SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for the “Little House on the Prairie” reboot through episode 2, now streaming on Netflix.

Few things scare viewers of OG’s “Little House on the Prairie” as much as Laura Ingalls’ childhood bully, Nellie Oleson, on a bad day. But Netflix’s updated version of the beloved story takes things to a very meta level with a creepy scene that pays homage to that iconic pop culture foe.

In episode 2 of the Netflix remake of “Little House on the Prairie,” young Laura Ingalls (Alice Halsey) and her older sister Mary (Skywalker Hughes) become lost in the wilderness near their new home on the prairie of Independence, Kansas, in the 1870s. As “Ma” Caroline (Crosby Fitzgerald) and “Pa” Charles (Luke Bracey) struggle to find them, the girls stumble upon a trio of nefarious-looking people in the forest, including Ida, played by Alison Arngrim, the actress best known for her role as Nellie Oleson on NBC’s “Little House on the Prairie.”

While every version of “Little House” is a survival story, the Netflix show sticks to its family roots, and the scariest part of the scene is a dirty, disheveled Ida (Arngrim) trying to hold the girls hostage until John Edwards (Warren Christie) quickly arrives to save the day. Still, it’s a completely different side of Arngrim than audiences have seen before.

“I always had the idea that I wanted Alison Arngrim to be on the show,” “Little House on the Prairie” showrunner Rebecca Sonnenshine tells Variety. “So when I was writing episode 2, I said to a couple of friends, ‘I want Alison Arngrim to play this lady, do you think she would do it?’ And they said, ‘maybe!’ And then all this time later, when I was able to do it, she said yes. I read his autobiography and it is very good. She is so smart, cool, interesting and fun. And she did it; She came to the show and it was very exciting. She was such a good sport. She said, ‘Can I put more things on my teeth?’ Sure! Go ahead!”

Once Sonnenshine landed the Arngirm cameo, he had a hard time keeping it a secret, especially because he forgot that he had already told people about his dream casting.

“Then one of my friends asked me, ‘Did you get Nellie?’ And I said, ‘It was a big secret! Wait, who told you? And they say, ‘You did it!’” Sonnenshine says. “Oh, right, I’ve wanted to do this for a long time. That’s right, I forgot about it two years ago and I was like, ‘I want Nellie on my show, I wonder if she would do it.'”

The fun inclusion of Arngrim as a villain is just one of the ways the new “Little House” pays homage to the original “Little House,” which aired for nine seasons on NBC from 1974 to 1983. Sonnenshine also reunited with many other members of the original cast, including Melissa Gilbert (who played Laura), and both shows are produced by the Friendly family through Friendly Family Productions.

“[Executive producer] Trip Friendly is very involved with the cast of the original show and the events, and I had the opportunity to meet many of them,” says Sonnenshine. “I went to an event called ‘LauraPalooza’ and met Dean Butler (Almanzo Wilder) and Charlotte Stewart, who played Eva Beadle Simms, who was so fascinating. And one of the actresses who had played Grace (a role shared by Brenda Turnbaugh and Wendi Turnbaugh, now Wendi Lou Lee). So I got to meet some of those people, and they were very nice and very excited. They say, ‘We tell everyone to watch it!'”

But Sonnenshine, who calls Gilbert “the sweetest, most charming person in the world” and “an icon,” is quick to remind that that’s not the case. his Laura and “we do not own the original series.”

“We don’t license it. We have nothing to do with it,” says Sonnenshine. “But obviously we’ll overlap even with things that weren’t in the books, because we’re based on real life, just like they did.”

“Little House” has already been renewed for a second season on Netflix and is currently underway with season 2 episodes, which will feature the introduction of Willa Dunn as the new Nellie Oleson. But since Sonnenshine is first and foremost a fan of Wilder’s “Little House” book series that started it all, she relies more on the text and less on referencing Arngrim’s performance.

“I watched some of that when I was a kid, but I didn’t have cable when I was a kid, so I didn’t get to watch it all the time,” Sonnenshine says. “I had to see if the antenna would pick it up. And then I couldn’t watch it in reruns because I didn’t have cable, so I didn’t watch much of the old series. I think I went back and watched the pilot just to see what they did, but for the most part it’s just from the books.”