Line #48 Series/JustAddMagic


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/p13630145_b_v13_ad.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:Amazon Prime's version of ''Series/Charmed1998'' [[note]]From left to right: [[TheSmartGal Hannah,]] [[TheLeader Kelly,]] and [[PluckyComicRelief Darbie]]. [[/note]]]]
3	-> ''"You are dealing with powerful forces you cannot control!"''
4	-->-- '''Gina Silvers'''
5
6	''Just Add Magic'' is an UrbanFantasy series developed for Creator/PrimeVideo, based on the book series of the same name by Cindy Callaghan. The PilotEpisode released in 2015 to rave reviews from kids and [[PeripheryDemographic adults]] alike, becoming the highest-rated premiere for a kids' program on the service that year, with a full first season airing a year later. Two[[labelnote:*]]or four, depending on how you slice it. Season 2 was divided into "2A" and "2B" parts, and although there ''is'' a Season 3B, it only consists of one episode. [[/labelnote]]more seasons were produced from 2016 to 2019.
7
8	The story starts out like this: tween best friends Kelly Quinn, Darbie O'Brien and Hannah Parker-Kent come into possession of a cookbook previously belonging to Kelly's grandmother, who is afflicted with a mysterious neurological illness in the present day. The girls discover that the cookbook's recipes inflict magic spells on whoever eats them, and that Grandma Quinn's ailment is the result of a {{curse}}. Using the power of the book, they seek to find a way to cure Grandma Quinn, inadvertently unraveling more mysteries about magic and its relation to the people they thought they knew.
9
10	While this plot [[NotSoEpisodic becomes more complex as more narrative threads are introduced]], the episode-to-episode gist usually remains the same: Kelly, Darbie and Hannah get into trouble, attempt to use magic to solve it, the magic backfires, [[AnAesop and they learn a lesson]]. This is reflected in the heavily consequential nature of the magic itself, which is emphasized not to be the cure-all for everything, as all the spells carry some sort of caveat or downside.
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12	The series concluded with a BackdoorPilot special, from which [[SpinOff spun off]] 2020's ''Just Add Magic: Mystery City''. It follows [[PassingTheTorch a new trio of protectors]] introduced in said special and/or the final season: step-siblings Zoe and Leo Chua-Sellitti, and their downstairs neighbor Ish Gupta.
13
14	----
15	!!Ingredients:
16	* AbortedArc: Remember in the pilot episode where Kelly, Hannah and Darbie make the basketball team, and Charlotte ends up becoming captain? Well, apparently the show didn't, since that subplot was dropped after the premiere, and it never gets readdressed.
17	* ActorAllusion: In ''Just Add Caroline'', Becky, Ms. Silvers and Mama P reminisce about playing animals in a school play when they were in middle school. Becky says she played a wolf, an allusion to Creator/DeeWallace's role in ''Film/TheHowling''.
18	* AddictiveMagic: Kelly quickly becomes addicted to the use of magic in Season 2. Her friends even stage an intervention for her.
19	* AlphaBitch: Charlotte is a wealthy girl who loves to lord her status over other people. She's especially tough to people on the basketball team. She does display a softer side in the Pilot, but "Just Add Halloween" shows that this hasn't changed the girls' opinion of her that much.
20	** Leah in Season 3
21	* AnAesop: Particularly in earlier episodes, like "Just Add Brains," which ends on
22	-->- '''Kelly''': It's like my grandma always said, there are no shortcuts.
23	* BadPresent: When a young Becky Quinn changes the past so Ida and Gina never got in an argument, Becky got stuck in the cookbook when Chuck saved Rose, Gina Silvers was poisoned and turned evil, took over as mayor, and ruled Saffron Falls with an iron fist.
24	* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: BFFPBJ turns anyone who eats it into your best friend forever. The downside? The "forever" part is NotHyperbole. The person will never leave you alone, even if you'd prefer they did.
25	* BigGood: The Traveler, who's the sole guardian of the Cookbook and has been around since the creation of the book, which is ''at least'' since the Middle Ages.
