By the Elysian Beauty Store, Laurel assures prospective employee Cindy of Miss Valenti’s agreeability.
Inside, Laurel proceeds to apply cosmetics to Cindy’s face. Ms Valenti arrives; announces the arrival of the new fashions, and invites her staff to see them at her place around seven.
While Vicki eagerly agrees, Laurel has a date. She introduces Cindy. Miss Valenti explains her clientele to expect of staff a certain… style. She a sample of her own private cosmetics, and leads Cindy and Laurel to a domestically furnished back room. Miss Valenti offers Cindy the job.
Miss Valenti applies, to Cindy, a selection of cosmetics, fashions and jewellery.
Ms Valenti presents Cindy with a ceremonial black disc, emblazoned with a crescent moon - a token awarded to all employees.
As Laurel and Cindy leave for the day, Laurel remembers having failed to get back her watch from Vicki - and, as a gift from Ron, had planned to wear it to their date. Since Vicki is to visit Miss Valenti’s house tonight, Cindy suggests they meet Vicki there.
Vicki, at Miss Valenti’s semi-stately house, peers in glee at an ornately fashioned hat. Ms Valenti gifts it to her, and offers her a handheld mirror. Entranced, Vicki examines her reflection. Miss Valenti offers her a steel goblet. Vicki drinks. Suddenly disorientated, she staggers across the room. She falls, and opens her eyes - which glow white. She screams...
Through a wood, Laurel and Cindy walk the path to Miss Valenti’s. From behind, Miss Valenti approaches, and claims Vicki never to have arrived.
Inside, Laurel inspects the newly shipped hat. Cindy spies Laurel's watch, and asks to use the bathroom. Above the stairs hangs a framed black and white photograph of Miss Valenti, wearing a pageant sash emblazoned with the title "MISS ROCKY MOUNTAIN 1952". Above the landing hangs a similar photo, whose sash is dated 1923.
In the bathroom, Cindy sees another framed photograph of Miss Valenti, this time in a broad-hooded black cloak. Cindy wonders how the vain Miss Valenti can neglect to have a mirror in her bathroom. From her bag, she takes the ceremonial black disc, which splits open, revealing its function as a vanity case. She lifts its mirror level with her face. It catches the reflection of the photograph behind her - whose reflected face now appears elderly.
Alarmed, Cindy turns to inspect the photo directly. Its face is now youthful.
Cindy sneaks to the doorway of the living room, and holds the mirror to where Miss Valenti sits. Sure enough, her reflected head appears to be that of an elderly woman. As Cindy stares, the reflected head turns to face her, and in the voice of Miss Valenti, and asks if something is wrong.
Cindy urges Laurel to leave with her. Laurel, entranced by the round-framed mirror, declines. Miss Valenti shows Cindy out. Suspicious, Cindy hides behind a tree, and creeps towards a window.
Miss Valenti offers the silver goblet. Laurel drinks from it. Cindy bangs on the window, and yells at Laurel to flee. Roused from her trance, Laurel runs to the door. She and Cindy run through the woods.
Suddenly, Laurel doubles up and closes her eyes - she thinks the goblet was poisoned. With a pained grimace, her eyes snap open - and glow brilliant white. Her strangled scream lowers into a canine wail. When Cindy next looks, her friend has transformed into a husky.
In her hooded cloak, a leering Miss Valenti arrives. Cindy cries out in fear, and runs.
Miss Valenti approaches the torchlit clearing, where numerous wooden cages each hold an imprisoned dog. At a small table, before a round-framed mirror, Miss Valenti sharpens a vicious-looking knife, and recites a sinister incantation.
Cindy seizes the mirror, and demands the dogs’ release. She throws the mirror aside, where, with a spark, it shatters.
Miss Valenti cries out in horror. At the sight of what’s happening to the beautician’s face, Cindy also screams in horror. The youthful face instantaneously contracts and wrinkles. With a shimmer, teeth and hair recede, and fade from existence. With another shimmer, the flesh dematerialises, to reveal a rotted skull. Beneath, the bones crumble, and the cloak falls to the forest floor.
Laurel’s voice calls to Cindy - in their cages, the dogs have transformed back into Laurel, Vicki and Tannis. They stare at the smoking cloak.
Both the house and the beauty store, closes Betty Anne, disappeared, leaving nothing of the spell but dust and rubble.
This episode provides examples of:
- Bad People Abuse Animals: Miss Valenti, in pursuit of indefinitely sustained youth, ritualistically slaughters dogs - who are actually transformed employees.
- The Beautiful Elite: Miss Valenti requires her staff to maintain a certain "...style."
- Beauty Is Best: Invoked by Miss Valenti's aspiration to the social supremacy offered by lauded appearance.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Downplayed. Though she comes across as vain, Miss Valenti also gives the impression of possessing an affable personality and kindly generosity. It doesn't hurt that these personality traits are only matched by her beauty. However, as the story progresses, it's clear that it's all a front to make her victims lower their guard. In reality, she's quite literally a witch whose vanity is complemented by her cruel willingness to turn her employees into dogs and ritualistically slaughter them in order to stay young and beautiful forever. By the end of the story, it's lampshaded by Cindy how appearances aren't a good basis to judge if someone is "a beauty or a beast".
- Compelling Voice: On lending them one of her mirrors, Miss Valenti softly entrances employees with promised fulfilment of the ideals it offers.
- Family-Unfriendly Death: While bloodless, Miss Valenti's death is quite gruesome.
- Forced Transformation: Miss Valenti turns her employees into dogs.
- I Just Want to Be Beautiful: Invoked by Miss Valenti's offers of the acclaim offered by cosmetic refinement.
- Magic Mirror: The mirrors in Miss Valenti's house reveal her magically hidden agedness.
- Really 700 Years Old: Various framed photos show Miss Valenti to be at the same apparent age throughout the twentieth century.
- Shout-Out: The premise somewhat recalls the legend surrounding Elizabeth Báthory, said to have bathed in the blood of peasant girls to gain eternal youth.
- Spotting the Thread: Cindy spots Laurel's watch that Vikki borrowed, even though Ms. Valenti previously stated that she never arrived at her home.
- Stripped to the Bone: When a mirror is smashed, Miss Valenti's flesh evaporates.
- Vain Sorceress: Miss Valenti uses magic to pursue her cosmetic obsession.
- Vampiric Draining: Once they've been primed to look their most beautiful, Miss Valenti feeds her employees a potion which turns them into dogs. Their subsequent slaughter is implied to transfer their age to her.
- Wicked Witch: Valenti is even explicitly called one at the end.
