The Hardy Boys Season 2 - What We Know So Far

Hulu's "The Hardy Boys," a dark and gritty reimagining of the classic eponymous book series by Franklin W. Dixon, is creeping closer and closer to a Season 2 release date. This "Riverdale"-esque modern adaptation, which respectively stars Rohan Campbell and Alexander Elliot as Frank and Joe Hardy, sprinkles in some supernatural flair in order to draw in an audience. So far, the Generation Z-friendly take on the franchise seems to be a hit. The show has earned a 71% critic rating and a 67% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes, as well as an average rating of 7.0 on IMDb.

Naturally, this has fans ready and eager to find out more info regarding the upcoming season. When will it be released? Who's coming back, and who's leaving? What can fans expect in Season 2? There aren't too many concrete details out just yet, but here's what we do know about what's to come.

According to an exclusive news report from Variety, production on "The Hardy Boys" Season 2 is slated to start at the end of June 2021 and, with any luck, everything will be filmed and wrapped up in time for a 2022 release date. As far as the exact month and day, well ... that's another mystery that Joe and Frank have yet to solve. But it's easy enough to speculate.

Several news sources, including Kidscreen, first announced that the production of Season 1 began in the fall of 2019. There were 13 episodes in total, and the production value was fairly substantial, which usually requires a little more time in the proverbial oven for a show to cook to perfection. In the case of "The Hardy Boys," it was a little over a year before the first season debuted on Hulu (U.S.) and YTV (Canada) on December 4, 2020. 

According to the show's IMDb page, though, Season 2 is only going to be 10 episodes long. Based on these clues from the show's production history, fans who are eager to see what happens next for the denizens of Bridgeport might have to wait for a late summer or early fall release.

According to IMDb and Variety, the nine main members of the ensemble cast will be coming back for Season 2, including the Hardy brothers themselves (Rohan Campbell and Alexander Elliot), Aunt Trudy (Bea Santos), Biff Hooper (Riley O'Donnell), and Janet Porter (Laura Hardy).

Strangely, though, Porter is only credited for the first 13 episodes of Season 1, while the other main cast members are credited as being involved in all 23 episodes. What does this mean? Well, it could be something as simple as a typographical error. An alternate hypothesis could be that the editors and producers plan to use recycled footage of her from Season 1 for plot-relevant flashbacks in the upcoming season. Or maybe they're planning on something entirely different that nobody has guessed at yet? Regardless, these questions will eventually be answered as production wraps up and Season 2 approaches.

The Variety exclusive teases at a few plot points for Season 2 but doesn't go into much detail. According to their reporting, the show's timeline will pick up six months from where Season 1 left off. The plot kicks off when "a local Bridgeport teen goes missing and a shadowy corporation moves into town." Again, this raises a lot of questions.

Will the missing teen be a member of the main cast, or someone entirely new? Either way, it's safe to guess that the Hardy Boys and their amateur detective friends will make a heroic effort to find the missing teen and bring them home safely. It's also probably safe to guess that a "shadowy corporation" moving into town and a child going missing at the same time aren't mere coincidences. But what is this mysterious organization? What do they want? And do they have anything to do with the mysterious artifact from Season 1? In a worst-case scenario, we won't have answers until next year when Season 2 is expected to debut.