26	* BirthdayEpisode:
27	** The pilot episode is Becky Quinn's birthday
28	** "Just Add Birthdays" is Darbie's birthday
29	** "Just Add Surprise" is one for Kelly.
30	* ABirthdayNotABreak: In "Just Add Birthdays": Not only does Darbie have to keep a half-their-aged Kelly and Hannah out of trouble, she had to break into Mama P's pantry to get the ingredients for the cure. Doing it at night also helps.
31	-->- '''Darbie''': Worst birthday ever.
32	* BitchInSheepsClothing: ZigZagged with Mama P in Season 1. [[spoiler: She's at first hinted to be the villain, but then its revealed she isn't at all and works with the girls throughout most of the season... only to turn on them during the finale, revealing that she's been EvilAllAlong.]]
33	* BookEnds: The series begins and ends with Grandma Becky Quinn being in some kind of curse or danger via magic, and the girl trio having to find a way to bring her back.
34	* TheBusCameBack: Chuck came back to help the girl trio in the Season 3 finale. Sure it was for one episode only, but he still came back.
35	* ButtMonkey: Jake qualifies as one.
36	* ChekhovsGunman: Willy, introduced in "Just Add Dogs", later gives Hannah information on the missing Chuck Hankins.
37	* CliffHanger: Surprisingly, not even a kids' show is safe from having cliffhangers...
38	** [[spoiler:Season 1 ends with the girl trio accidently getting rid of Chuck Hankins's curse, allowing him to get his revenge on the Original Cooks]].
39	** [[spoiler:Season 2A: After the issue with Chuck is resolved, a man is listening from outside of Mama P's thinking of current protectors.]]
40	** [[spoiler:Season 2B: After the girls bring back magic to the world, they lose something equally as important, which is unknown as the screen starts to go white.]]
41	* ControlFreak: Both Kelly and Hannah will often fall into this trope.
42	** Kelly is this when it comes to magic
43	** Hannah is this when it comes to school work, and organization.
44	* CurseEscapeClause: Each type of ingredient comes with [[PowerAtAPrice a curse attached]], but most spells include a way to break the curse as well.
45	* CuttingTheKnot: The girls need to use three ingredient families to break a curse, but mixing families can be very dangerous. The girls get around this by cooking a triple layer cake so they don't need to mix.
46	* DarkestHour: Just Add Pluots is easily the darkest episode of Season 1, with Kelly trying to cure her grandma with a cure with a dangerous price, even after Hannah told her it was too risky. Kelly finally being punished by her mother, The girls friendship at risk, Mama P's true intentions revealed and [[spoiler: The story of how Becky got cursed and an old enemy of the girls coming back]]
47	** One happens in the Season 2 episode Just Add Fire when [[spoiler:Chuck got his cookbook and the morbium seed back, and most of the girls' recipes were in the hands of Chuck. And if that's not bad enough, Grandma Becky turned out to be the one who destroyed the Original Cooks protectorship of the cookbook, and Kelly didn't trust her grandma anymore, because she thought she was lying about other things as well. It seemed like there was no way to stop Chuck.]]
48	* DarkIsNotEvil: Ms. Silvers. Lives alone in a creepy house, is very frightening and antisocial, uses a crow to spy on the girls, and ultimately just wants to protect them.
49	* DecoyAntagonist: RJ in season 2B [[spoiler: The real BigBad of Season 2B is Jill/Caroline Palmer]]
50	** [[spoiler: Erin Chua; The real BigBad of Season 3 is Kelly Quinn after she was poisoned and turned evil.]]
51	* DoesNotLikeMagic: Kelly's grandma, who sees it as what drove the original trio apart and as a danger to her family. She is not happy to have her granddaughter cooking again.
52	* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: The side-effect of the PHO-tographic Memory Soup: Kelly gets to see her memories and her recent past, but she loses an hour of her life and constantly forgets about various things; ''and'' Kelly was addicted to the soup not caring about the consequences. It literally takes the others ''forcing'' Kelly to stop by pouring out the soup. It's basically a G-rated version of being drunk from alcohol and having a drinking problem.
