Transcript: MaYaND 006: CB 06: The Secret of Red Gate Farm

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[Sound cue: Eerie piano tune reminiscent of the Nancy Drew PC game soundtracks]

Colleen: Welcome to Me and You and Nancy Drew, a podcast where I, Colleen- 

Meghan: -and I, Meghan-

Colleen: -are reading and watching and gaming our way through the Nancy Drewniverse, one media item at a time. Today we read The Secret of Red Gate Farm, the sixth from the original series. This is, of course, from the 50s republished series. 

Meghan: The ones you're probably the most familiar with.

Colleen: With the classic yellow covers, et cetera. Although mine is purple, because it's part of the two-in-one books that my mom got in the mail. 1961. We are out of the 50s. 

Meghan: 1961. Awesome. 

Colleen: Excellent.

[Sound Cue: Drums and strings play underneath the spoken words “There Once Was A Limerick Recap”]

Meghan: This week, we've written you a limerick instead. And we'll do that for the next few books before we move on to our next poetry thingamajig. 

Colleen: Poem? 

Meghan: Our next poem. Okay. Would you like to start with your limerick? 

Colleen: I would like to start with my limerick. I hope you, having the most Irish name of the two of us, will enjoy. 

Meghan: I'm so excited. 

Colleen: “Young Nancy once went to a farm, / But soon she almost came to harm. / Found fake bills and a cult; / Counterfeiting's their fault. / Secret Service said, ‘Thanks for alarm!’”

Meghan: Oh my goodness, I love it! 

Colleen: I'm so proud of myself. I almost said “She soon went back home safe and warm,” but it doesn't rhyme. It's one of those where it looks like it rhymes. 

Meghan: It should. 

Colleen: And then you read it out loud and you're like, “I hate poetry.” 

Meghan: Maybe if I had a different accent, I could make this work

Colleen: I probably could. 

Meghan: You know, there's a few of those. 

Colleen: All right. Let's hear yours. 

Meghan: Mine. “There once was a farm called Red Gate. / To explore it, Nancy just couldn't wait. / She discovered the plot, / And the bad guys got caught, / And she saved it from a terrible fate.” 

Colleen: Excellent, excellent. Fantastic. That was very fun. I like limericks a lot more than haikus, I think. 

Meghan: I know! I loved writing the limerick. You know, you gotta do rhyming words. And the beat and, like, the cadence of a limerick is very-

Colleen: [rhythmically] “Da da da, da da da.”

Meghan: Very fun.

[Sound Cue: Clock ticks underneath the spoken words “Thirty-Second Recap”]

Meghan: And now, we'll actually give you a full recap. Well, I can't guarantee it's a full recap. We will attempt to give you a recap of what happened in this book, if it's been since the fourth grade since you last read this. Or, you know, just, you read it yesterday, but all of the details have already fallen out of your head.

Colleen: Or you've never read it. 

Meghan: Or you've never read it! That's also an important, an important one. 

Colleen: This probably won't help! 

Meghan: This is for you.

Colleen: We'll find out. 

Meghan: All right. 

Colleen: Ready, set!

Meghan: [clock ticks underneath the book summary] So Nancy meets a sad person on a train, as she tends to meet sad people. And she, this girl, Joanne, has a farm that she lives on but is running out of money and her grandma can't pay the mortgage anymore. So Nancy's like, “Let's go. We're gonna go be boarders and we're gonna pay for staying there.” But [there are] all these weird things, and maybe there's a cult, and these people dressed in all white, and they go and whack, like, wave their hands around a lot, and they go and investigate, and it turns out it's not a cult. That's just a front. They're actually counterfeiters. They're using the property in this cave hidden there. [ticking stops, clock bongs]  

Colleen: And you're out of time. That was very good. Fantastic work. I really liked the arm movements that nobody got. It was akin to a wavy arm man that is trying to sell me cars. 

Meghan: Yes. 

Colleen: And it was great. 

Meghan: I think that's a pretty accurate depiction of what was described in the book. 

Colleen: They were called grotesque movements.

Meghan: Multiple. Multiple times. 

Colleen: Grotesque. So I don't- If they're making grotesque movements, I'm assuming they're twerking. That is what I'm assuming is happening. And it did seem like everybody was doing different things as they did their grotesque movements. 

Meghan: Some people were twerking. I don't know. I was imagining it more like [A] Charlie Brown Christmas. 

Colleen: Where everyone's doing completely different things?

Meghan: Yeah, everyone's doing their own dance. 

Colleen: I really like that, actually. All right, time me. 

Meghan: OK, OK. Your thirty seconds begins now.

Colleen: [clock ticks underneath the book summary] So Joanne is on a train with Nancy and her friends, and Nancy and Bess have some perfume, and then a guy spills it all over them, or the train stops and it gets spilled on them, and some guy comes up and is like, “Hey, I've got a suspicious message, blah blah blah.” And they're like, “This is very weird.” And then a girl passes out, and then they follow her, and her grandma's farm is gonna get sold or bought and, oh god, I thought I was gonna have so much more time. There's counterfeiters and they're dressing up in wacky things and there's also, like, a bunch of cranky boarders, and then Nancy monetizes the scene of the counterfeiting as a tourist attraction to save the farm. Yay! [ticking stops, clock bongs] 

Meghan: Oooo, very nice. Especially at the end. 

Colleen: Yeah, but I forgot to say about all the jobs. She was applying for jobs. There was a lot of, like, in-the-middle stuff that I totally missed out on.

Meghan: That's okay. That's okay. I think I didn't get to the very end. 

Colleen: That's true. And they caught the counterfeiters. 

Meghan: Yeah, they were, like- She put up billboards. This is, like, her main thing, is that Nancy put up billboards and she saved the farm. [crosstalk]

Colleen: We probably could have done the billboards earlier in the process, but that's okay. 

Meghan: Could have been the very first day. That could have been what they were working on. But, you know, we had to go investigate what this weird thing-

Colleen: Yeah, like chapter- It was, like, Chapter Seven, and then we get the mystery of, like- We were just kind of hanging out with Joanne for a while, helping her job search? 

Meghan: This was an oddly-paced book. Very, very weird. 

Colleen: And also didn't we just have a secret cave on a property where there was weird stuff happening? 

Meghan: Wasn't that literally the last book? 

Colleen: I think it was literally the last book. 

Meghan: That was The [Secret of] Shadow Ranch. Except that one was up.

Colleen: Oh, it was an up cave. 

Meghan: It was an up cave. 

Colleen: This is, is a down cave. 

Meghan: This is a down cave.

Colleen: It's totally different. 

Meghan: Yep. 

Colleen: Incredible. 

Meghan: We gotta go to all the caves. So hopefully we'll get some more caves. 

Colleen: We have an in cave, maybe an underwater cave. 

Meghan: Ooo.

Colleen: Oh no, the other one had underwater stuff. Shadow Ranch. There was like- No. Somebody [or some book] had diving. Was that Shadow Ranch? 

Meghan: Hmm, they did go diving. Oh shoot. 

Colleen: Was that cave-related?

Meghan: I don't know!

Colleen: It's been so long. 

Meghan: Yeah.

Colleen: Anyway. 

Meghan: Now you know what happened in The Secret of Red Gate Farm and what the secret is. 

Colleen: It's counterfeiters. 

Meghan: It's counterfeiters. 

Colleen: Everyone thinks the secret is the cult, that- About ten chapters in or something, they're like, “Yeah, you should really stop letting these cult people pay rent. They're freaking me out.” And she goes, “No, it's fine. Money's money.” 

Meghan: “Money's money!”

Colleen: And I love that grandma's attitude towards it. Like, “Listen, they're- They just dance. It's annoying, but whatever.” 

Meghan: Yeah, “They're fine.”

Colleen: “It's grotesque. I will say it is grotesque several times, but they're paying rent.”

[Sound cue: High-pitched whistle-like note descending in pitch underneath the stretched-out, also-descending-in-pitch spoken word “Cliffhangers!”]

Colleen: Welcome to Cliffhangers, the section where we point out the greatest ends to the chapters, because in all the classic Nancy Drews and Hardy Boys, they try to end every single chapter with a thing that makes you want to keep reading. And I actually marked two but for opposite reasons. So one near the very end, there's this guy named Carl Junior, more on him later, but this hamburger man, he shows up to rescue them when they're undercover in the cult. They're wearing the cult outfit that they're- The cult leader's like, “Let's make sure everybody takes off their masks so we know no one's here that's not in our cult.” And they're about to get- they have got got. They're about to get, like, left for dead somewhere. And Carl Junior shows up and he's been, you know, nice so far, and we think he has a crush on Nancy. And when he showed up, Nancy yells, “Oh, Carl, these men are counterfeiters! Don't let them capture you too! Run!” And I thought it was gonna turn out that he had been working with them the whole time. 

Meghan: [gasps]

Colleen: ‘Cause there's only one chapter after this, and I thought that somehow we were having a late-game twist. So I was like, “Oh my god, the hamburger man.” Then, but- 

Meghan: Spoiler alert. He's not with the counterfeiters. 

Colleen: He's not. No, he does save them. He is the god in the machine, he is the son of one of the boarders, and he has a crush on Nancy. 

Meghan: So he was following her. 

Colleen: Yeah, exactly. Like a normal crush in the 60s. Perhaps. I don't know. I wasn't there. And then the other one is also actually Carl Junior. And yes, it was great. And it's while they're at a diner, which is also great [because Carl’s Jr. is a diner chain], and there's Secret Service people there, as you do. It's not a diner. It's, like, a gas station restaurant. 

Meghan: Yeah. 

Colleen: It's diner vibes. 

Meghan: Yeah, I'd say diner vibes. 

Colleen: Yeah. And the Secret Service people are like, “Oh my god, you gave a fake twenty.” First of all, they're like, “You paid for four, maybe three milkshakes with a twenty? That's exorbitant. You would have to get so much change. This was so ridiculous that I flagged it immediately.” Which was depressing. And then she comes back and they're like, “Oh my god, it's you. Tell us who you are.” And then the last line of the chapter is, “‘I'll tell you who she is,’ came an authoritative voice from the doorway,” and I was ready for him to burst into song. [singing] “Da da da da da da! That's Nancy Drew / She's here for you!” I don't know. I really thought it sounded like the beginning of an “I Am” song from a musical. 

