what Nancy was going to do.

Somehow, he was also able to call the police in that short amount of time, and they burst in and take the man into custody.

Nancy then rewards Ned with a big kiss, which startles him (and me too, quite frankly) but he thoroughly enjoys. Apparently, they are no longer enemies. He asks what the kiss was for, and she says it was because he saved her life and he quips he will have to do that again sometime.

Now Griffin is off the hook, but Nancy still has to figure out who is following him and why.

Griffin is going to be in a Christmas parade that  night so the men who are after him decide they’ll shoot him, Nancy, and Carson to get them all out of the way in case Griffin told Nancy and Carson what they saw.

Before the parade, Griffin overhears Nancy tell Carson that there was a doll she saw in a store in Amsterdam that she wishes she could have purchased as a child. This will come into play later.

Flashing forward a bit, because this recap is getting way too long, we get to the parade and the snipers are ready to shoot Griffin, but he does some voodoo magic where he can see them through his mind and as Carson and Nancy are talking, Griffin disappears.

The men don’t know where he’s gone, but they shoot at Carson and Nancy anyhow and somehow completely miss them.

The police look for where the shots came from and run to the roof and find the two men unconscious, with their guns beside them, and handcuffed together.

Everyone is bewildered until Nancy sees hoofprints and sleigh marks in the snow. It’s at this point that Pamela Sue Martin lets out the weirdest giggle and smile, which makes me wonder if she was on something at the time of filming. I guess it was supposed to show how excited she was at the idea of Griffin being the real Santa, but it flat out scared me.

At the end of the episode, everyone is opening gifts, even Ned who should have gone home by now. There is one gift that no one saw before. It’s addressed to Nancy, from Griffin and inside is the doll she’d always wanted from Amsterdam. The doll, by the way, is some really small, weird looking doll in underwear. It is not what I expected at all.

Pamela does the weird smile again — and again I am frightened. She looks somewhat deranged. I’m sorry! But she does!

Also, she was sporting some really long, crazy nails for this one. I couldn’t figure out how she could get anything done with them!

Up next I’ll be recapping Pamela’s last episode where she has some more weird expressions but not as creepy as her smiles in the Christmas episode.