Episode Recap: Nightmare in Jasper

As we near the finish of Town of the Living Dead's first season, the production of Thr33 Days Dead is running off the rails … and it's absolutely captivating.

At the conclusion of the last episode, the cast and crew were served a cease-and-desist notice by Jasper's police department. Going forward, they're prohibited from shooting anywhere in the county. It seems like the kind of news that would shut down production entirely on any other movie, but this isn't any other movie: Thr33 Days Dead has the intrepid and fearless Tina Teeter!

Tina's solution is to have Gary, whom she considers an excellent graffiti artist, recreate downtown Jasper in her backyard using spray paint. "Picasso don’t have sh** on me!" says the artist himself. In reality, Gary’s set looks awful and John refuses to shoot it. "There's no way we can make this work unless we’re shooting some surreal dream sequence for Sesame Street," John says.

John's bad mood carries over to dinner when the crew congregates at Jasper Diner. "I'm not letting that crap we shot today go in my first film," John tells the crew. John's temper reaches a boiling point when the waitress brings him a plate of potatoes when he actually ordered grits (Chase notes that when a Southern man orders grits, you do NOT bring him potatoes). John smashes the plate of taters to the ground and storms out, quitting his job as director of Thr33 Days Dead and leaving his stunned friends behind with their jaws on the floor.

Tina decides to plow ahead without John at the helm. The next day, she shoots a boat scene in her backyard and directs it herself ... never mind that there's no lake in Tina's yard and the boat is on dry land. "If I can do this myself, I will," Tina announces. The hard truth is: She can't. The scene looks terrible and John's leadership and artistic vision are sorely missed.

Meanwhile, John is finally enjoying life now that he's not burdened with directing a zombie movie, working hard at his day job at Radio Shack, juicing and doing yoga. And when he almost drowns at his first swimming lesson, he points out that learning to swim is harder than directing zombies.

Tina rounds up the crew and tells them they need to get their director back. She cleverly calls this top-secret mission, "Operation: John." When she asks the team what John likes, Terry quickly answers, "Wrestling, women and gore," and from there Tina commences with a three-part plan to win John back.

The first part is to have Gary take John to a wrestling match, after which some wrestlers will ask him how the movie's going. The plan somewhat backfires when the experience makes John realize that he'd rather be a wrestler than a film director.

The second part of Tina's plan is to send a zombie extra who John has a crush on into Radio Shack wearing full zombie makeup. Tina's sure that this will lure her director back, but it weirds him out more than anything.

Tina's about to give up when Chase comes up with a brilliant plan: They should have someone famous talk to John. The only way to get a famous person to go to Jasper, Alabama, is to nab someone from a horror convention in nearby Birmingham. Chase discovers that Robert Englund, aka Freddy Krueger, is appearing at the con, so Tina, Laura, Bryan and Chase plan to wait outside Englund's hotel and ambush him when her arrives.

When Englund arrives, it's no huge surprise that he initially refuses Tina's request, but Tina turns up the old Teeter charm and soon enough the horror icon agrees to talk to John. Moments later, Englund surprises John at his house, gleefully growling, "Nightmare in Jasper!" John invites Englund inside, leaving us to wait till the next episode to find out what happens next ...