53	* DrivingQuestion:
54	** Season 1: Who cursed Kelly's Grandma, why, and with what? Answer: It was a consequence of her efforts to get rid of the book.
55	** Season 2A: Why does Chuck want the magic from the book? What exactly is his ultimate plan? [[spoiler: His sister was trapped in the book as a result of an immortality spell he was trying to make. Everything he did was an attempt to save her by putting one of the girls into the book in her place.]]
56	** Season 2B: Who's cursing protectors to forget about magic knowledge? [[spoiler: It's Jill/ Caroline who thought magic was dangerous and tried to destroy it for the good of humanity. And she wasn't too far off from the truth.]]
57	** Season 3: What's the downside of bringing the garden back to life?/[[spoiler: Who stole the night-blooming spice plants?]] [[spoiler: Removing the poison from the garden caused Kelly's mind to be poisoned instead. The poison preyed on her fear that she, Hannah, and Darbie wouldn't be friends without magic. She took the night-blooming mint as part of a larger plan to bind the book to them forever.]]
58	* EarlyBirdCameo: Chuck Hankins appeared in a photo in the first few episodes, who will later become the focus of Season 2 Part 1.
59	* EasilyForgiven: Averted. No one is eager to forgive Mama P for freezing the town, least of all Jake, even though she claims she knew the girls would find a way to break the spell.
60	* EmotionlessGirl: Part of Becky Quinn's curse.
61	* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Chuck Hankins was tried terrorizing the family for spices because he loved his younger sister, Rose Piezer and didn't like showing his sensitive and caring side. Gina Silvers was right, there was good in Chuck.
62	* EyeOfNewt: One of the ingredients for the magic recipes is a special spice that varies by the spell. Cedronian for Balance, Lapsus for mobility, Taurian for time, Werpoes for the body, etc.
63	* TheFaceless: Chuck Hankins, until Season 2.
64	** The mastermind behind protectors losing their thought on magic until the season 2 finale.
65	* {{Foreshadowing}}:
66	** In the first half of season 2, there were several elements that predicted Chuck's true plan and age.
67	*** In "...1965", Chuck tells Mr. Quinn that he used to live with his sister, but things didn't work out so well. He was right about that part, but he left out just ''how'' it didn't work out...
68	*** In "...Fixings", Kelly comes across Chuck while under the fixing spell and realizes Chuck was "emotionally broken". It's possible this is because he's traumatized after his sister's loss, and was beginning to lose hope of ever being able to help.
69	*** In "...Muscles", Chuck tells Becky Quinn that he didn't want to go after the Quinn family and that his plan started long before she was even involved. A subtle hint that Chuck's from a time older than the 1960s.
70	*** In "...Fire", while Chuck was looking through his cookbook near the end of the episode, he comes across the sketch of the girl and immediately recognizes it as "Rose". It's almost as if he somehow knew the girl...
71	*** In "... Meddling", Chuck (while in Jake's body) learns that him magically getting Ida's father fired from his job tore her family apart, Chuck immediately regrets doing so and feels pity for her. This makes sense in hindsight, considering he knows what it's like to have a broken family.
72	*** In "...Rose", there's a moment that doubles as FiveSecondForeshadowing. When Kelly and the gang confronted Chuck/Charles about how he apparently trapped Rose inside the book on purpose and had to sacrifice another protector (Hannah in this case) into the cookbook to keep his immortality spell going, Charles never confirmed the statements or said she was right, he just claimed she had no idea what she was talking about and that she wasn't there. Because he knew something they didn't. [[OnceMoreWithClarity And then]] [[MyGreatestFailure the truth ]] [[BigBrotherInstinct comes]] [[GoodAllAlong out...]]
73	** There are several signs that show that [[spoiler: Kelly was poisoned and turned evil in Season 3 and wanted to keep the cookbook permanently.]]