Meghan: That is!

Colleen: Or a “She Is” song. 

Meghan: So funny.

Colleen: Yeah. What did you-?

Meghan: Okay, so my cliffhanger is a little less dramatic than my usual. There was no screaming. 

Colleen: There was no screaming. Nobody got ran over. We thought somebody got run over. 

Meghan: No one.

Colleen: They checked under the car to see if there was a body. 

Meghan: Yep. Nope. It was just a runnin' lady. 

Colleen: Yep. Just a runnin' lady. 

Meghan: So they are kind of doing all sorts of different research, trying to figure out who this cult could be, and all the different people that they've interacted with and-

Colleen: Everyone they meet in this book is involved.

Meghan: Yes, yes. And so they're trying to figure out this girl who sold them the perfume. We will talk more about her later for different reasons. Bess finds a newspaper article that references Yvonne. Yvonne Wong. Um, so, I chose this because it just ends with- Because there's an article in the paper that mentions her name. “Bess thrust the newspaper into Nancy's hand indicating the paragraph. ‘Wow, that is something! Read it yourself!’” And it was just so- I was like- I was very excited because I don't- I didn't remember this book at all. 

Colleen: Right. 

Meghan: I know I read it.

Colleen: Me neither! I had no memory of this book. 

Meghan: Like at least with Shadow Ranch, there were parts of it as I was reading, I  was like, “Oh, I remember! I remember that too!” This one, phew. Nothin'. I was like, “Oh my gosh, I can't wait to read what it is in this newspaper article, because they're all so excited about it.” And I personally love anytime like there is an article or something like embedded in. I know that's very controversial. 

Colleen: No!

Meghan: Some people, like, skip over any added poem or article that's added. 

Colleen: I couldn't do that. I couldn't skip it.

Meghan: I always get very excited to read something from within that world. 

Colleen: So Bess was really speaking to you in this moment. 

Meghan: Yes, so I was very excited. Which is why I was like, “Yes. This is my cliffhanger.” But then they didn't even show us the full article. They summarized and-

Colleen: She read one sentence from it in the next chapter. So you sound foolish. 

Meghan: I was- I was really hoping for, like-

Colleen: You wanted a set-aside, smaller set of text in the middle, maybe a different font. 

Meghan: Exactly. 

Colleen: Okay. 

Meghan: So although that was the cliffhanger I chose, it was because it gave me the most hope for [something exciting], but it didn't quite deliver.

Colleen: But then, you were left on a cliff. 

Meghan: I know. 

Colleen: Just hangin’ there.

Meghan: And they, well, it turned out that the cliff was- It just really turned out the cliff was really more of a step. So-

Colleen: I like that. “I really thought this was gonna be a whole thing and I-”

Meghan: I did, I did.

Colleen: “I did just step down and it's fine.” 

Meghan: Yeah, exactly. 

Colleen: I like that a lot.

[Sound cue: Ocean waves crash underneath the spoken words “Ship of the Week”]

Meghan: In this segment, we choose two characters that we quote unquote “ship,” which is at this point, [a] rather dated term.

Colleen: It is.

Meghan: From the early internet. Where you had two characters where there wasn't necessarily any textual evidence that they would be in a romantic relationship or not. But you hope that they will get together. And so you ship them. And sometimes you are lucky enough that your ship-

Colleen: Sails. 

Meghan: Sails. And yes.

Colleen: It's canon.

Meghan: And the writer- It becomes canon and the characters do in fact get together. I'd say the majority of ships tend to be unsailed?

Colleen: Yeah, I would agree. They remain at port. 

Meghan: At port. Yes. 

Colleen: Yes. 

Meghan: So who did you ship this week, Colleen? 

Colleen: In the first chapter or so, I was very into Nancy and Joanne, the sad train woman. And Joanne's very shy, and Nancy helps her, and says you [Joanne] can stay at her [Nancy’s] house, and Joanne's like, “I'm really nervous about this job interview, would you please come with me?” And so I was like, “That's very cute,” but there wasn't a lot for it. But then we met Carl Junior, and I said we'd come back to him. We're coming back to him right now. Obviously, Carl's Jr. is a hamburger fast food restaurant [Note from Transcription-Colleen: It’s more of a fast-casual diner-type restaurant, I believe] and Bess thinks he is attractive. And the other thing we know about Bess: She loves boys and she loves food. What's better? Boys plus food equals Carl Junior. We have here: “The girls, particularly Bess, were sorry Carl Junior could not remain at the boarding house with his father.” Bess loves that he's here. She's sorry to see him leave, but she does like to watch him walk away. And so my ship is for Bess plus Carl's Jr., the restaurant-chain-slash-man. 

Meghan: I love that. 

Colleen: Thank you. 

Meghan: And see, I was also on the Carl Junior [train].

Colleen: He's important to this book. 

Meghan: [He was] on the mind. I chose an anti-ship this week. 

Colleen: Excellent.

Meghan: So it's very clear that Carl Junior is interested in Nancy. 

Colleen: Yes. 

Meghan: And I mean, how could you not be? She's-

Colleen: It's like Barbie. She's- She does everything. 

Meghan: She does it all. Exactly. And I just, I don't know, we've had a lot of kind of…men show up in the novels. 

Colleen: I would say mediocre men. 

Meghan: Mediocre men! And that's- It's just- He's just another one, and there's nothing, you know? I thought maybe he was gonna be a Secret Service agent, kind of like, I think that was in one of the previous books. Was that also Shadow Ranch? [Note from Transcription-Colleen: No, that was The Mystery at Lilac Inn, but good guess.]

Colleen: That might have been Shadow Ranch as well. [Note from Transcription-Colleen: Still Lilac Inn.]

Meghan: I think Shadow Ranch just might have already done a lot of it. 

Colleen: Most of this.

Meghan: He was undercover. That was at least exciting. And you know- 

Colleen: He was like a plainclothesman or something. 

Meghan: Yeah. 

Colleen: No, this is just some guy. 

Meghan: Carl Junior is just, yeah, he's fine. But I just think Nancy could do better.

Colleen: Especially because he's following her into the woods. Now did that save her life? Yes. Do I want that to be a habit? No.

Meghan: Exactly. And so he's fine. He's not good enough for our Nancy. 

Colleen: Even though I think the other girls are like, “Ooh, go hang out with Carl. He likes you.” And I think she coyly is like, “Well, I'm busy!”

Meghan: Yep. So I think I've got the text on my side. 

Colleen: I think you do too. 

Meghan: And then, I don't think Carl Junior is sticking around for much longer.

Colleen: But if he does, I think he would go with Bess. 

Meghan: I think, you know- 

Colleen: And so I think ours go together. 

Meghan: Not to say that Bess deserves less than [Nancy or] anything. 

Colleen: No! I just think they have different wants and needs. 

Meghan: Exactly, exactly. And I think that Nancy needs someone who can keep up with her. you know, following people into the woods is not quite keeping up with. It's creepy

Colleen: No, it's just following. That's just following.

[Sound Cue: Kitchen tools clink underneath the spoken words “Cooking Corner”]

Colleen: So, welcome to Cooking Corner, where we discuss the delicious foods and snacks and things that the girls and their companions have, normally cooked by Hannah Gruen, but I would say most of their time is spent on Red Gate Farm. There's a lot of good country cooking. 

Meghan: Yes. 

Colleen: What did you find? 

Meghan: My favorite one, and the one I definitely wanted, was the delicious meal of hot biscuits, sizzling ham, sweet potatoes, and coffee. And then they finish up with a dessert of freshly baked lemon meringue pie. 

Colleen: See, that's delicious. That is a good Cooking Corner. 

Meghan: Yes, yes, definitely. I think there were a few other times, though, where they definitely ate, and I always appreciate our girls eating. However, I would have liked more of a description of what they were eating, because, one, I love food, and, two, I've really enjoyed getting to look at some of the foods that I didn't even know existed, or the snacks that I didn't know you could get. Didn't she get, like, peas? 

Colleen: Yeah, she just went and got peas at the drugstore one time. [Note from Transcription-Colleen: Recording-Colleen was a fool. It wasn’t just LOOSE PEAS. It was split-pea soup. Obviously.]

Meghan: Yeah, like I-

Colleen: Okay. That's- I would never choose that myself.

Meghan: Exactly. 

Colleen: But I love that for you. 

Meghan: What did you find? 

Colleen: Well, I have one bad one and one good one. 

Meghan: Okay. 

Colleen: The bad one is Bess misunderstanding how cows work, I think. And she goes, “‘I always wanted to spend a vacation on a farm.’” She declares this “longingly.” “‘Just imagine having cream an inch thick.’” And Joanne's like, “We have a cow. You are not getting cream an inch thick. This is not gonna happen for you. Sorry.” But then, on the way there, they have to fill up on gas. After they spend their road trip singing and chatting, which is also how I spend my road trips, so that was very cute. And they stop for lunch at the place where they spend a twenty on sundaes and get a lot of change. But she wants a gooey sundae. And gooey is, I think, not- I appreciate that Bess appreciates food. I just think that we're on different levels. Whereas I do not want cream an inch thick, and I want my sundaes to not be gooey, I think. 

Meghan: Yeah.

Colleen: Maybe the hot fudge is what's gooey. I don't know. I'm thinking of the ice cream texture. I'm like, “That shouldn't be gooey. That should be cold and maybe crisp.” I don't know. 

Meghan: Yeah. 

Colleen: Yeah. But they got chocolate nut sundaes topped with whipped cream. And she, in fact, says, because they're always teasing her about how she's plump, and that's a little blast from the past, but we've talked about it before. But she's like, “‘Here goes another pound, but, I'd rather be pleasantly plump than give up sundaes.’” And I was like, “Same, girllll!” 

Meghan: Yes. 

Colleen: Let's goooo.

[Sound Cue: European-style emergency vehicle siren sound plays underneath the spoken words “Fashion Police”]

Meghan: On this segment, we look at the wonderful and wacky outfits featured in our Nancy Drew story. What do you have for us, Colleen? 

