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Ace H .[1] is a main character in The CW's 2019 television series Nancy Drew. Ace is portrayed by Alex Saxon.

Ace initially works at The Claw and becomes a member of the Drew Crew.

Appearance

Ace has wavy, dirty blond hair, and blue eyes.

Character

Ace is officially described as an "amiable burnout"[2] He has a habit of consuming the food at The Claw restaurant, which sometimes caused them to run out of their stocks too early when serving customers. He is also a self-taught hacker, which had previously gotten him in trouble with the law.

History

Ace was born in 1998, making him 21 at the start of Season 1 (set in late 2019). He is the son of the former police officer and state cop, Captain Thom, and Rebecca, a librarian. When Ace was a child his father was injured in an accident, which rendered him deaf. It was a time of great fear for Ace. His self-taught computer hacking skills got him in legal trouble in the past, after he was caught hacking into a federal database.

As an adult, Ace works at The Claw restaurant with Nancy Drew (2019 character) and George Fan, Bess Marvin,

Plot summary

Season 1

As an adult, having graduated high school a couple of years ago, Ace works at The Claw as a dishwasher under manager George Fan. When Tiffany Hudson is found murdered in the parking lot by Nancy Drew, Ace comes outside to investigate and is arrested alongside George, Nancy, Ned "Nick" Nickerson, and Bess Marvin. Ace is released by the police and excluded from their list of suspects. Nancy brings a phone recording that captured Tiffany's last moments to her co-workers, asking their opinion on the strange phenomenon that occurs on-screen. Ace and Bess are in agreement that a ghost killed Tiffany. Ace is initially excluded from the groups antics as they don't view him as genuine since he isn't a suspect. Bess is willing ask for his help in stalling the Hudson's driver from picking up Tiffany's body by feigning car trouble. Ace observes Bess's behavior around the driver Lisbeth, and asks if she dates girls to which she admits to not being interested in dating anyone yet. With that, they agree to be "platanchors", platonic anchors, for one another. He even asks Nancy to help Bess when her van is destroyed, leaving her homeless.

Ace also communicates with Chief McGinnis under the rouse that he is a "weed guy", feeding McGinnis information on the others. McGinnis asks Ace to investigate Laura Tandy, Tiffany's sister and Ace's ex-girlfriend, as McGinnis wants to know what Laura knows about Tiffany's death. Laura reveals that Tiffany was planning to divorce Ryan, prompting Ace to admit that he and his friends were suspects. He also reveals that Tiffany called the police the night she died so there is an audio recording of the call. Laura, intrigued, asks for his help in obtaining it through his hacking skills and though he initially declines, he eventually folds. When Laura plays the recording at Tiffany's funeral, she confides in Ace that she desperately wants to catch her sisters killing and they rekindle their romance. Ace, however, is also in trouble with Chief McGinnis over leaking the audio recording.

Laura steals a mysterious thumb drive from Nick that was gifted to him by Tiffany, and The Claw is hired to cater a charity gala by Owen Marvin. Nick recruits Ace's help in retrieving the thumb drive and is angered when Laura reveals they only have one chance left at entering a password before the thumb drive erases itself. She refuses to give the drive to Nick, wanting to do this together. Ace is able to convince Laura to help them and they access the drive, learning that Tiffany was collecting hundreds of documents pertaining to the Hudson family and their company. When Ace becomes suspicious of Laura's involvement in her sisters death, he begins to investigate and learns that Laura stood to inherit Tiffany's money. At the same time, Nancy learns of Ace's arrangement with Chief McGinnis and that Ace is working off a felony charge by acting as McGinnis's informant. With their trust shattered, she refuses to lend him any help or listen to his reasonings. He attempts to win back her trust by recording a conversation with Laura on their way out of town, though their car crashes and places Ace in a coma.

