Using an enchanted pie accidentally brought back to the Tower by Cyborg, Mother Mae-Eye manages to put all the Titans under mind control, mentally regressing them into obedient, sweet "children" who regard her as their mother.
Tropes:
- Actor Allusion: Mother Mae-Eye is voiced by Billie Hayes, who is most famous for portraying another twistedly maternal wicked witch.
- Adorable Evil Minions: Mother Mae-Eye brings a bunch of cute, human-sized gingerbread men to life to use as her minions. However, when the Titans break them to pieces and Mother Mae-Eye magically puts them back together as gingerbread zombies, they’re no longer cute.
- Almighty Mom: Mother Mae-Eye is a powerful Reality Warper who poses as the Titans’ mother.
- Antagonist Title: The episode is named after its main villain, Mother Mae-Eye.
- Anthropomorphic Food: Mother Mae-Eye's mooks are sentient, human-sized gingerbread men. They're as weak as they sound, however, with the Titans defeating them en masse after escaping.
- Apologetic Attacker: Starfire does this when she hits the Titans with a giant rolling pin to get them to regain their senses.Starfire: Forgive me.
- Baby Talk: How Mother Mae-Eye addresses the Titans, and it's as embarrassing as it sounds.
- Backstory Invader: Due to her magic, the Titans act like Mother Mae-Eye has always been there to take care of them.
- Beat the Curse Out of Him: The mind control wears off after a while if Mother Mae-Eye’s victims stop eating her magic pie. However, the mind control can also be made to wear off early by knocking some sense into the victim. Starfire is freed from Mae-Eye’s control when a streetlight hits her on the head. She then frees her teammates by whacking them on the head with a giant rolling pin.
- Berserk Button: Out of all of the Titans that are pissed off at Mae-Eye, Cyborg and Robin are especially livid. Cyborg doesn't like anyone messing with the Tower he worked so hard to build and Robin hated that someone so evil tried to be his Parental Substitute. Considering that this is the second time that happened to him, it's a double whammy.Robin: Lady, you are not my mother.
- Bizarre Alien Biology: While Starfire is a Humanoid Alien, it's revealed in this episode that she has a long, prehensile tongue and nine stomachs.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing / Faux Affably Evil: Mae-Eye. She pampers each of the Teen Titans like babies, speaks to them in a motherly tone, tells them that she loves them... and tries to bake them into a giant pie and eat them.
- Bizarro Episode: In-Universe. Definitely one of the weirdest episodes.Robin: Why am I in a giant pie?
Beast Boy: Why am I in a bunny suit?
Raven: Why am I in a dress!?
Cyborg: Who's been redecorating my tower?!
Starfire: Uh ... Perhaps I could explain later. - Bolivian Army Ending: For the H.I.V.E. Five it is, as they're in the same danger the heroes were in, but it seems they managed to handle it eventually.
- Breather Episode: Definitely one of the silliest, most light-hearted episodes of the show, that serves as a calm before the storm that is the incredibly dark 3-part finale.
- Cape Snag: Or in this case, Skirt Snag. While Raven fights Jinx wearing the Shirley Temple dress Mother Mae-Eye put on her, Jinx fires energy blasts at her and Raven makes a shield to block them. The blasts push Raven back until her floppy skirt gets caught on the knob of a cart, causing Raven to fall and land on her butt. Jinx then blasts the cart to send it flying, taking Raven with it.
- Catching Some Z's: When the Titans are given their "5:00 beddy-bye" by Mother Mae Eye, Robin, Raven, Cyborg, and Beast Boy comedically fall asleep the instant she leaves their bedroom and start snoring very loudly as white "z"s rise from their heads. They appear again after falling asleep a second time after Starfire's failed attempt to convince them that Mae Eye's a witch.
- Comedic Underwear Exposure: Mother Mae Eye's pink and white polka-dotted bloomers are visible twice; once when she is startled by the tower's alarm and once when she is fighting the Hive. Her true form's white and black polka-dotted bloomers are briefly seen as she is being resealed into her pie.
- Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are: Said verbatim by Mother Mae-Eye chasing the Titans.
- Continuity Nod: The flashback where Cyborg first bought the cursed pie housing Mother Mae-Eye from a gypsy have a few references towards previous episodes. Notably a cut-out of the "Wicked Scary" monster, a poster of the Tidwell 3000 scooter, Control Freak's remote and a still-depowered Puppet King.
- Crapsaccharine World: Mother Mae-Eye's world is a Sugar Bowl that hides the fact that she uses her magic to entrance her victims and make them suggestible to the point of allowing her to turn them into pies.