Colleen:I would say Nancy herself is being a bit of a fashion policewoman herself in this book. We meet a creepy guy who- Turns out, he's from the cult, but her first impression of this man is- This is a man who is running a job that Joanne applies for. And so the first sentence about him is, “He was tall and wiry with hostile penetrating eyes and harsh features. His suit was bold in pattern and color and his necktie was gaudy.” Now, is that an outfit I'd love to wear? Yes, but coming on the heels of the description of his penetrating eyes, it does feel like this is negative. This is being marked in that this is a suspicious character because he's wearing this horrendous outfit. And it turns out she's right, so.

Meghan: Yeah, yeah. 

Colleen: I would like to bring up, I believe her name is Amy, from Pitch Perfect, and say, “This is not a good enough reason to use the word ‘penetrate,’” but we'll allow it. And then later Nancy is a little judgmental again, because she's talking about a young woman who's walking with “mincing steps” because of her extremely high heels. I don't know, I felt like Nancy was a little judgy in this one.

Meghan: A little! We'll give it to her. She's usually very understanding and very empathetic, but- And to be fair! 

Colleen: She was right for all of them!

Meghan: She was right both times. 

Colleen: But I just feel like this is not good evidence for that. 

Meghan: Exactly. Exactly. 

Colleen: Like, was her intuition correct? Yes, but these- This did not feel like- 

Meghan: It was not because of their outfits. 

Colleen: Exactly. What do you have for us?

Meghan: So what I would like to talk about for the fashion police is the cult outfits.

Colleen: Again, not a real cult. 

Meghan: Not a real cult. 

Colleen: They just do that so that no one- 

Meghan: The cult of the black-

Colleen: Black Snake Colony. 

Meghan: The Black Snake Colony. 

Colleen: Very hilariously, to me, when Nancy calls her police chief friend, he picks up his one paper, I imagine an index card. He goes, “‘Let me consult my list of all cults.’” He says it's a list of all cults. And I imagine he gets out this three-by-five index card, and calls her. He's like, “I gotta call you back. Let me look at my paper of all cults.” Calls her back immediately. He's like, “This cult isn't on there.” She goes, “‘You mean they're a phony?’” Girl, anybody can be a cult! They don’t have to register with Chief McGinnis! But anyway, they're not a real cult, perhaps because they're not on his piece of paper. 

Meghan: That's true. You know, they didn't register. They didn't go through the right-

Colleen: The right process. The paperwork.

Meghan: The right bureaucratic process to register their fake cult. 

Colleen: Exactly. So they're wearing this just to get people to not investigate. 

Meghan: And that's- And that's what it is. They're going for, like, what do they know about cults? There are lots of people, they wear masks and they dance. 

Colleen: Yeah, sure. They're specifically a nature cult, apparently. 

Meghan: Yes. And so Nancy, Bess, and George decide to go infiltrate the, this cult, so they have to make their own outfits. Now, the outfits are all white, made of sheets, with a hat with eye holes cut out. And so I don't know if the original intention was to invoke what I think it invokes for many of us in our modern times, which is the KKK, the Ku Klux Klan. ‘Cause it completely shies away from mentioning any of that, but I know that's all I could think about the entire time, was like-

Colleen: Well, and in fact, the original cover, and then I believe maybe the 80s reprint, I think, is what this was. I'm not sure. I found quite a few alt covers of this book, and many of them involve people in, you know, white sheets. Some of them- Some of them are pointed. Some of them are not. But like, it's not amazing. It made me- I showed the cover to my partner who goes, “I think I know what the mystery of the farm is. Is it the KKK?” And it was not. 

Meghan: It's not!

Colleen: We don't deal with it at all. Yes. We don't mention it. 

Meghan: And I did look up the history of the KKK because of who I am. But just trying to figure out, like, “Would this be a reference that people would notice and see?”

Colleen: “When initially reading this book when it came out?”

Meghan: And the KKK has been around since the 1800s following the Civil War. 

Colleen: Yikes.

Meghan: It has had three iterations, as it turns out, including the modern one, which is still continuing to this day. 

Colleen: Yeah.

Meghan: Wonderful. That was sarcasm. It's not wonderful. 

Colleen: It's not wonderful. It's, in fact, horrible. 

Meghan: It is, it is. 

Colleen: I didn't realize it went that far back. I will say the American education system about American history is not always helpful. So the only mention I heard of the KKK ever would have been in relation to racial struggles and civil rights struggles in the 50s and 60s.

Meghan: Yeah, yeah.

Colleen: And I did look this up, but not nearly as thoroughly as you did around this. I was like, “If this came out in the 30s, would this have been a cultural reference?” And probably, yeah. 

Meghan: I kind of think so. And if it's not, it's very tone deaf, I think. 

Colleen: Yeah. Yeah. And I said the education system, but also, that's on me. That's on me. I should have looked more of that up and I'm going to [do so] more [thoroughly] after this, because I didn't do it as well as you did. 

Meghan: Yeah, and the, the civil rights movement is what reignited the third wave of the KKK. 

Colleen: Great. Yay! So it was dying down and then they got angry about people wanting to be treated like humans.

Meghan: How dare they. 

Colleen: Cool, cool, cool. Yeah, and they make their own costumes out of the sheets. You mentioned that, right? 

Meghan: Yes. Yes. 

Colleen: They initially are like, “We'll just- We'll just borrow their sheets. It's a bed and breakfast. What will they need sheets for?” And then they're like, “Actually, I'll buy some.” 

Meghan: Yes. 

Colleen: Which I thought was good because the family- We just- The whole point is that they have no money. So what if we didn't wreck the bed and breakfast's sheets? 

Meghan: Exactly. 

Colleen: But it turns out, that's not even related to the whole point of the group, which is counterfeiting. It's just-

Meghan: Yeah.

Colleen: It's just a leave-me-alone signal, which would work. I would also not want to interact with them if they reminded me of the KKK, but that's not even apparently what they were going for?

Meghan: Yep. Nope. It's just Generic Cult. And I guess the very first cult they thought of was the KKK. 

Colleen: God. I guess. Yeah, not amazing. Not amazing.

[Sound Cue: High-pitched sounds imitating a camera flashbulb play underneath the spoken words “Picture Perfect”]

Meghan: In this segment, we take a look at the illustrations that are always included in these versions of the Nancy Drew books.

Colleen: My first one is the one right before the title page, like, “You'll encounter this later.” And it's Nancy looking worriedly into Joanne's job interview with this, like, man who's smoking inside. What a delightful time. And it says “If only there was enough time to copy the code!” She saw a code on this guy's desk that he- He got a phone call. It was suspicious. This is the guy with the gaudy outfit that we- we hate him. And he is a bad guy. But he got a phone call. He copied out some numbers. He said it was stock numbers. I believe Nancy goes, “‘Stock numbers, like fun!’” 

Meghan: Yes!

Colleen: Watch your language, ma'am. But she is stressing out because she can't copy the code in time. But she's staring directly into the room. And so I'm just thinking, if we could focus a little bit more on copying the code, and a little bit less on whether the people in the room are looking directly at you (which, one of them is), then we would have more time for this, is [are] my thoughts on this matter.

Meghan: Amazing. So I chose one of the pictures near the end, which is when they have infiltrated the cult, and as they have been caught and discovered by the cult members, when they all have to unmask. 

Colleen: And they might have had more time if Bess didn't go, “Oh no!” When they were like, “Take off your masks.” And they're, like, immediately way more sus. 

Meghan: Exactly. The quote at the bottom is, “‘Go on, Nancy,’ Bess shrieked, ‘You must escape!’” What I love, and hate, about this illustration- So, everyone's all in their white outfits. Half the people are masked, and half of them are not. They all just look like little ghosts, because for some reason they also all have a mouth hole.

Colleen: It's giving Oogie Boogie Man.

Meghan: Yes, but what I love especially is, because, of the low-quality, like, it's, but- These have been copied and copied and copied and copied.

Colleen: And yours is a digital-

Meghan: I have the digital version as usual. But Bess is in, like, the background. Bess and George are in the background being held by, like, cult members. Nancy's in the foreground, also being held by a cult member. But Bess's face is the same as all of the cult masks!

Colleen: She's not masked. 

Meghan: She is not masked, but she also has- 

Colleen: Dark eyes!

Meghan: -two little eye holes and one little mouth hole. So I don't think she needed have been so worried about taking off her mask. She looks like a cult member!

Colleen: Yeah, she's fine! Her whole face is just a little ghost. Like Gingerbread Man. Chocolate chips for eyes.

Meghan: Yup.

Colleen: Snowman. Something. Incredible. Yeah, George at least has, like, a kind of a smirk going on. Bess just looks like that. 

Meghan: Yeah, she just blends in with all the other masked figures. 

Colleen: I'm happy for her, I guess? My other Picture Perfect is, um, they keep seeing this running woman. This is who they think they run over, and they look under the car to see if they missed her. They're like, “Well, I guess she's not here!”

Meghan: “Not under there!”

Colleen: Which is wildly hilarious to me. And this woman, they keep seeing her running, and they're like, “What's going on with her?” And she, [it] turns out, is the wife of the cult leader. She does not want to be in this cult, even though it's not a cult, it's about counterfeiting. But they're still like, “Oh my goodness, that must be so hard to be the wife of the cult leader.” They help her mail a letter at some point. But she's got this, like, gingham dress, I believe. 

Meghan: Yeah, a blue gingham dress, which is “plain and durable.” 

Colleen: And she had twisted her ankle. So Nancy's helping her walk. So her arm is slung around Nancy's shoulder. She is so worried. She's so distressed. And Nancy? She just doesn't care. It's like- She's got mascara out to here. She's looking askance of [at] this woman. She's helping her, but she doesn't care. I don't even know. 

Meghan: Which is hilarious because that is not the Nancy we know. 

Colleen: That's not what's happening. That's not what's happening! She, like, stops, and she's going out of her way to help this woman walk because her ankle's twisted, and she makes her, like, a walking stick! She is caring, but in this picture she looks like-

Meghan: Just, yup!

Colleen: Absolute disdain, almost. 

Meghan: She's not even present. You know? 

Colleen: Yeah, she's dissociating during this walk.

Meghan: Disassociating, that's what I was, like- She's just completely dissociated. 

Colleen: [imitating the robotic nature of a voicemail greeting] “Nancy's not here right now.” [back to normal voice] We'll post these pictures, as usual, so you can enjoy.

