Without spoiling the conclusion, it’s safe to say that the realities of Lucy’s death are wrapped in real-life issues of the rich demeaning the poor and the common dismissal of teenage trauma and mental health. Though mostly episodic, the first season also posits multiple long-game mysteries, the biggest one being the truth behind the death of local legend Lucy Sable. What’s even more powerful than the simple display of diversity is the way the show weaves in supernatural fanfare and sleuthing with real stakes.

Thanks for signing up! You can manage your newsletter subscriptions at any time. There’s a deaf character, South Asian characters, and the list goes on. It is revealed a few episodes into the first season that Bess is a lesbian, but she is not presented as a token ideal-she’s just as bad at relationships as every other member of the Drew Crew. Bess Marvin becomes Bess Turani, a rich girl with a hidden past, portrayed by the British-Iranian actress Maddison Jaizani. In the show, Ned Nickerson (Tunji Kasim) is a young Black man who arrives in town for reasons that involve an undeservedly troubled past with law enforcement-a story not too unfamiliar to many Black men of today.* George Fayne becomes George Fan (Leah Lewis), a young Asian woman who is the manager of the Bayside Claw, the restaurant that employs the Drew Crew and their functional sleuthing headquarters she’s also the caretaker of her three younger siblings while her alcoholic mother seems to come and go as she pleases. For starters, the world of this Nancy Drew is incredibly diverse.

I, a Black woman in my mid-20s, finally saw myself in the world (and the girl) the literary canon had been forcing upon me since I was old enough to realize fiction can look a lot like the world you live in.īut this is by design. Even more importantly, I finally saw myself in it. It was just the world I wanted to get lost in while the real one was falling apart, and it still is-both because I love the show and because, in my (and Nancy’s) most cynical moments, I believe the world is still, and might always be, falling apart. And yet, despite all of the above, the new Nancy Drew had me hooked.

Cast of nancy drew