74	*** [[spoiler: In ''Just Add Time Travel'', during the BadFuture where Ms. Silvers took over, Ida said Ms. Silvers got poisoned and turned evil, when she was trying to rescue Becky from the cookbook.]]
75	*** [[spoiler: In ''Just Add Plants'', it feels peculiar that the downside for bringing the magic spice garden back was apparently the magic plants growing out of control all over town. For Cedronian spells, the downside typically involves the opposite of what the spell was intended to do, meaning that if the magic spice garden was unpoisoned, something else would need to get poisoned in its place. And Kelly's the one who poured the liquid restoring the magic garden, which means...]]
76	*** [[spoiler: During another point in that same episode, Kelly said the magic spice plants overgrowing was a better downside than losing the cookbook. This indicates that she wanted to keep the book.]]
77	*** [[spoiler: In ''Just Add Piper'', "Erin" said that the spell she cooked didn't attract the morbium she needed, just "a bunch of dusty relics" as she calls them. Ironically this was from the same location the girls went earlier and found the strange watch.]]
78	*** [[spoiler: In ''Just Add Rot'', When "Erin" was stealing some of the spices from the cabinet, Kelly was the only one who wasn't tracking her down.]]
79	*** [[spoiler: In ''Just Add Tomorrow'', the reason the girl trio ended up in the time-loop was because Kelly turned up the oven heat to 450° when it should have been 400°. Considering previous episodes have shown Kelly to be a serious ControlFreak with cooking, extremely paranoid about the magic and a cooking expert, it's pretty out-of-character for Kelly to made such an avoidable mistake with a magic recipe... unless she did it deliberately.]]
80	* FunctionalMagic: Each ingredient "family" influences something different, like Cedronian for balance, Taurian for time, etc. Individual spices within the families have different effects, combining families is difficult, and being able to make your own spells rather than rely on recipes takes years of study.
81	* GenerationXerox: In a flashback, it shown that the previous trio was like the current trio with Ms. Silvers being the Hanna, Mama P being like Darby, and Grandma being like her granddaughter.
82	* GeniusDitz: Darbie may not be very good at her schoolwork, but she can draw scale models for a blueprint like a boss.
83	* GilliganCut: When the pampered dog that Kelly was supposed to be watching escapes, Darbie keeps worrying about him. Every time she wonders how scared he is, the camera cuts to the dog thoroughly enjoying himself.
84	* GrandFinale: [[spoiler:The main series ends with Kelly, Hannah, and Darbie having to cook a counterspell to save Grandma Quinn who faded from existence after the main girl trio becomes the permanent protectors, [[ItMakesSenseInContext thanks to poisoned Kelly (long story)]]. Unfortunately, the recipe requires using a spell that the trio's never heard off and never existed or went extinct. Plus, [[ExBigBad former enemy]] [[BackForTheFinale Chuck returns for a final role in the show.]] This leaves the girls to combine three existing spices and making a new magical plant that would take 15 years to grow the new spice, so the girls go forward in time and get the spice from their adult selves who are still close friends. They make the spell they need and Grandma Quinn is saved. In the final moments of the series, we see Mama P regain control of her restaurant with Jake by her side once more, [[TheFellowshipHadEnded Silvers finally moving to New York to be a professional pianist,]] and Kelly, Hannah and Darbie having no mysteries left to solve and cookbook moving on to the next group of protectors... [[SequelHook one of which is Erin Chua's daughter Zoe.]]]]
85	* GroundhogDayLoop: Happens in ''Just Add Do-Overs'' when the girls cook a do-over spell so, Kelly can prevent his brother Buddy from destroying something in the house, Hannah can secretly sneak around in Ms. Silvers, and Darbie can work on a model stage, for her art class.
86	** Happens a second time in ''Just Add Tomorrow'', which happened to be the main plot of the episode.
87	* HalloweenEpisode: "Just Add Halloween"
88	* HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler: Chuck]] at the end of Season 2A, [[spoiler: since he was only trying to save his sister, Rose. He ends up managing to do so without having to hurt anyone.]]