[Sound Cue: Synthesized harp plays descending notes under the spoken words “Blast from the Past”]

Colleen: So this is the part where we talk about things from the books that you probably wouldn't see in modern day books, even the modern day Nancy books. and that can be different ways of solving crimes, or different technologies, or in this case, kind of a lot of racism. This has been the roughest book for that of the six we've read.

Meghan: By far.

Colleen: No, this is not a great book for it. 

Meghan: Yes.

Colleen: In fact, the very first sentence-

Meghan: Yes, our very first sentence. “‘That Oriental-looking clerk in the perfume shop certainly acted mysterious!’”

Colleen: Bess, be better. I understand it's of the time. 

Meghan: Yes. 

Colleen: And also it just keeps coming back there. Specifically, it is labeled as an “Oriental” perfume shop. And that may have been what they called it. But I mean, there's better ways to phrase that. We just- But they're talking about how mystical “The Orient” is, as a concept even though we've- We've been able to travel there for a bit. It's not-

Meghan: Yes. 

Colleen: It's not Atlantis, you know. Like, it's not- Whatever.

Meghan: And the ways that they're describing Yvonne Wong- 

Colleen: Yeah, they're always like, “She's-” 

Meghan: “Oriental-looking.” “She looks Oriental.” “She is Oriental.” 

Colleen: “But if her name is Yvonne, she must also be part French.”

Meghan: That- We never touch that again.

Colleen: No, no, no, we're not gonna go into any, you know, French stereotypes. It is only about quote unquote “being Oriental” or “looking Oriental.” 

Meghan: And within that, I, of course, went down the Wikipedia rabbit hole-

Colleen: Please enlighten me.

Meghan: -to wonder, “What's the origin of this word? How long has it been used?” This goes all the way back to the Roman Empire. 

Colleen: Really?

Meghan: Yes. So the part of the Roman Empire that is kind of past, kind of Italy. So looking at, like, the Greek, was known as “pars orientialis.” Which-

Colleen: Does that just mean the Eastern part? 

Meghan: Yeah. 

Colleen: Okay. 

Meghan: It comes from the Latin word “Orient,” which means “East.” 

Colleen: Like when you orient yourself using a compass. 

Meghan: Yes. 

Colleen: Okay. 

Meghan: And so anything east was considered the, like, “Orient” part of the Roman Empire. Like, Egypt was considered part of “The Orient.” 

Colleen: Oh!

Meghan: So was Greece.

Colleen: Interesting.

Meghan: So was Turkey. Our idea of what has been “The Orient” and “Oriental” has shifted through the, like, different centuries to go further and further east. And so like this was a word that was used and has been used for millennia to describe east, but that understanding of what “east” has been has- 

Colleen: Moved.

Meghan: Slowly. To this day, apparently, there are still places in Europe that use the word “Oriental” to refer to different things of Asian [origin].

Colleen: Specifically Asian? Because when you're saying Greece, I don't think Asian. 

Meghan: No, we don't think of that, and that's not- 

Colleen: And hearing “Oriental” as a racist term, and we should put a content warning on this in case people don't wanna hear this thrown around a lot, but I do think of it as, “This is explicitly referring to Asian people, from white people.” 

Meghan: And now it's more like- The American idea of “Oriental” was used especially during, like, World War II. You know? You're using that word to now other people. So even though maybe the original term was not necessarily founded in this racist connotation, it became-

Colleen: Is this just because of how people from Asia were treated, or people of Asian descent were treated? 

Meghan: Yes. Yes, yes.

Colleen: And so then it does become- Even if “Oriental” was meant as just a descriptive with no adjective, no connotation attached, it becomes this racist thing. 

Meghan: Yes, but- And even then, even before that, you're still talking about the different stereotypes associated- Even just, like, think about, like, we always, you hear the words “Oriental” and “mystic.”

Colleen: And then you hear like a sitar or something that may not even be [from the region being described]. You hear the pentatonic scale, but then it's always, like, the specific twangy instrument. 

Meghan: Yeah

Colleen: And I'm thinking, specifically, of that Sherlock episode [“The Blind Banker,” BBC Sherlock S1E2, which deals in these generic and racist tropes through the plot and sound design].

Meghan: Yeah. 

Colleen: With the tea and that, like- The tea ceremony is very beautiful, but I just feel like they brought in a lot of, like, “Well, if they're Asian, it must be this old, like, martial arts, and there's ninjas and it's-” And they always have that specific little, like, twangy-clang even though there's, in fact, modern Asian music as well. Fun fact! 

Meghan: And that's, I think, just the problem I would have with that word, is that it's not descriptive in any way, shape, or form. 

Colleen: It just means “east”! And in fact the world is round. So everywhere is east of somewhere. 

Meghan: Yeah, it's, you know, different people coming from those backgrounds not necessarily wanting to be called Asian because that's the largest continent. 

Colleen: It is the largest continent. 

Meghan: You know, and that's not a very descriptive word either! I don't know. 

Colleen: Also, I looked it up and Wong as a surname is typically from China, specifically around Hong Kong, FYI. I need to look up more of this. I'll put some resources in the show notes, because this is a rough book for this because it just keeps coming back. Every time they mention Yvonne, every time- 

Meghan: -they mention the perfume? 

Colleen: The perfume itself, the Blue Jade perfume that is on the- It's sprayed on the cult members so that they can recognize, specifically the women, I believe. 

Meghan: I think you're, I think you're correct. 

Colleen: And so it's unclear if it's, like, they can't recognize each other because they're usually masked or if perhaps they can't tell various women of Asian descent apart.

Meghan: Oooo.

Colleen: It's hard to say. I don't work in this cult. 

Meghan: It's a money-laundering operation. 

Colleen: Sorry, sorry, sorry. Money-laundering operation.

Meghan: Actually not even money-laundering. 

Colleen: I believe they're like, “We're in manufacturing, of sorts, wink wink,” and what they manufacture is just fake bills. I did like that, actually. That was great. 

Meghan: Okay, do we have anything else for Blast from the Past?

Colleen: Yes! Some lower-key stuff. There's just some casual sexism all throughout the job search. “Hey, do we know anyone who's looking for an office girl?” “You're a good-looking girl, do you wanna?” “You should work for us; you're good-looking.” I'm like, “Okay, what is this job?” This is, like, the second chapter or so, and I was like, “I don't think it's a good business, but I didn't think we were gonna go quite that [far, to some sort of job where the person’s attractiveness is vital to the job, like perhaps some sort of trafficking].” Like, usually the crimes are, like- 

Meghan: Yeah!

Colleen: -it's counterfeit money, or “I'm looking for gold,” and it's all money-based.

Meghan: “I'm stealing this will.” 

Colleen: Right, it's money-based. It's property-based. It's usually not human-rights-abuse-based. 

Meghan: But we don't know. We don't know. We haven't-

Colleen: Yeah, we're only six books in. Sure could be! I did like, right from the beginning, when Bess buys the very expensive perfume, she's like, “‘Well, Dad gave me money to buy something frivolous, so I did.’” And it's like, “That's cute. [But] do you not have your own money?” Like, yeah, she's a teen, but she's, like, eighteenish. 

Meghan: Yeah, it says, I think, that they're all eighteen. 

Colleen: They're all eighteen. So there was a fun little bit where Joanne is maybe commenting on climate change? I don't know what this is supposed to mean. She's like, “‘Well, it's so hot and stuffy in my room.’ She hesitated, then added, ‘Of course, I guess it is everywhere these days.’” But the hesitating is [reading to me] like, “Now this is a tricky topic and Nancy might not agree with me about climate change.” 

Meghan: “Just feeling out our new friend, trying to see if we agree.” 

Colleen: Yeah. I ran out of Blast from the Past tabs, but it was mostly from, just, like, “They said ‘Oriental’ again.” 

Meghan: One of my Blasts from the Past isn't necessarily the past for everybody, but when they go to get gas, they have to talk to the gas attendant who pumps their gas for them. Now, this is also a Blast from the Past for me, because where I first learned to drive was in New Jersey. And in New Jersey at the time, you were legally not allowed to pump your own gas. 

Colleen: Now, why is that? I've heard that. 

Meghan: I don't know. I honestly don't.

Colleen: I knew that that was true of Jersey.

Meghan: Because I pumped my gas everywhere else! And then, where I went to college, we had a lot of students, it was in Virginia, but a lot of out-of-state students from New Jersey. And so I had a friend who did not know how to pump gas. 

Colleen: Oh right! 

Meghan: Because she-

Colleen: If you didn't learn that when you learned how to drive- 

Meghan: And yeah, exactly. And she didn't have a car with her in college, so I asked her to fill up the gas for me one day. And she's like, “I...can't.” 

Colleen: “I can't!” 

Meghan: “I don't know how.” 

Colleen: Just shame in her [Meghan’s] eyes [reenacting this].

Meghan: “Oh my gosh, you're from New Jersey! Of course you don't know how.” 

Colleen: That's the only state, though, right? 

Meghan: Another state just made it legal.

Colleen: [reading from the internet] “As of August of 2023, it is now just New Jersey.” But it didn't used to be. But it's just an old rule. It's not anything new. It's just old from 1949 because dispensing gas was thought to pose a safety hazard. And it doesn't not- It's a flammable liquid. You're near a car! Around that gas-pumping time, I did mark this for a picture. I forgot to tell [you about] it [during Picture Perfect] where Nancy's just- This is some bombastic side-eye. She, like, pulled out a map so she could stare at the four cult members in the other car. And it's not subtle. One of the guys says, “‘Hold these, will you, Hank?’” This, like, ginger ale he bought. “‘I gotta pay this bird.’” But I thought “bird” was “girl.” This is clearly a man.

Meghan: I thought it was a female gas attendant too. 

Colleen: There's a man right here. 

Meghan: No, you're totally right. I just thought- 

Colleen: ‘Cause she [Nancy] had to say [to the attendant], like, “These guys are kind of jerks, you can pump their gas first if you need.” ‘Cause he was like, “Make it snappy!” And she's like, “I got here first, but you can- I get it. You can pump his gas first.” And I like that about Nancy.

Meghan: Maybe I just assumed the attendant was a woman because of-

Colleen: Because he said, “‘I gotta pay this bird’”? Or is he talking about the girl in the diner? But I don't think- Because he wouldn't have been able to take the ginger ale out if he didn't pay- Or maybe he would have! I don't know.

Meghan: He must be wanting to go back in. 