When Ace refuses to awaken despite his medical status being cleared, McGinnis reveals to Nancy that he knew Ace's father from his time on the force, and that he fears Ace's soul has separated from his body due to the trauma of the crash. McGinnis gathers Nancy, George, and Carson to form a spirit circle that sends George to the spirit world to retrieve Ace's wandering spirit. Nancy also believes that someone intentionally tampered with Laura's car to trigger the crash. After much difficulty, George finds Ace's spirit in the form of a young boy, having been sent back to the last traumatic event in his life - his fathers accident. George convinces Ace to come back though he remains in a coma. Nancy uses a clue George found to expose Officer Rawley, the dirty cop responsible for the accident. When he wakes up, Nancy forgives him for his lies and they become friends once more. He introduces her to his father former police Captain Thom, who assists Nancy in her investigation of a poison that is associated with a serial killer case that Thom worked.[3]

Season 2

The group learned that their visions are portents from the Aglaeca, detailing how she planned to kill them. Nancy is distracted by Detective Abe Tamura, who suspects her in a comatose girl’s accident since her last words before becoming comatose was “Nancy Drew”. She works alongside the Drew Crew to learn that the girl, Amanda Bobbsey, was planning to sell the Drew Crew a mirror allegedly used by the original Women in White. They track down Amanda’s twin brother Gil Bobbsey and save him from the Gorham Wraith, a vengeful woodland spirit that feeds off fear. After saving Gil they learn that the mirror contained a sea shanty that the Aglaeca recorded over. As Nancy and the Drew Crew follow leads to defeating the Aglaeca, a former Aglaeca victim latches onto Nick. They get rid of the spirit but learn that the spirit and the other Aglaeca victims died within seven days of making their deals. With only three days left, Nancy and Ace track down the only surviving Aglaeca victim and learn that he has dodged the Aglaeca by surrounding himself with other angry spirits. He later allows himself to succumb to the Aglaeca’s wrath.

With 46 hours left before the Aglaeca comes for them, Nancy plots with the Drew Crew to build a dybbuk box to trap the Aglaeca, now known as Odette Lamar. Ace builds the box with help from Nick and they add important objects from the spirit’s life. They succeed in drawing Odette to the box, though she destroys it. With only a day left to stop the Aglaeca, and all their plans have failed, the group began to turn on each other except Ace, who remained calm in the face of his impending doom. Determined, Nancy later figures out that they can use the Aglaeca’s portents against her. Everyone goes to the places where their portents take place, and the group admits to one another their regrets just in case. Ace confesses that he hacked into witness protection to get someone’s phone number but didn’t call them. Bess admits to taking Ace’s pocket knife, George’s jewelry, and Nick’s fab, but she wants to try and stop stealing things if she lives. Ace promises to help her.

They use their portents so Ace and the Drew Crew believe they have won until they experience a new death vision of them all on the floor of The Claw having died, as they didn’t kill the Aglaeca only angered her. Ace decided to call the witness protection number and left a voicemail that he might their brother. Nancy later concocted a plan to revert the Aglaeca into her human form, though the blast Odette released upon her transformation threw everyone backward. George was impaled with a harpoon and died in Nick’s arms, surrounded by her friends. Nancy resurrected George using an ancient shroud.

Ace spent the next few weeks in a relaxing state talking to Bess and Nancy. He joined game night at the Drew House where he discovered that Nancy had a corpse in her cabinet courtesy of a new paranormal mystery. He didn’t hesitate to jump back into the mystery-solving world as it gave him a sense of purpose. Nick later opened up to Ace about George acting strange since she died, so Ace volunteered to talk with her. He was able to get her to open up by speaking about his experience. In the following case, Ace worked with Nancy, Bess, and George to solve the disappearance of a young woman from the Murder Hotel. He properly met Amanda Bobbsey as she worked at the hotel. He helped hack into the security footage for the hotel and uploaded it to his and Nancy’s private server. Once the case was solved Amanda admitted that she knew what he did and just wanted to be told the truth next time. Ace also learned that an English man came to town in search of his wife - Bess.