- Curb-Stomp Battle:
- The Titans take a beating from the H.I.V.E. Five, due to being put at a disadvantage by Mother Mae-Eye putting them in restricting outfits and replacing Robin’s gadgets with baby items.
- Mother Mae-Eye then shows up and quickly beats the crap out of the H.I.V.E. Five with her purse.
- Curse Cut Short:Robin: Let us go, you crazy—-
Mother Mae-Eye: Sorry, dear. You didn't say "Mother Mae-Eye"! - Cute Oversized Sleeves: Starfire’s giant sweater has these.
- Defeat by Modesty: See-More distracts Starfire by mentioning he’s looking through her outfit with his X-ray vision, then attacks her while she uses her arms to cover herself.
- Embarrassing Pyjamas: Beast Boy is forced to wear a pink bunny pajama onesie by Mae Eye after she places him and the other Titans under mind control. This is no ordinary pajama suit; Mae Eye made it so he "didn't have to turn into all those ugly animals" since he would already look like an animal. When he tries to change anyway, he finds that the suit is so tight that it keeps him from transforming. Not even his T-Rex form could break the suit.
- End-of-Episode Silliness: Taken seriously, the Titans dumping Mother Mae-Eye on the H.I.V.E. Five is uncharacteristically cruel and irresponsible, as she would eventually try to kill them, and could well move on to someone else. As is, it's played as a slightly mean-spirited prank, and nothing comes of it.
- Evil Matriarch: Mother Mae-Eye could be seen as one.
- Evil vs. Evil: When Mother Mae-Eye sees the H.I.V.E. Five attacking the Titans, who she plans on eating, she beats up the other villains and sends them running.
- Eviler than Thou: Mother Mae-Eye easily defeats the H.I.V.E. Five in battle, and by the end of the episode, she’s put them under mind control and plans on making them her next meal.
- Expy: Mother Mae-Eye's matron-like tendencies towards the Titans while engaging in evil acts gives her something of a similarity to Granny Goodness.
- The Face of the Sun: After Mae Eye alters the tower and island, a grinning sun with a face on it and teeth takes presence over the island.
- Food Slap: Shortly after the Titans - all of them - broke free from Mother Mae-Eye's control, one of the first things Robin did when she tries re-feeding them her pie is to knock a slice of pie back into her face. One that's presumably still hot, since it's freshly-baked...Mother Mae-Eye: Ow, my eyes!
- Force Feeding: When Starfire tries to break everyone out of the mind control, Mother Mae-Eye straps her to a chair to force feed her pies to get her back under her control. Luckily, Starfire's alien digestive system means it doesn't take.
- Foreshadowing: Even before missing her pie when Mae Eye tried to give each of the five Titans a pie in the operations room after they questioned her forbidding them to fight crime and later getting hit on the head, Starfire is shown to be more resistant to the mind control than the others; when Mae Eye is cleaning Starfire's nose, her eyes are their normal green instead of pink, and she is clearly much more confused about what is going on and Mother Mae-Eye has to feed her another spoonful of pie to get her eyes to turn pink. It's then revealed later in the episode that she has nine stomachs—a digestive system that complex would mean she'd need to eat a lot more pies before they'd be fully effective the way they are on her teammates.
- Funny Background Event: When the H.I.V.E. Five is terrorizing the mall, a guy can be seen riding down an escalator. He then sees the villains and jumps over to the upwards escalator.
- Girlish Pigtails: Raven gets her hair tied into two braided pigtails tied with yellow bows. These are pulled so tight that they stick straight out of the sides of her head.
- Glamour Failure: Starfire is able to see through Mother Mae-Eye's magic when she gets hit on the head.
- Handbag of Hurt: Mother Mae-Eye defeats the H.I.V.E. Five by giving each of them a whack with her purse.
- Here We Go Again!: This happens once the Titans drop off one of Mother Mae-Eye's pies to the Hive Five HQ, with the Hive Five about to go through the same thing the Titans went through.
- Humiliation Conga: Mother Mae-Eye forces the Titans to wear ridiculous, childish outfits to a battle with the H.I.V.E Five, which leads to the villains laughing and making fun of them. Then, due to the childish outfits getting in their way, the Titans get their butts kicked in the fight.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Mother Mae-Eye’s end goal is to eat the Titans.
- Involuntary Smile of Incapacitation: The Titans sport large mindless smiles while under the effects of the titular villain's mind-controlling pie.
- It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time: Cyborg says this word for word after explaining how he got the enchanted pie.
- Jaw Drop: Gizmo has an EPIC one when he spots the Teen Titans facing them ready for battle in such ridiculous fashion.