Colleen: Go back in and pay for the ginger ales.

Meghan: Yeah, I think he's bringing the ginger ales out. 

Colleen: “You hold them, I'll pay the bird inside.” 

Meghan: Yes.

Colleen: Okay, so it's not- Yeah, so-

Meghan: Which is also [an] interesting Blast from the Past in that, though. They let you leave with your drinks. 

Colleen: Yeah! I guess it's because he's plugged into the gas. He can't leave. 

Meghan: True. 

Colleen: You know? 

Meghan: Still. 

Colleen: Blast from the Past from a different direction than I thought. 

Meghan: I don't think anyone nowadays, if you were like, “Let me go bring these out to my car and then I'll be right back in with my money.”

Colleen: “No! You're gonna pay for it!”

Meghan: And now, to be fair, they are criminals. 

Colleen: This is when he shows off his wad of money. 

Meghan: Which is all fake. 

Colleen: It's all fake. But they don't flag him for giving fake money. This is the same place where Nancy got flagged for having a fake bill and I thought they had mixed it up. But then she pulled one out of her wallet and they're like, “See? That one's also fake!”

Meghan: Where'd she get fake money? 

Colleen: From Carson. They've been distributing it all around the area. Yeah.

Meghan: Oh.

Colleen: I also flagged the, “Let me look at a report we have here of all cults. I'll call you right back.” All three of them. “Let me, let me just, real quick.” 

Meghan: “Hmmm. It's not on there!”

Colleen: The rest of mine are just very funny phrases to me. “‘Ghosts!’ Bess exclaimed. ‘Ghosts, nothing. There's no such animal.’” Just good times from George, who doesn't care at all when her cousin is scared. So there's some random girl in the middle of the night, and “Nancy leaned out the window and called, ‘What is it you wish?’” As if she's, like, a genie or something or-

Meghan: A princess? 

Colleen: A princess? “What is it you wish? Please drop your coin in the well.” That just caught me off guard. Um, George again being so mean to her cousin, um, “‘Girls don't faint these days’”? 

Meghan: Yes! 

Colleen: “‘Probably you would have screamed and brought all the cult members down on you. They'd have dragged you off and put an end to you.’” And Bess goes, “‘Thanks, you always say the sweetest things.’” I like Bess fighting back for that. And similar to, but she didn't fall for it this time, remember when she got a [fake] telegram [that was allegedly] from Carson [but it was actually from the criminals, in a previous book]?

Meghan: Yes. 

Colleen: They are always doing this. This time it was a typewritten letter. It was typewritten and succinct. She had to return home at once. Her father needed her. She was not to communicate with him, and he could not explain why, and it was signed “Dad.” And she's like, “Hold on a second.” 

Meghan: “My father would sign this as Carson Drew!”

Colleen: But she's like, “I'm gonna call him anyway.” And then the line's been cut. But she's like, “I'm gonna go to town and use their phone and then see what's up.” And it turns out he didn't send it. But she didn't fall right for it this time. 

Meghan: Yes, she's learning. 

Colleen: Yes, and I like that. But I do feel like that would be much harder to fake if you're just texting. Maybe not, actually. 

Meghan: Yeah. 

Colleen: I don't know. I also have, when Joanne does her job interview, Nancy comments that there's no elevator, and so they climbed the dimly-lighted stairway to the third floor. And this made me look up, “When was it required by the ADA to have all public buildings fitted or retrofitted with elevators?” And this was almost gonna be my whole Gumshoe Game Show, because I looked up a lot about it. Give me a guess on a year when this was required. 

Meghan: 19...78. 

Colleen: Solid guess. 1990. 

Meghan: Oh my goodness! 

Colleen: Uh-huh!

Meghan: I thought 70s was going too late, honestly. I mean, oh. 

Colleen: And this is only public buildings, so, like, sometimes, like, churches and stuff can get out of this, because- And also specifically, it's like, “Doors must remain fully open for at least three seconds so that people can get in.” I'm like, “That's not helpful! That's not any time at all, especially if you're working with, like, crutches or whatever.” 

Meghan: Yeah! 

Colleen: “The control panel has to have Braille on it.” “Call buttons must be at least 0.75 inches in diameter.” There's a lot of very specific things, which is good because otherwise people will get around that if it's cheaper. But I just was like, “What? That's so late.” 

Meghan: I also have a bonus fact. 

Colleen: Oh yeah?

Meghan: Which is: The opposite of “Orient” is “Occident.” The Latin word “Occidens,” meaning “west.” So it's the westward word. “Occident” versus “Orient.” 

Colleen: Interesting. We've never described anybody as “Occidental.” 

Meghan: Nope. 

Colleen: That is interesting. 

Meghan: Maybe we should. 

Colleen: Maybe we should. Incredible.

[Sound Cue: The spoken words “Wound Watch” are followed by a low voice exclaiming as if punched in the stomach]

Meghan: This week on Wound Watch-

Colleen: Everyone was fine! I mean, everyone in our core three. We're always looking out for- Carson gets kidnapped a lot. Nancy has an attempting kidnapped [attempted kidnapping]. They attempted to leave her for dead, but it didn't succeed. So, uh, she didn't really get hurt. I think she got, like- Her arm got yanked, and that's about it. 

Meghan: Yeah.

Colleen: So we have no new knockouts or kidnaps. So our total Nancy Drew knockouts so far is three and same for kidnaps. Three for six.

Meghan: Okay. Go Nancy! 

Colleen: She's doing okay!

Meghan: She's working on getting a little safer. 

Colleen: Yeah, half of the books she did not get kidnapped. 

Meghan: That's awesome!

Colleen: On average.

[Sound Cue: The spoken words “Drew’s Clues” are followed by the sound of the dog from Blue’s Clues barking four times in a recognizable pattern]

Colleen: So this is the segment where we talk about things we learned about Nancy herself, sometimes her family, but mostly about Nancy, because yes, we're learning lots of clues about the mystery, but I want to know more about the detective herself. What'd you find?

Meghan: So two different things stand out to me for Drew's Clues. And they both actually kind of are within the same vein. 

Colleen: Okay.

Meghan: The first one was fairly early in the book, when they are stuck in the car during a storm, which is not the first time this has happened. 

Colleen: Yeah, this happens constantly to them. 

Meghan: But it is a pretty bad storm. During this, the text tells us, “Nancy pretended to be calm, but she really was very much worried.” And so kind of what I see here is that Nancy is someone who likes to put on a brave face for others. I think we kind of knew this about her, but we don't see a lot of times where she admits that she's, like, nervous or scared.

Colleen: I agree! Because the narrator is third person, but it's pretty much on Nancy's shoulder. 

Meghan: Exactly. 

Colleen: And we don't usually see Nancy feeling worried until she's actively being left for dead somewhere. Like- 

Meghan: Yes. Oftentimes Bess is freaking out. Everyone's like, “Oh my gosh, come on, Bess, get it together. You're fine. We're fine.” And so the fact that Nancy is also like, “Actually, yeah, this is pretty terrifying,” I think says a lot about her. Now she still does not go to Bess and be like, “You know what, Bess, you're right. This is terrifying.” And you know, who's to say which way is the correct way to respond? I personally tend to be a little bit more, like, empathetic. Like, “Yep, this is scary, but we're going to get through this. I'm also nervous.”

Colleen: Right, “I'm acknowledging that there is a negativity here [with this situation].” 

Meghan: Yes. That doesn't mean that Nancy is incorrect in putting on a brave face. Um, but the second one is also kind of a time that I see Nancy not being 100% successful at the first- So I guess these are, I don't want to say these are negative things we've learned about her at all. 

Colleen: Right!

Meghan: They actually, to me, kind of humanize her a little bit more. 

Colleen: She's not this godlike Barbie all the time.

Meghan: Exactly, exactly. And that is when she learns how to milk the cow. She's the last one. 

Colleen: Oh yeah!

Meghan: They make fun of Bess because Bess can't do it. Nancy struggles as well. 

Colleen: She does!

Meghan: And she does succeed eventually, but it says that it was “awkward.” And there is [are] very few times, I feel like, that Nancy is ever described as awkward. 

Colleen: Agreed. 

Meghan: And so that really stood out to me and made me like her all that much more, because I am someone who does not succeed the first time I try everything. 

Colleen: Especially with milking a cow. I mean, like, when did she interface with that before? 

Meghan: Exactly. And Nancy just tends to be so good at everything else she tries. It's nice to see her be a little human. 

Colleen: I like that a lot. It really goes with mine, because the reason they're learning to the cow is they're helping out around, at, the farm-slash-kind-of-B&B-but-mostly-farm-at-this-time. And so they're learning, like, “Here's how we, you know, put the horse in and out of pasture,” et cetera. But at home she helps out too. Like, Hannah Gruen is objectively their housekeeper. It says she's the mother figure, but she is the housekeeper. They pay her. But Nancy doesn't get started on her decoding of these quote unquote “stock numbers” until she's done helping Hannah with the chores. And I love that because, I mean, you're paying her money. You technically don't have to, but, like, if you are saying she's your mother figure, you had better be helping her with the stuff in your house.

Meghan: Exactly.

Colleen: I feel Carson should too, but he's busy lawyering, et cetera. But I really love that for Nancy, and I feel like [it] has happened in many books.

Meghan: Yes. 

Colleen: Where she's helping with the cooking and the cleaning.

Meghan: She's a very helpful person.

Colleen: I really like that. I also love that- It's kind of the opposite of yours, but it's more about her perseverance, because she has not decoded stuff before, which is interesting. 

Meghan: Yes. 

Colleen: So she gets these numbers. She's like, “This is not stock numbers. Some of them have, like, tildes over them. This is not what stocks are.” And so her dad's like, “Ah, I got a book on codes. You can test it out. Like, I'm not super good at it, but I've got a reference book.” She's like, “Absolutely. I'd like to try.” He's like, “Oh, yeah, you can, you know, test out your sleuthing mind, but if you don't figure out the code, you can always turn it over to an expert.” And she goes, “‘Not until I've had a fighting chance at it myself.’” And she says that “with spirit.” 

Meghan: Yes! 