He helped Bess prepare a speech to Aunt Diana on her past mistakes then trained the new line cook. When Nancy and George are kidnapped by Bess’s estranged fake husband, Ace and Nick work together to pinpoint their exact location. They arrived just in time to blow out the candle that would have triggered an explosion. Ace disabled the constrictor knot that bound Nancy and George together, per his time in the Eagle Scouts. Bess, however, was exiled from the Marvin family and felt like an outcast. Ace slept on the Drew House’s floor to comfort Bess in her time of need. An emergency at The Claw pulled him away and he learned that someone broke in stole the shroud that brought George back. If the shroud is used again it will kill George.

The Drew Crew deduced that Ace was the only one who could have told someone, and he admitted that he told Amanda Bobbsey. He was adamant that she wouldn’t betray his confidence, though when they arrived at her trailer he learned that her brother Gil knew about the shroud because he read Ace's and Amanda's chat on her phone. Gil planned to use the shroud to resurrect the man he suspected of killing his mother. Ace and Amanda worked together to locate the shroud by checking Gil’s hiding spots. She opened up to him about her childhood and he did the same. With the shroud recovered and the Bobbsey family case solved, Ace poured over newspaper clippings in an attempt to locate Rosemary Bobbsey, Amanda and Gil’s mother, as she hadn’t died but rather admitted to a psychiatric hospital. He told Amanda of his findings and she thanked him with a kiss. He then received a text message from his long-lost brother.

Ace’s brother scheduled to meet him but instead left a hand-carved wooden box with a picture of his mother inside. Ace planned to follow up on the box since he discovered a similar one in his house, but was distracted when Nick suddenly went missing. He, Nancy, and the Drew Crew learned that Nick knew the name of a dangerous creature that killed people who knew its name. To protect himself, Nick used memory gas that eliminated his memories of everything and everyone. In an attempt to figure out who the creature was, they all learned its name and were trapped in a loop of failed attempts to kill the creature. With only one dose of gas left, they decided to spread the creature’s name to as many people as possible in the hopes that it would weaken the creature. Ace broadcasted the video across social media using a troll botting program. Their plan worked and the Grimathorne resorted back into an idol doll.

Ace wanted to tell Thom about his half-brother and Thom’s son but decided against the idea. He went to Nick’s new loft to celebrate the purchase when Grant, The Claw’s new line cook, arrived in search of Ace. He abruptly revealed himself as Ace’s half-brother and that he needed his help. Grant revealed that an old associate of his mother, a murder-for-hire named Daniel West, learned of their WITSEC placement and infiltrated the team tasked with their protection, and threatened to kill her if Grant doesn’t give Daniel what he wanted. They go to Nancy for help and she helps them track down the location where Grant’s mother hid a device. Ace and Grant worked together to gather makeshift gear for their trek into the tunnels when they encountered Thom and Rebecca. Grant chose not to tell Thom of his identity and Ace respected the choice for the time being.

The men had a hard time relating to one another due to their vastly different personas and tastes. During their venture into the tunnels, the beams collapsed which forced Nancy, Ace, and Grant to work together in creating a pathway for Grant and Nancy. Grant froze when it was his turn, though Ace guided him through just in time. They learned the device held the names of every witness that helped take down the Holt Group, a shell company that laundered money to murder-for-hires such as Daniel West. Daniel was tired of his WITSEC life and sought the list for the people who owned the Holt Group - The Road Back. The device was password protected and to gain the password, Ace had to tell his father the truth about Grant’s existence. Shortly after relaying the password to Grant and Nancy, Ace was abducted by Daniel and held for ransom: Ace in exchange for the device. Ace begged Nancy not to give Daniel the device as he couldn’t bear to have the deaths of all those people on him. Nancy handed the device over to Daniel to save Daniel as she couldn’t lose him. She made a deal with Celia Hudson to retrieve the device without hurting Daniel. Ace was skeptical of Celia and disappointed in Nancy, though Celia ultimately upheld her end of the bargain.

