'The Hardy Boys' Ending Explained: Who killed Laura Hardy? Here's what happens to the Eye in Episode 13
Spoilers for 'The Hardy Boys' Season 1 Episode 13
It takes 13 hour-long episodes to figure out the one murder mystery that the plot of the Hulu reboot kicks off with. Sometimes the plot drags, but never for once does the new young adult addition to Hulu's slate digress from the burning question surrounding the murder of our titular Hardy Boys' mother, Laura Hardy. In the end, the answer comes really close to the person viewers would have laid their suspicion on throughout. Luckily, there aren't many loose ends to tie, except the other burning question, that is what happens to the Eye - the reason why Laura was murdered?
Let's start with the first one. Laura's death is made to look like a car accident, but really it wasn't. At the end of the series, we find out that it was her mother's butler and closest consort Estefan who had killed Laura and staged it to look like an accident. The reason? Laura had discovered that her mother was trying to patch the Eye back together. The Eye is at the center of the plot as a magical rock resembling artifact that makes the owner look beyond current times and into the outcome of every event, thus bringing in a supernatural element to the plot. Laura's mother, Gloria Esterbrook's father had stumbled upon the Eye along with two other men during a mining accident, thus weaving the three families into a life filled with dirty money, estates, success, and heavy corruption.
The plan was to use the Eye to control governments and influence inventions to suit their greedy pursuits, but once the Esterbrook patriarch realized how morbid their agenda had become, he decided to shelve the eye forever. The other two men involved - Nabokov and Khan weren't ready for that. So together they decided to split the Eye into three parts so each family would control how they use the object and keep their conscience from going distraught. Unfortunately, George was on his way with his share of the object when his plane crashed and he died - thus revealing the cursed aspects of messing with the Eye. The other two founders' deaths soon followed, and none of them were natural causes.
Thereafter nobody had used the object until Gloria decided to dig out the debris of George's aircraft and immediately, the Nabokovs sent a man to steal it off their hands. Thus begins a sinister game between the three families once again, surrounding who can assemble the full object back together and use it for their own pursuits, but before that can happen, Laura figures everything out. She had been an investigative journalist and confronted her mother that she would publish an expose if Gloria didn't stoop assembling the Eye. Gloria, greedy and insatiable for the power the Eye possesses, chose the object over her daughter. But she didn't plan the murder; during Laura's last heated confrontation, Estefan heard the argument and followed Laura on her way back from her hometown to the city, and caused her car to crash on the way.
The answer comes out in the final moments of the show when the newer generation of three families conspire to put the Eye back together, and they succeed so far as to charge up the heavy energy flow in the Eye. But of course, the Hardy boys stop them from stealing it for themselves and the cops arrive right in time to arrest Gloria for killing Nabokov, and confiscate the Eye too. At the end of the series, with all the power vested in the object, it is taken into police custody. Nobody outside the three families and local cop Jesse Hooper who helps them knows of the Eye's potential, and thus it becomes dormant for now. Whether it is used again is something that is yet to be seen, if there is a Season 2. But chances of that are dim, as the ending is pretty conclusive.
'The Hardy Boys' is now available for streaming only on Hulu.