Colleen: And then it turns out she's really good at it, and cracks it in two hours. And in fact, later, the Secret Service are like, “This is one of the most baffling cases of counterfeiting the United States has ever had. How ever did you do it, Nancy?” So on the other hand, she's not great at milking a cow, but she does solve one of the most baffling cases in the history of the United States and counterfeiting schemes, so, you know. Oh! Also she might have a short-term memory loss problem or something.

Meghan: Tell me more!

Colleen: That may not be the correct- It might have been long-term, but she goes shopping, and then the girl faints on the train, and then there's a creepy guy, and then the girl gets off the train, and [Joanne is] like, “This is- I'm ready to go for my job interview here in Riverside Heights.” And Nancy's like, “This is fully a different city named River Heights, and yes, it is annoying, but you're in the wrong place.” And the girl's like, “Oh no, I need this job.” And there's a lot going on. But she gets home. She goes, “I can't remember when so much ever happened to me in one day.” And it's, like, “Nancy, you've got kidnapped and locked in a closet on other days.” 

Meghan:Yes! 

Colleen: “Like, this was a lot, but this is by far not your most.”

Meghan: “You've been, like, half-drowned.” 

Colleen: Right!
Meghan: You've-

Colleen: “You were in a submarine! There's other days that have had as much, if not objectively more, going on!” 

Meghan: Yes! “And a lot of the things that you've dealt with in this book, you've already dealt with before!”

Colleen: Yes, objectively so many. We were running out of ideas by book six. I do love how much I'm like, “We've seen the car stuck in the mud before, we've seen the dirt road get rained out before, we've seen the note from Carson that's a fraud.” There's so much happening [in] this [book that] she's already dealt with. 

Meghan: The cave! There's a cave!

Colleen: There's a cave with a mystery in it. Oh my god.

Meghan: Aw. Yeah, maybe Nancy has taken a few too many... 

Colleen: Lumps to the head?

Meghan: Yeah. 

Colleen: Yeah, we're worried about her. She also had brain cobwebs starting in book one, so this might be some of that coming back. 

Meghan: Yeah, those brain cobwebs. 

Colleen: Those are nasty. They'll get you every time.

[Sound Cue: Simple piano tune underneath the spoken words “Sleuthing Skills”]

Meghan: We've now come to Sleuthing Skills, the part of the show where we tell you what skills you need to be working on just like our dear Nancy Drew. 

Colleen: These are things you should already have in your back pocket before you even start your first mystery, just so you know.

Meghan: Yeah, so make sure you are working on these skills.

Colleen: Before you get a case across your desk. 

Meghan: Yes, yes. yes. However. Side note. Nancy does learn new skills in this book.

Colleen: That's true!

Meghan: That help her with her sleuthing. So occasionally there might be an example of something that you can learn on the go, but we don't- 

Colleen: But most of these you should have. 

Meghan: Most of these you should have down, exactly. 

Colleen: Oh yeah. I think one of the most important skills that Nancy, uh, shows in this is, um, her math skills. And this shows up in two different places. Now, one, she has these stock numbers with the tildes and the underlines and all these different things. They're not stock numbers. They're, uh, they are talking about, like, a meeting that the cult is calling. And she frantically scribbles them and carefully keeps them in their right order. I don't know about you, but when I write down numbers, they just go all over the page wherever I want. And so this is just a really important skill when you are writing down a code. You can't do that. You have to keep them in order, because then the code won't work. 

Meghan: It's true. It's true. 

Colleen: And then her math shows up later in a chapter called “Money Money.” One “Money” short of the hit song by ABBA-slash-Mamma-Mia-the-musical. And this is: “Nancy did some mental arithmetic and came to the conclusion that three steady boarders who paid their bills regularly might help to lessen the amount of the mortgage interest payments that threatened Red Gate.” So it's not only important to know how to do arithmetic, but it's important to know that arithmetic is just kind of guessing about numbers. It's not-

Meghan: That's what I do!

Colleen: Yeah, it's just knowing that no money plus some money equals good? Question mark? And that's what arithmetic is all about, Charlie Brown. So you do need to know that. 

Meghan: Amazing. I think we saw this in a previous book as well, but I just wanted to make sure we re-emphasize how important it is to be able to memorize a license plate.

Colleen: Mm, we have seen that!

Meghan: Pretty instantly. 

Colleen: “Instinctively,” I believe it says. 

Meghan: Yes, she does it twice in this book. 

Colleen: It's part of her math skills. 

Meghan: Yes, she's very good with numbers. 

Colleen: I love that.

Meghan: And you should be too. 

Colleen: You should be too! So when the car gets stuck in the mud, you have to get out the two pieces of heavy burlap that you keep in your trunk at all times, and use that to get your car out of the rain. There's a combo of pushing, revving the engine, and having the burlap for some traction. So not only do you need to use this burlap, you just have to have it. At all times. Uh, I don't ever carry burlap around? So I'm not ready to go sleuthing just yet. 

Meghan: Now, side note, I did once get my car stuck in some muddy slush in Colorado. 

Colleen: Gross!

Meghan: And had the exact same problem that Nancy-

Colleen: [clapping to emphasize each word] Did you have burlap?!

Meghan: I did not. But I did have a pile of gravel near me, and so I got-

Colleen: In your car?!

Meghan: Nope. 

Colleen: Okay.

Meghan: Just next to the, the parking lot I was stuck in. And so I just grabbed handfuls and put them behind my wheels, and it gave me enough traction to back out, so it did work.

Colleen: See? I think that's a good sleuthing skill, because you didn't pack your burlap. 

Meghan: I did not.

Colleen: You neglected the burlap-packing that you gotta do every morning. Every morning you put more ones in there in case they've run out. 

Meghan: I've fallen very behind.

Colleen: But you used what was around you. 

Meghan: Yep, you do. You, you, you gotta look around. 

Colleen: That's good. That's very good. 

Meghan: Um, I think I have one more Sleuthing Skill. Okay, this is about first aid.

Colleen: Is this when George gets bit[ten] by a snake?

Meghan: Oh! George gets bit[ten] by a snake and assumedly [presumably] it is not a poisonous snake and there are no complications, because it, like, happens. They take care of it, and then it's never mentioned ever again. When it happens, Nancy has a tiny pair of scissors in her bag. She cuts George's skin into, like, a cross to bleed it out.

Colleen: I've seen that.

Meghan: She tourniquets the leg. 

Colleen: So that the, above and below the cut, or the bite-

Meghan: Yeah, it doesn't recirculate. And she wants to sterilize the scissors before cutting her friend's leg open. 

Colleen: Which I appreciate. 

Meghan: And she pours parts of the perfume on it. 

Colleen: I don't know that. That... 

Meghan: Yeah, I'm not sure about that part. However, perfumes, I'm pretty sure are alcohol-based?

Colleen: Okay!

Meghan: So at least-

Colleen: Well, I just really appreciate- What she says is, “‘Let's make tourniquets, girls!’” I just appreciate her can-do attitude. Oh, a really important sleuthing skill is kind of, like, communicating without speaking. Now this can come in handy in like, “Oh we're, we're trapped in this,” you know, “You should run,” or, like, “Look at him, he's got a hammer,” or, you know, something like that. In this case, though, this is more of an emotional communication. This is right near the end. They're saying, “‘Guess this will teach you girls to mix with the Black Snake Colony,’ says a raucous voice.” Wild adjective. And they're, you know, gonna be left for dead. “Nancy held back a retort but her icy look told the man she did not appreciate the remark.” So vital! 

Meghan: You've got to be able to serve some looks. 

Colleen: Please let the bad guys know that you don't appreciate their remarks! Going back to her math skills, there's a couple letters with, like, the squigglies and the stuff under it, and they're not really sure what they stand for. And she suddenly goes, “‘M! M! Why, that could stand for Maurice. Maybe that man's name is Maurice.’” And Bess goes, “‘Now I'll sleep better.’” And you solved it. That's the only thing M can stand for. You did it. And she knows that because of her math. Sixteen is M, and that's the number that she sees. You also have to know- She sees one of the rude guys at the gas station, and, um, they had a Texas ID. 

Meghan: [gasp]

Colleen: I know. But she goes, “‘None of those suspicious men talked like a Texan. The driver's license may have been forged!’” And you have to know that it is easier to fake official government documentation than an accent. That is really important to know and definitely true. I almost forgot one very important sleuthing skill. You have to be so good at advertising that multiple people comment and say you should go into that instead of detectiving. Did you notice this at the end? She makes the cave where they're doing the counterfeiting- She puts up, like, dummies to represent what they were doing. 

Meghan: “This is what it looked like!”

Colleen: Yeah, it's like a giant human-sized diorama of, like, “See the mysterious cavern used by counterfeiters, Admission: fifty cents.” And then she makes another sign about, like, “Regain health at Red Gate Farm, boarders by the day or week.” And there's all this traffic, and they're raising money, and they make thirty dollars, which means sixty people came to see this on the first day. And her dad's like- The last line of the book is, “‘Nancy, as I think of your adventure at Red Gate Farm, I can't decide whether you're better as a detective or as a promoter.’” So you just have to be, like, good at other jobs too. 

Meghan: Yup!

Colleen: That's very important.

[Sound Cue: Four distinct drum beats that mimic the opening of the song “Accidentally in Love” by Counting Crows, followed by the sung words “Accidentally Gay”]

Colleen: This is the segment where we find things in the books that may not have been intended to be gay, but do read that way to ours, or least my, uh, biased eyes. Some of this is, they'll just say “gay” or “queer” as an adjective, meaning “happy” or “weird.” Some of this is just what I know about queer people, being one myself.

Meghan: Oftentimes what I catch are the ones of, “The word ‘queer’ doesn't have the same connotations today as it did then, but it makes it more fun to read!”

Colleen: Exactly!

Meghan: So, um, this is when Joanne is explaining who, how they rent part of the property to this cult. She's like, “Oh, by the way, there's this cavern.” And they're like, “Oh my god, I would love to go into a cave.” “Well, actually, you can't. Because-” And she says, she says, “‘I don't see why we can't. It's still our land.’ Joanne frowned. ‘A queer lot of people are renting it, though.’” 

Colleen: “Oh, nature cults, they're always so queer.”

Meghan: Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised. 

Colleen: Yeah. 

Meghan: And if this were just a typical friendly queer nature cult. 

Colleen: A little commune?

Meghan: I think this would have been great!

Colleen: That's how I play Stardew Valley. You know this.