- Laser-Guided Karma: The H.I.V.E. Five rob the mall, make fun of the Titans’ ridiculous outfits, and beat them up. Mother Mae-Eye then shows up and gives them a beatdown, and the episode ends with the Titans tricking the villains into eating the magic pie Mae-Eye is trapped in, putting them under her spell and freeing her to make them her next victims.
- The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday: Cyborg buys the enchanted pie from one of these.
- Luminescent Blush:
- Starfire and Raven blush when the H.I.V.E. Five laugh at their ridiculous outfits.
- Starfire blushes when See-More uses his x-ray vision to look through her outfit.
- Mama Bear: Mother Mae-Eye acts as one when she sees The H.I.V.E. Five beating up the Titans.
- Manchild/Womanchild: One of the effects of eating Mother Mae-Eye’s magic pie is that it makes the Titans act like little kids, despite being teenagers.
- Mind Control: Anyone who eats Mother Mae-Eye’s magic pie will be brainwashed into thinking she is their mother, see her as an old human woman, and act like a little kid.
- Mind-Control Eyes: While under Mother Mae-Eye's control, the Titans and the Hive Five have pink eyes. Since Robin's eyes are covered by his mask, the eye patches turn pink. Jinx's eyes are already pink, so when she gets brainwashed at the end, they get even pinker.
- The Mirror Shows Your True Self: A brief glimpse of Mother Mae-Eye's reflection in the bathroom mirror displays what she really looks like.
- Mythology Gag: Mother Mae-Eye keeps restyling Robin's hair in the same style as Golden Age Dick Grayson.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Mother Mae-Eye’s plan to infiltrate Titans Tower and brainwash the Titans was all made possible by Cyborg buying one of her magic pies from her and sharing it with his teammates.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Of course, there's a reason for that...
- Outdated Outfit: Mother Mae-Eye puts Raven in a Shirley Temple dress.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: Mother Mae-Eye disguised herself as a gypsy woman to sell Cyborg one of her magic pies, but her disguise did nothing to hide her green skin, yellow eyes, warts, witch nose, or misshapen mouth.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: Robin decides the best thing to do with the Mother Mae-Eye pie is to give it to the H.I.V.E. Five.
- Pretend to Be Brainwashed: After Starfire gets released from Mother Mae-Eye’s mind control, the woman tries to bring Starfire back under her control by force-feeding her the mind control pies, which seemed to have worked. Once Mother Mae-Eye leaves, Starfire quickly spits out the pies, muttering how she’s glad to have nine stomachs.
- Rolling Pin of Doom: How Starfire managed to break the rest of the team out of Mother Mae-Eye's control.Starfire: Forgive me. [WHACK]
- Safety Worst: Before letting the Titans go out to fight the Hive Five, Mother Mae-Eye makes Cyborg, Beast Boy, Raven, and Starfire wear ridiculous protective clothing that hinders their ability to fight. She also replaces Robin's gadgets with baby rattles & pacifiers and makes Raven wear a frilly sundress.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: As mentioned above in “Funny Background Event” a random dude jumps from the escalator going down to the escalator going up when he sees the Hive Five are on the floor.
- Shout-Out: Mother Mae-Eye straps Starfire into a chair with a conveyor belt depositing pies into her mouth to force-feed her in an homage to the iconic force-feeding sequence from Pigs is Pigs. Thankfully, Mother Mae-Eye isn't trying to fatten up Starfire, who also has nine stomachs to call upon that prevent her from getting stuffed.
- Soap Punishment: Mother Mae-Eye does it to Starfire after Starfire breaks her conditioning and attempts to tell the other Titans what Mother is really doing.
- Squeaky Eyes:
- Raven does an audible blink after Mother Mae Eye puts her in a dress.
- Starfire also does an audible blink after first being freed from mind control.
- Unwillingly Girly Tomboy: Mother Mae Eye forces Raven to wear a yellow Shirley Temple styled dress with a large white bow in the back and her hair tied into Girlish Pigtails tied with matching yellow bows. Because Raven is being mind controlled, she raises no complaints and even giggles when Mae Eye puts her in it and proceeds to pinch her cheek while telling her she can still dress pretty. After the spell is broken, however, Raven is furious to find herself in a little girl's dress with her hair done up so girly, and uses her powers to change back to her usual look.
- Villainous Rescue: Mother Mae-Eye fights off the H.I.V.E. Five before they can finish off the Titans.
- Wedgie: Mammoth gives one to Robin during their fight.
- Wicked Witch: Mother Mae-Eye seems to be a supervillain parody of the one in Hansel and Gretel.
- X-Ray Vision: See-More stares through Starfire’s outfit using his X-ray vision, causing her to cover up her private parts.
