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But Hub mysteriously comes back to life, courtesy of the Devil. We never see the Devil, but he has shell company Pot O’ Gold and emissary Midge (Jolene Purdy) who forces Hub to retrieve wayward demons in his town. (This particular Satan is inexplicably trapped in 1991 as evidenced by the fact he offers a $10-a-minute 1-900 helpline and sends demon info to Hub via fax machine.)

Hub, harboring a secret that could explain why he was condemned to hell, decides to use his “bonus” time among the living to reconcile with his country music singer ex-wife Maryanne (Sugarland lead singer and ex-Atlantan Jennifer Nettles) and teenage son Cade (Maxwell Jenkins.). Hub’s one major obstacle: former Boston mobster Lucky (Damon Herriman) came to town, fell in love with Maryanne and moved in with her and Cade.

The series rides heavily on Bacon’s rough-hewn charismatic shoulders. And Bacon ― whose extensive resumé includes a raft of films like “Footloose,” “Apollo 13″ and “Mystic River” ― doesn’t flinch.

He smokes a cigarette with a hole in his throat, then casually tapes the hole with duct tape. Later, he convinces his son to skip school and help him bounty hunt. He charms his ex-wife back into his good graces by telling her about his demon dilemma while painting Lucky as the worse human being.

“Kevin is good at playing a grizzled ne’re-do-well,” said the show’s creator Grainger David, who grew up in Atlanta and now lives in South Carolina. “No matter what he does, you’re still rooting for him.”

Oleson said Bacon also provided expertise as an executive producer: “Kev helped build the show out. He was my partner, determining how to mash up the tone and make it right. He’d give different takes, some more comedic, others more dramatic and we’d have choices.”

In the end, the show’s tone favors light over dark. “We could have treated these demonic events with alarm, like, let’s bring in the FBI!” Oleson said. “But the secret sauce of the show is how matter-of-fact and homey and DYI everyone is about it. We have a demon in the back? Let’s grab a chainsaw!”

It also doesn’t hurt that 66-year-old Bacon is a longtime musician. One half of the Bacon Brothers duo, he was able to go toe to toe with Nettles, singing songs with her in a few flashbacks.

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Nettles, who has had a fruitful singing career as part of Sugarland and as a solo artist, said for years she has actively shied away in her acting career from singing roles, worried it could limit her opportunities. She dabbled in different genres such as HBO’s comedy “The Righteous Gemstones,” a version of the horror franchise “The Exorcist” and the historical drama “Harriet.”

But “The Bondsman” was too juicy for her to pass up.

“I read it as a Southerner,” she said. “Oftentimes, people can get that very wrong. It’s a very nuanced culture. I read this script and thought, ‘They have someone on the inside!’”

Indeed, David has family in Ellijay, the locale that inspired the series. He saw Bacon and Nettles as an Appalachian Johnny and June Carter Cash. Nettles said it took some time to get comfortable with the opportunity.

“I did a test reading with Kevin,” Nettles said. “Talk about nerves. He’s an icon. The show (theme) is the stuff of nightmares. But getting to work with Kevin and this cast is the stuff of dreams for sure.”

In fact, Bacon and Nettles enjoyed each other’s company so much that they offered to record several original songs for the series and are releasing a nine-cut album “The Bondsman: Hell and Back” out April 4.

“The Bondsman” was shot in Grantville (population: 3,278), 50 miles south of downtown Atlanta, and Senoia’s Riverwood Studios, home of “The Walking Dead” for more than a decade.

Many of “The Bondsman” crew members worked on “The Walking Dead” as well.

“It was like a ‘Walking Dead’ reunion,” David said. “They were already a well-oiled machine. I loved working with them.”

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Critics have embraced the show’s cheeky horror milieu with a largely positive Rotten Tomatoes rating so far, and Bacon is getting no shortage of kudos.

“He’s the main attraction of this apocalyptic affair,” writes Nick Schager of the Daily Beast, “confirming for the umpteenth time that he’s a performer of amazing dexterity, as comfortable expressing grim torment as he is at being clownish and confused.”

One of the most memorable scenes from season 1 is a shirtless, bloodied Bacon spending several seconds crunching the skull and brains of a demon with a chainsaw.

“I was debating whether to cut it off earlier but everybody said it was so fun,” Oleson said. “Hopefully, it will become an iconic Kevin Bacon meme or GIF that circulates for the rest of our natural lives.”

Ever since the “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” game was invented in 1994, Bacon has been the king of self-deprecation. (In Atlanta, he is known for showing up at the Dad’s Garage bacon-themed Baconfest fundraiser in 2012, then taping promotional videos for the improv group.)

“I knew I made it in Hollywood,” Oleson said, “when Kevin Bacon texted me a Kevin Bacon meme.”

“The Bondsman”

Season 1′s eight episodes available April 3 on Amazon Prime