18x02: Files 42: The Wrong Chemistry!

Nancy takes on like 8 mysteries in this one. Cute guy with amnesia who apparently escaped the Sea Org? Check. Bearded klepto with rage issues? Check. Hit and run driver? Harpist's missing sister? Ned's raging libido? Hippie with a scorpion fetish trying to sabotage a music festival and screw up Carson's street cred? PTSD? All of the above, thanks!

Gather round and listen to the Nancy Drew/X-Files/LSD crossover you have never in your life wanted. Nancy and her entire entourage head to The Forest to hunt a UFO! They run into a Grizzled Kindly Mountain Guy/Animal Whisperer! Nancy and Ned talk to each other telepathically! It's the most bonkers thing ever.

A very Afterschool Special-y Files adventure featuring scarily aggressive football players, the main guy from Office Space, Edgar Allan Poe's goofy cousin, and the principal from Ferris Bueller.

Big cats in zoos? Boring. Big cats in passenger vehicles? Heck yeah. Nancy and her entourage are investigating the theft of several civets (Babou!) from the River Heights Zoo because George's hot (dumb) crush Owen is prime suspect. Owen is a charisma vacuum. Nancy is the most accurate 18 year old she's been yet for this plot. Also she leaves a villain to potentially be fatally mauled and it's fab. Ned has an answering machine message cameo but it's cute!

Nancy is framed! Sadly, she doesn't go on the lam with Ned and end up in a seedy motel room. Some hussy slapped on a wig, borrowed Nancy's name, and bilked some rich idiots in Ned's hometown out of some cash, and Nancy is of course the prime suspect. Bess goes full Spirit Halloween and turns Nancy into River Heights's cattiest reporter. Light B&E! Perp walking! This one has it all!

Nancy heads to Emerson to help the least competent admin, Dean Jarvis, find out who has been stealing a really lowkey dangerous compound from a research lab on campus and runs into an ecofascist maniac who is ready to speedrun a violent police confrontation. It's a lot! Complete with callbacks to Files 8, my villain origin story!

It's Halloween and Ned's working on a marketing project with some VERY dramatic Emerson seniors! They're in River Heights giving out free samples of proto Proactiv and being snippy. Also, Bess falls for one of said seniors before literally falling out of her chair. Nancy, Ned, and George try to find out what KO'd Bess, and of course there's some making out. And pumpkins. Fantasy cast is Ryan Gosling, Jonah Hill, Florence Pugh, Anne Hathaway, and a cameo from Kevin Nealon because why not.

Nancy's father asks her to connect with a jeweler, Mr. Moto, who was robbed of an expensive pearl necklace which belongs to a socialite (Paris Hilton). Nancy and Carson end up heading to Japan and are threatened with math riddles! Then they come back and Ned escorts Nancy to a cult party while they're in full prom. It's bonkers and the last of the Mystery Stories (real ones, anyway)!

In which Nancy channels Steve Irwin and hangs out with wildlife. Carson's old college buddy Mr. Gonzalez has fallen for a crypto scam and Nancy and the girls head to Florida to check it out. This one is flat out bonkers. There are also submarines, though, so at least there's that.

In which the lambs are quite loud! Nancy's old friend, whose family owns a pretty big sheep farm, invites Nancy to check out a mysterious parchment picture that her dad recently bought, and then Nancy gets involved in a weird Hitchcock/Sopranos crossover episode featuring human trafficking. So, a normal week for her. Also, Nancy invites her entire entourage to the farm for some undercover work, as usual.