Meghan: Yeah, that is the plot of Stardew Valley for many players, including Colleen. 

Colleen: Including me specifically. 

Meghan: And so that sounds like a wonderful place. 

Colleen: And they don't wear white sheets at all [in Stardew Valley]. 

Meghan: No! But yeah, that's one of the Accidentally Gays I have. What about you? 

Colleen: Oh, I initially had shipped Nancy and Joanne for the first little bit. I mentioned this earlier, because, you know, Nancy sees her. She's like, “Aw, this sweet-looking girl. She looks so polite. She looks so sweet.” She mentions so many times how sweet she looks, and how pretty and good-looking. And then Joanne later is like, “Call me Jo, because we're going to know each other for a while.” It's very cute. And she wants Nancy to go with her to her job interview because she's nervous. But it just kind of falls by the wayside, so I don't ship them specifically, but I do really like the [vibes].

Meghan: Nancy's had- She's had more chemistry with some of our other one-off characters. 

Colleen: Helen, specifically. And I need to follow up and see if Helen's still with that weird husband who came out of nowhere. Fiancé, who came out of nowhere. 

Meghan: Jim. 

Colleen: So I gotta follow up and see if Helen's in book seven, because she was not mentioned at all. But most of my stuff is about George being, uh, specifically coming off as butch here. Like, we've seen this before. 

Meghan: I mean, it's a common reading of George. 

Colleen: Oh yeah, oh yeah. Love this. She's got the short hair. She's got the manly name, and they mention that. They're like, “She's got a boyish haircut, and a boyish name, but this is a girl, don't worry.” When Bess and George and Nancy are gonna go be boarders on this farm, Bess is like, “Oh I was gonna visit my aunt, but we can reschedule that.” And George is like, “I'm gonna miss out on a camping trip!” 

Meghan: Yep. 

Colleen: Yep. 

Meghan: That tracks.

Colleen: Exactly. And then later when she gets bit by a snake, of course she “stoically did not make a sound the entire time.” George is, is a butch icon and we love to see it. 

Meghan: I feel like we- I'll be honest, this was not my favorite of the books we've read so far. But I do appreciate [that] we got a little bit more characterization for Bess and George. 

Colleen: I agree. 

Meghan: Because we had- 

Colleen: And George wasn't as mean to Bess. 

Meghan: Yes. 

Colleen: Like, teasing, but not mean. 

Meghan: Yeah, the dynamics felt a lot-

Colleen: More like what you remember? 

Meghan: Yes. Yes. We're getting into the- 

Colleen: Yeah, so although the plot and the racism was, those were both not great. 

Meghan: Yeah, I would say the characterization. 

Colleen: Yes. 

Meghan: You know, we got a little bit more humanity for Nancy. 

Colleen: Yes!

Meghan: We got more interactions between Bess and George that weren't so [focused on] George just being mean to Bess.

Colleen: Just bullying her cousin. Like, Bess either stands up and, like, kind of banters back. It's more banter than just bullying. And Bess is, like, also, like, “Hey you know what? Yeah, I'm putting on the pounds, but who cares? It's a sundae and I love it.” 

Meghan: Yeah, exactly. 

Colleen: I really like this for the characterization of our main three. 

Meghan: Yes. I agree. 

Colleen: I want more of Helen. I like Helen. I hope she comes back. 

Meghan: Me too.

Colleen: Yeah. My other Accidentally Gay is just Nancy, when they're, like, “Ooh, you know, you should see if Carl Junior will come around more. He really likes you, Nancy.” And Bess goes, “Well, Carl Junior wouldn't be so bad, but imagine having that guy, the cranky boarder, for a father-in-law.” Nancy's like, “You do the imagining. I'm going outside. You have fun with that, that's not for me.” That's not necessarily queer, it could just be aromantic. [Note from Transcription-Colleen: Obviously aromanticism and asexuality fall under the queer umbrella! My apologies for this phrasing, especially with any diminutive implication from the word “just”; I meant to imply that Nancy’s disinterest does not necessarily imply that she’s into women, but could mean she’s not into anyone!] That could be anything. It's like, “Hey, I'm literally so busy with my sleuthing.”

Meghan: She is so tired of being shipped with all of these guys.

Colleen: Truly! And I'm sorry, Nancy.

Meghan: Because if we're not doing it, Bess is doing it for her!

Colleen: Exactly! Sometimes even George.

[Sound Cue: Scribbling as of a pencil on paper underneath the spoken words “Miscellaneous Mysteries”]

Meghan: In this segment, Miscellaneous Mysteries, we look at any lingering questions that we have. Things that didn't fit really into any particular other segment. And so we'll get started with talking about the Secret Service. 

Colleen: Yeah, I mentioned them briefly in my limerick and perhaps throughout this. They came to look at the counterfeit bills. And when I think “Secret Service,” I think “The president's bodyguards.” What do you think? 

Meghan: And that's exactly what I thought too. And I was like, “What the heck?” And so this did inspire another Wikipedia rabbit hole. 

Colleen: We love to see it. 

Meghan: Which is about the Secret Service. The Secret Service was established in the 1880s by Abraham Lincoln. 

Colleen: Heard of him. 

Meghan: Specifically to stop the counterfeiting issue that the United States was having. 

Colleen: He probably cares about that because he's on two of the money. 

Meghan: Yes, he didn't want them to make the fake money with his face. He wanted to protect his image. No. But the Secret Service was not put in charge of protecting government leaders and officials until much later. And even to this day, it still has divisions in charge of, like, cyber-crime and hacking and things like that. 

Colleen: [whispering] Cyber-crime…

Meghan: So not only do they protect the president, and it used to be just the president. Then when Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated, they were like, “Also maybe-”

Colleen: “I guess the family members.”

Meghan: “Family members and other people who are running for office.” 

Colleen: Past presidents, right? 

Meghan: Yes. And so now they've kind of, like, expanded that part, but they weren't- Their initial job was actually about counterfeiting. 

Colleen: Interesting. So this is very normal.

Meghan: Yes. 

Colleen: To them. 

Meghan: To us, maybe this would have been a good one in Blast from the Past now, but it ends up in Miscellaneous Mysteries. 

Colleen: Yeah, when I first saw [that] they were like, “Yeah, we're the Secret Service. We're here to look at this money.” I was like, “So this is definitely fake people pretending to be the Secret Service, right? Because that's not what they do.” And then they went on and [the characters] was [were] like, “Yeah, this is very normal. And we all know that the Secret Service does this.” I'm like, “Okay, I'll just let that one slide.” 

Meghan: Yeah, “Is the President also about to appear?” 

Colleen: “Does he need a sundae? Does he need a fake twenty? We got both!” Incredible.

Meghan: Do you have any other Miscellaneous Mysteries?

Colleen: I just had a couple left over. So Nancy gets accosted by this guy on the train because she smells like this spilled perfume. He goes, “‘Any word from The Chief?’” And she's like, “What's going on? I'm bewildered. This doesn't make any sense to me.” Girl, you talk to a guy that you call The Chief all the time. This is Chief McGinnis. You called him two or three times in this book. “‘Any word from the chief,’ I don't know what that means!”

Meghan: And she's like, “I don't know anyone named Chief.” 

Colleen: I mean, you're right. He's not named Chief, but, like, this said “The Chief.” And that would make perfect sense for describing Chief McGinnis. Why… Why was this so baffling? Like, yes, this wasn't a message for you, but it definitely could have been, and that's on you, Nancy. One of my other mysteries is why are Riverside Heights and River Heights named in such a way? They're only a few miles apart. The names are confusing even to people who live near here, apparently. Why do we do that? 

Meghan: Why? 

Colleen: Why is it still that? Yeah, signs are expensive, but so are all the people that are going [to] the wrong place all the time. One of my other mysteries is, What does Bess think caves are? She hears there's a cave. She's excited. She says “‘How exciting!’” She says, “‘What kind is it? A home for bears or a pirate's den?’” I have a new gender dichotomy for you. Are you a home for bears or are you a pirate's den? Personally I would call myself more of a pirate's den, I think. I think I'm not a home for bears. I think that's not what I'm into. 

Meghan: I don't know. I think I might be a home for bears. I don't know.

Colleen: You might be a home for bears? I like that. I just think it's very funny. Like, “Yeah, I know about caves. These are the two types of cave. It's me, Bess, Cave Expert.” And my other thing is, what do they mean by their “grotesque motions”? They talk about the fake dancing, or, I mean, I guess it can be real dancing. Dancing is what you feel. But it does say that they, the people [in the “cult”] are not taking the dancing seriously. Once they get up close enough to hear it, they see, A, every member's doing a different dance. It's not, like, choreographed. They're just kind of moving around. And, B, they're complaining, like, “How much longer do we have to do these stupid motions?” And they're like, “Until the people think that we're crazy and they never come visit us and they'll never look at our counterfeiting. Mwahaha.” But every single time, it's described as “grotesque motions.” Are they just flipping people off? What are they doing? What is this? Does that mean something else? I'm gonna google it right now, but I'm-

Meghan: Yeah, “meaning of grotesque”? 

Colleen: I've only known it to mean “gross,” right? 

Meghan: Yeah, gross, disgusting. 

Colleen: Oh, but wait, what about a grotesque on a building? Isn't that, like, a gargoyle? Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Okay, [reading from the internet] “In the early 17th century,” which it's not in this book, to be clear. This is at merriam-webster.com. [reading from the internet again] “A style of decorative art characterized by fanciful or fantastic human and animal forms often interwoven with foliage or similar figures that may distort the natural into absurdity, ugliness, or a caricature.” So maybe not quite a gargoyle, but along those lines.

Meghan: Yeah!
Colleen: Let me do a little google-image “grotesque on a building.” Oh! Like these guys!

Meghan: Yessss.

Colleen: We've seen these guys.

Meghan: Yesssss.

Colleen: Like, that's not a real guy. He's a little gross, but mostly it's just weird. Okay, okay. Okay, that's all my Miscellaneous Mysteries

[Sound Cue: Upbeat synthesizer chords reminiscent of a game show introduction play underneath the spoken words “Gumshoe Game Show!”]

Colleen: Welcome to the Gumshoe Game Show! Now, normally, Meghan you are playing for the gift that Nancy gets in the book. 

Meghan: Yes. 

Colleen: I feel like I startled you by saying your name. I'm so sorry. 