Ace and Grant locked the device in a safety box at the Historical Society. Ace then helped translate a meeting between Grant and Thom. Grant, however, had to return to WITSEC with his mother and left Horseshoe Bay after an emotional night with his brother and father. With Grant gone, Ace faces the emotional fallout of not having a sibling and leans on Amanda for support. He continues to assist the Drew Crew in their many endeavors, including a meeting with Tom Swift, the take down of Everett Hudson, and the destruction of the parasitic Wraith attached to Nancy. He is proud of Nancy for ending her relationship with Gil and finally seeing that Gil wasn’t a good influence. This strikes conflict in his relationship with Amanda, as she wants to cancel their road trip to support Gil. Ace helps Nancy and the Drew Crew track down Temperance Hudson’s ancestor, as Temperance created the Wraith attached to Nancy using an artifact. Nancy has a dreamscape experience that makes her realize that she has feelings for Ace, who had manifested in her mind to help her through her childhood trauma. With Nancy finally severed from the Wraith, Ace calls Amanda to tell her that he understands why she has to support Gil, but they have to start prioritizing one another too. Nancy goes to confess her feelings to Ace but he’s already left for his road trip. Ace and Amanda stop for sightseeing and photos. He admits that he can’t help but feel as though he left something behind.[4]

Season 3

Ace returns to Horseshoe Bay within one week after leaving on his road trip with Amanda Bobbsey.

Season 4

Ace works at the morgue and spends most of his time there. He meets a ghost and he develops a crush on the ghost. Ace and nancy gets together

Quotes

"Live like it's your last lifetime. " —Nancy to Ace in The Light Between Lives[2]

Well, I can be your anchor. Your platonic anchor. Call that a platanchor.
— Ace to Bess in The Secret of the Old Morgue.Live like it's your last lifetime.
Hello. You don't know me, but I think that I'm your brother. And I wanted you to know who I am before it's too late.
— Ace to a stranger on the phone in The Drowned Woman.[source]

Image gallery

Main article: Ace/Gallery

Trivia

  • He knows ASL (American Sign Language) since his father lost his hearing due to working a dangerous case.
  • In The Whisper Box, his counterpart is fairly similar to his primary counterpart. This would make sense as he was created just for the 2019 series.
  • In The Secret of the Old Morgue, he calls his car "Florence" when Bess caught him talking to it.
  • Ace has been the dishwasher at The Claw for three years suggesting he's older than the rest of The Drew Crew. [5]
  • Ace's family name has not been revealed in the series. There's a popular fan theory that Ace's last name is Hardy, as in The Hardy Boys. Further supporting this theory was the appearance of his long lost older brother who was called 'Grant' due to being under witness protection believed by fans as a result to have the birth name of Frank. His initials were revealed to be A.H. in the series finale,[1] suggesting that the fan theory could be correct. Producer Larry Teng wouldn't directly confirm it, but he has said that he's known Ace's last name from "day one, episode one."[6] Note that the series did not have rights to The Hardy Boys, which were in use for an unrelated series with Hulu.

Appearances

As a lead character, Ace appears in almost every episode of season 1; he does not appear in the episodes The Hidden Staircase and The Phantom of Bonny Scot. Ace appears as a child in The Path of Shadows. He appears in every episode of season 2, season 3, and season 4.

Nancy Drew 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Season 1
Season 2
Season 3 N/A
Season 4 N/A

Navigation

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 Ace's initials were revealed in the season 4 finale episode The Light Between Lives, when the Drew Crew carves their initials at The Claw.
  2. KSite TV: [1].
  3. Nancy Drew Season 1
  4. Nancy Drew Season 2
  5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giNKTAWCqu4
  6. TV Line, Nancy Drew Team Breaks Down Series Finale’s Biggest Moments, Including That Long-Awaited Ace Reveal by Andy Swift. August 23, 2023.
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