Nancy gets messages from Ryan and her friends, worried about her after her breakup with Ace. Nancy ignores them all and mopes in sweats while binge-eating her berry sorbet.

When Nancy hears something outside, she investigates and finds a head hanging from a hook, a girl running and screaming, and a man in a mask chasing her. Nancy picks up a broken log and hits the man, then realizes that she's stumbled onto the set of a horror film.

Lacey McCallister, the podcaster who Nancy met at DetectiveCon and helped catch the Frozen Hearts killer, is the film's director. It's a remake of Long Hook, a horror film made in Horseshoe Bay in the 1990s. But strange things are happening on set. They keep getting interference and strange voices on the walkie-talkies, faulty lights, and bizarre noises in the trailers. Nancy offers to find out what's happening. Lacey turns her down.

Nancy decides to investigate the strange occurrences on set anyway to pull her out of her funk. Ryan offers to help as he's an expert on the original film.

While on set, a message is left on the lead actress' mirror, You Will Die Today. Lacey hires Nancy to investigate. Ryan and Bess, who has a small role in the film, help interview the crew.

Bess learns that Doug Vexler was hired to play the Hook but got fired after one day. But he's still working on set as the first assistant director. But Doug says he was relieved to be fired before he quit. He almost got a heat stroke in that costume.

Doug worked on the set of the original Long Hook in the '90s, where the director, Jim Stanley, would pull pranks to terrorize the crew and set the mood. He swapped in a real prop during rehearsal, and an actor lost two toes. But Jim Stanley died just before the release of the original film.

Nancy finds an old video of Jim on set yelling at his actors and realizes that's the same sound she heard in the feedback of the walkie-talkies. Nancy plans to find a ritual to cleanse Jim's ghost from the set, but it doesn't work.

Bess gets hurt on set when a real hook ends up amongst all the fake ones in her scene. Jim used to do things like that to get authentic performances from his actors. Lacey tells Nancy to do whatever she has to to get rid of his ghost.

With Ace's help, Ryan learns that Jim Stanley passed out in the bathtub and drowned in room 204 of The Breaker Hotel. It was ruled an accidental death.

When Lacey checks out the bathroom set, she suddenly can't get out of the room. The lights flicker, and industrial lights crash over a water-filled bathtub. Lacey is okay, but Chief Lovett stops all filming on the set until further notice.

The film crew will be shooting at The Claw. George wants to get more bottled water to ensure there's enough, but Nick isn't sure it's necessary because no one has had an incident in over a week. George disagrees.

Councilwoman Brie has failed to attend meetings with Nick and George, and she last posted on social media almost a week ago. Nick points out she was a daily poster.

When Nick is upset that George had Ace track Brie's phone to find her, she accuses him of being less curious and less invested in the truth.

Brie's house is being used as a filming location, and the stunt crew has been drinking the tap water. Doug reluctantly shares with Nancy that he kept the water away from the rest of the crew because he thinks he saw their veins turn black when they drank it.

Also, Doug and Brie were both PAs on the original crew of Long Hook in the '90s. He hoped to catch up with her, but no one has seen her.

George and Nick find Brie in a rental vacation house. Nancy calls George and tells her about the water and that she suspects Brie had something to do with the director's death in the '90s.

Brie admits that she had nothing but great memories of working on the movie 27 years ago, which is why she offered her house for the new film. But about a week ago, memories came flooding back about what a nightmare it had been on set. She panicked and hid out in this rental house.

Jim Stanley was powerful and dangerous enough to jeopardize all of their futures. He needed to be stopped. Brie and some other crew members decided to rig one big scare to give Jim a taste of his own medicine. Jim was so scared that he passed out and fell into the bath water. Brie could have saved him, but she just watched because she hated him so much.

At Nancy's, the members of the stunt department, who drank the water, show up to terrorize Lacey. When Lacey tries to run, she finds the doors locked. When they grab her, she fights back but crashes into a window. A shard of glass stabs her in the stomach. She asks the crew members to help her, but they just stand there and watch.

Nancy finds her and calls an ambulance. Bess brings the supernatural stomach pump for the crew. They were recreating what happened on the original set in the 1990s. Bess mentions that she gave her vintage earrings to Tristan as collateral to use the pump again.

But the stomach pump shorts out after it helps the crew, and it's one of a kind. Nancy says she'll fix it before his parents need to know.

Brie tells the Drew Crew her story. That after Jim had died, she went to her father, who knew how to make it go away by paying a visit to the black door. He never told her where or what the black door was, and he passed away a few years ago.

Brie reluctantly agrees to resign from the town council. After Brie leaves, Nick and George both say they're sorry. George admits their breakup has been more of an adjustment than expected, but she misses her best friend. Nick agrees to them giving each other less space.

George encourages Nick to lobby for the open town council seat, and he agrees.

Once Lacey has recovered, Nancy finds them filming at The Claw. Lacey pays Nancy, who doesn't look happy. Nancy thought working would help her feel better, but it hasn't. Lacey can relate. Her grandmother died just before she started filming. She thought the film would help until she realized that sometimes you must grieve to feel something again.

Ace uncovers that Brie's dad was friends with Judge Abbott.

Both Nancy and Ace look longingly at old texts from one another. Nancy almost texts Ace saying she misses him, but then deletes it. Ryan assures Nancy that she'll eventually get over Ace. Then they watch the original Long Hook together to get their minds off him.