Meghan: Ah!

Colleen: “Oh god!” 

Meghan: That's me!

Colleen: I'm sorry. Meghan, you're our contestant today. And normally we're playing for either the gift that she got in the book or something we think is better. So previously, you've won an old clock. You've won a tricorn hat. You've won an aquamarine ring. You've won a diamond pin in the form of a lilac spray, and a watch with a heart carved in. Nancy didn't get jack in this book. She received no gifts. It's very sad. It's fair. They're poor as heck, I mean, but previously it's been, like, “Even though we're so poor, we'll give you this gift, a token of our love.” So what would you like to play for today? 

Meghan: I think I would like the gooey sundae that they ate. More than once, I think. 

Colleen: There were several gooey sundae occurrences. All right, I'll make sure to mail that out if you win it. Nice and temperature-controlled.

Meghan: Gooey. 

Colleen: It's going to be extra gooey. Alright, so as we discussed, the Blue Jade perfume was a recurring theme in this book. Do you know where I'm going with this? You look apprehensive. 

Meghan: I do feel apprehensive. 

Colleen: You feel apprehensive. That's great, that's how game shows are supposed to-

Meghan: I always feel apprehensive. 

Colleen: That's not related! That's just Meghan! And me. Anyway, this quiz, the Gumshoe Game Show for today, is about blue nouns. Just a variety of blue nouns. 

Meghan: Okay?

Colleen: I think that they'll either be very easy or not easy at all. But there's a variety of bonus questions involved. 

Meghan: Okay, thank goodness.

Colleen: So there's ways to make up the points. 

Meghan: I haven't-

Colleen: Are you ready? 

Meghan: Yeah, I haven't lost at all yet. 

Colleen: Yeah, you've won every prize so far so. 

Meghan: The pressure mounts. 

Colleen: The pressure does mount, are you feeling blue? 

Meghan: I'm feeling blue. 

Colleen: OK, good. Blue Noun Number One: Blue Dogs. Which of these animated dogs is not blue? 

Meghan: Okay. 

Colleen: We have A) Blue from Blue's Clues. 

Meghan: Hmm.

Colleen: B) Huckleberry Hound from The Huckleberry Hound Show. I hate the look that you're giving me as you write. I didn't know- Oh. I was going to say “I didn't know you could write and look at people at the same time,” and the answer is: She can't! 

Meghan: Yup!

Colleen: Option C) We have Chilli Heeler, née Cattle, the mom from Bluey. You're welcome for including her maiden name. I looked up the entire family tree. 

Meghan: Oh my. Okay.

Colleen: Option D) Bandit Heeler, not née anything, the dad from Bluey. Which one is not blue? 

Meghan: I'm pretty sure it's Chilli, Bluey's mom. 

Colleen: Correct! She married into the blue family. Very good. 

Meghan: I was gonna say, “I think she's tan.”

Colleen: She's, like, a tan. Very good. Blue Noun Number Two: Blue Steel. What movie features a male model whose iconic pose featuring pur- Yes! Just like that! Featuring pursed lips and sucked-in cheeks was called “Blue Steel.” I feel that she already knows without the choices, but I do want to give you the choices so our audience can play along. 

Meghan: Okay.

Colleen: We have A) Zoolander, B) Zootopia, C) We Bought A Zoo, or D) Magic Mike 3: Magic Mike's Last Dance. 

Meghan: It's a tough one, but I think it's Zoolander.

Colleen: It is Zoolander! And for a bonus point, what year did this movie come out?

Meghan: Oo.

Colleen: Here's a hint that won't help, I watched it for the first time in college! I thought it had come out then! It didn't! 

Meghan: I figured it was before then. 

Colleen: It is before then.

Meghan: I am going to guess. 200...6. 

Colleen: 2001! That was a bonus point, that's okay. It came out almost two weeks to the day after 9/11. 

Meghan: Oh! 

Colleen: Blue Noun Number Three: The Blue Man Group. 

Meghan: Oh boy.

Colleen: What TV show features a character- You know it! 

Meghan: [excited wordless sound]

Colleen: It was either you're gonna instantly know it, or not know it at all. What TV show features a character who aspires to be a part of the Blue Man Group, initially assuming it's for depressed (blue) men, but he is still interested when he finds out what it really is, to the point of wearing full-body blue paint around the house? Is it A) Parks and Rec, B) The Office, C) Arrested Development, D) Killing Eve? 

Meghan: All of those are great shows. 

Colleen: Three are more similar than the other. 

Meghan: Three are more similar than the other. That's from Arrested Development. 

Colleen: It is. For a bonus, what is the name of the character? 

Meghan: That is Tobias Fünke. 

Colleen: Very good. 

Meghan: Doctor Tobias Fünke. Apologies. 

Colleen: Oh, very good. Blue Noun Number Four! You're doing great. 

Meghan: I feel good. 

Colleen: You should feel good. 

Meghan: But I'm a little worried about this one. 

Colleen: That's all right. What is the fabled Bluebeard known for? A) Setting his beard on fire to intimidate enemies, B) Roaming the seven seas for gold on the ship The Black Falcon, C) Slitting the throats of his half-dozen wives, stashing their corpses in the basement of his castle and telling the other- the newest wife not to look, or D) Getting silver poisoning? Talk me through your thought process.

Meghan: What's, what's his name again? 

Colleen: His name is Bluebeard. 

Meghan: Bluebeard. I thought he was a Viking, but maybe I'm mixing him up with someone else. One of the Vikings is the origin of the symbol for Bluetooth. 

Colleen: Is that what you're thinking of? 

Meghan: That is what I'm thinking of!

Colleen: I was going to say it, but I didn't know if that would give it away. Yeah, you're thinking of Bluetooth. 

Meghan: Okay, not Bluebeard. 

Colleen: His name is, I believe, Eric Bluetooth or something like that. 

Meghan: Oh! I like that! I like- That's why I was thinking, and it being on a ship. 

Colleen: Harald Bluetooth. I sound so foolish when I say Eric.

Meghan: I'm guessing between B and C. I'm thinking now, Bluebeard maybe is an English pirate. 

Colleen: Does it help if I tell you the country of origin? 

Meghan: Yes, but maybe not. 

Colleen: France! 

Meghan: Aw, god. That doesn't help. 

Colleen: You said it would! 

Meghan: I know! I said it maybe [would help]. I corrected myself. I'm going to go with...C.

Colleen: Very good. This is a fable. This is, like, almost Beauty and the Beast. But he just keeps killing the wives, slitting their throats, stashing them in the basement, and is like, “You can go anywhere in the castle except the basement. This is where the key is, but don't go in there!”

Meghan: “Don't look!”

Colleen: And then when they go in there, he kills that wife, too. 

Meghan: Aw, sad. 

Colleen: I don't think he's even a pirate. The first one was Blackbeard, although he didn't actually set his hair on fire. He set little, like, uh, like, candles and stuff and, and pieces of fuse in his hair and his beard to intimidate his enemies. And the second one was Redbeard. And the last one was, people who take little silver supplements turn blue. And that was- Don't do that. It's often irreversible. 

Meghan: Oh my goodness! 

Colleen: It's not good for you. Don't do this. 

Meghan: Okay, I won't!
Colleen: And Blue Noun Number Five. Now you have gotten, yeah, you have five out of four because you have gotten a bonus. 

Meghan: Oh my goodness. I already win? 

Colleen: You already win. 

Meghan: But I still want the last question. 

Colleen: Which is why for this one, there are no multiple choice.

Meghan: Oh boy. 

Colleen: What artist and what Disney protagonists are each known (this is two different people), are each known for having a Blue Period?

Meghan: Okay, it is Elvis Presley, and Lilo from Lilo and Stitch. 

Colleen: I will give that to you. I was thinking painting artist Picasso, famously.

Meghan: Oh!

Colleen: But I will allow that she styles herself after Elvis Presley. I believe Picasso was meant to be the one with the Blue Period.

Meghan: I think you're right, so I think I get half. 

Colleen: You get half on that one. 

Meghan: But it was Lilo. 

Colleen: It was Lilo. 

Meghan: [high-pitched shrill Lilo imitation] “‘That's from my Blue Period!’” 

Colleen: Exactly. And I will say the bonus half-point for the imitation of the exact quotation when Stitch rips the painting

Meghan: I thought I did also a very good vocal imitation of her voice. 

Colleen: Yeah! That was very good. 

Meghan: Thank you.

Colleen: She's quite shrill. She's got a lot going on. So you do in fact win an ooey-gooey sundae, made extra gooey, perhaps, by its posting in the mail. Very, very good.

[Sound cue: Same eerie piano tune reminiscent of the Nancy Drew PC game soundtracks that played at the top of the episode, now extended to play underneath the rest of the episode.] 

Meghan: Thank you so much for joining us on Me and You and Nancy Drew. 

Colleen: This podcast is lovingly dedicated to the memory of my wonderful mother, Char, World's Best Mum, and the woman who got me hooked on sassy female detective stories. I also want to thank my brother, Ben, for creating most of our sound and music cues for this podcast. Thanks, Ben.

Meghan: You can check out our website, meandyouandnancydrew.com, for show transcripts, links to our social media, and our Patreon, where we'll post any images that we described during the podcast. Those will be visible to anyone without a paywall, so that we're not describing nebulous images that you can't see at home. Um, but if you'd like to become a patron, there are various perks there, including outtakes or things that got cut for time, stickers and cross-stitch patterns to create your own Drewseum at home, and more. 

Colleen: Thank you, Meghan, for editing the podcast, doing a lot of research about podcast creation, and adding a few additional sound cues as needed.

Meghan: Thank you, Colleen, for also editing the podcast, for transcribing it, and for helping create our logo. 

Colleen: Thank you to our partners for all the support and love, and especially for lending us their microphones that they bought for a completely different purpose but said we could borrow once in a while. 

Meghan: Thank you to libraries everywhere for giving access to Nancy Drew books, and all the other books that we mentioned today, and just media of all kinds, to people everywhere for free.

Colleen: And finally, thank you, of course, to Carolyn Keene, for independently writing each of the Nancy Drew books from 1930 to modern day. We couldn’t do this without you and your 613 individual novels.

Meghan: And don’t forget the moral of this episode: “‘I'd rather be pleasantly plump than give up sundaes.’”