Nancy Drew season 4 episode 4 recap: Who was Jim Stanley? 

The final season of Nancy Drew has becoming increasingly terrifying as the season progresses. The show has seen a variety of villains, but it looks like the Drew Crew's main objective this time is to fight zombies.

This episode of Nancy Drew, titled The Return of the Killer's Hook, saw Nancy investigating the ghost of a dead film director named Jim Stanley. This episode was directed by Pascal Verschooris and written by Jen Vestuto and Melissa Marlette. It was released on June 21, 2023, on The CW. Nancy Drew is based on stories by American author Edward Stratemeyer.

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Nancy Drew season 4 episode 4 recap: Was Jim Stanley murdered?

In the previous episode, Nancy broke up with Ace. The latest episode saw a heartbroken Nancy ignoring the messages of her friends and sulking on her own, when she heard a sound outside. She went out to check what it was and saw a masked man chasing a woman with a hook.

Nancy took the man down with a weapon only to realize that a film's shooting was in progress. Lacey, an old friend of Nancy's, was the director of the film, which was a remake of a 1990 horror film called Long Hook. Lacey explained that there were regular paranormal occurrences on the set.

Nancy began her investigation and realized that the hauntings were orchestrated by the ghost of the director of the original 1990 film, Jim Stanley. He had died just before the film was released. Nancy tried to perform a cleansing ritual to drive the ghost away, but it didn't work.

More paranormal activities began to take place, and Lacey decided to stop the shooting until further notice. They soon decided to change the location of the shooting to The Claw, but that too was risky because of the contaminated water.

George and Nick spoke to Brie, who, along with Dough, was a PA during the original film's production, about her experience working on the film. She explained how terrible Jim Stanley was and even admitted that the reason Jim had died was because of her. The stunt crew who drank contaminated water began attacking Lacey, and her crew members didn't even help her.

Luckily, Tristian's father's supernatural stomach pump was used to help the stunt crew. Lancey recovered soon from the aftermath of the attack. Brie then revealed to Nancy and his friends that Jim's spirit could be driven away after a visit to the black door. Unfortunately, nobody knew what or where the black door was.

At the end of the episode, Nancy and Ace were seen reading each other's texts. They were missing each other but couldn't do anything about it.

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Nancy Drew synopsis

According to Rotten Tomatoes, the synopsis of the show reads,

"Nancy Drew is a brilliant teen detective whose sense of self had come from solving mysteries in her hometown of Horseshoe Bay, Maine -- until her mother's untimely death derails Nancy's college plans. Devastated by her mother's passing, Nancy swears off crime-solving while crossing off the days until she can reapply to college."

It further states,

"But when a socialite is murdered, Nancy finds herself a prime suspect in the crime, along with a group of other teens present at the scene: Nancy's nemesis from high school, George Fan; a rich girl with a mysterious past, Bess Marvin; Nancy's secret boyfriend, Ned "Nick" Nickerson and amiable burnout Ace. The five of them must team up to clear their own names, encountering emotional entanglements and even more mysteries along the way."

Nancy Drew stars Kennedy McMann, Leah Lewis, Maddison Jaizani, Tunji Kasim, Alex Saxon, Alvina August, Riley Smith, and Scott Wolf.