89	* HeroicSacrifice: Becky Quinn was willing to do whatever it took to get rid of the magic cookbook, so it wouldn't tear the girls apart. [[spoiler:One day she cooked something in a large pot, and tried to erase the pages, but the book fought back, and she got cursed to be emotionless and nearly speechless as a result, she knew the consequences, but she took the risk anyway, she ''really'' wanted to protect her granddaughter.]]
90	** Happens again when The Traveler uses an unknown recipe to sacrifice her body and protect the girls from Chuck in Season 2.
91	* HowWeGotHere: Happens in the beginning of Season 2 Part 2 where the spices have be disintegrated and it seemed like there was no hope, and goes back two months to explain what happened and doesn't go back to the same moment until the season finale.
92	* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: All the episodes have "Just Add _____" in the name.
93	* IdiotBall: In "Just Add Saphrön", Jake casually takes a breath mint from the girls, despite knowing that they regularly create magical recipes. Fortunately, it's just a lie detecting spell and it actually works out in his favor by allowing him to tell that his would-be new boss is planning to exploit him for cheap labor.
94	* ItOnlyWorksOnce: One of the time-travel spells "Pick a Date Dates" is a spell that can only be used once. So it's usually reserved for something major or important.
95	** A variant occurs during Season 2A. [[spoiler: Once Chuck creates his magic-stealing cookbook, any of girls' plans involving recipes become this, since any recipe they make transfers out of their book and into his.]]
96	* KidHero: Kelly, Hannah and Darbie are the protectors of the Cookbook who just happen to be kids.
97	* MissingTime: The episode ''Just Add Memories'' has Kelly make a soup that allows her to recall one memory with perfect clarity (in essence, a temporary PhotographicMemory). The downside? The more she uses it, the more time she loses in the present.
98	* MundaneMadeAwesome: Cooking. Justified since it's magical.
99	* MrFixit: "Chicken and Fixits" turns anyone into this, able to fix anything, no matter how badly broken. However, if you don't finish the original task, you become compelled to fix anything and everything, without rest or breaks.
100	* NeverMyFault: Sometimes when something goes wrong between the trio, Kelly will point the blame on the other people. Luckily, she usually owns up to her mistakes and/or apologizes.
101	* NiceJobBreakingItHero: [[spoiler:In the Season 1 finale, the curse-breaking cake ends all the curses in Saffron Falls. Unfortunately, this included the curse that kept Chuck Hankins from coming back.]]
102	* OhCrap: Kelly's grandmother is visibly terrified to learn that [[spoiler: Chuck Hankins has been released from his curse]].
103	* OnlyTheLeadsGetAHappyEnding: In the magic side plot of Season 2 Part 2, [[spoiler: Kelly, Hannah and Darbie are able to outsmart the BigBad and maintain their memories of magic. However this doesn't change the fact that the mastermind had successfully erased everyone else's memories of it -- including the heroes' closest allies and friends -- meaning the main girl trio were the only ones with the power. This later gets averted when some of allies regain their memories in the next season.]]
104	* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: Grandma snaps out of her silence to warn Kelly to trust her instincts since she's opened the cookbook.
105	* TheParanoiac: A side effect of the "Trust Me Tabouli" spell: It makes whoever eats it trust you, but you lose your own ability to trust people as a consequence.
106	** Even without the above spell, Kelly has a habit of freaking out over nearly anything. See ControlFreak above.
107	* PluckyComicRelief: Darbie's usually the source of jokes in the series.
108	* PoorCommunicationKills: Lampshaded by [[spoiler:Ms.Silvers]], who notes that if she was better at communicating the current crisis might have been averted.
109	* PowerAtAPrice: Cedronian spice specifically invokes this. It always works as intended, but curses those that poured it. Magic in general tends to work like this.
110	* PowerGlows: Lampshaded. Darbie asks why Kelly couldn't tell something was wrong when the cookbook started glowing.
111	* RashomonStyle: Of a sort in "Just Add Beginnings": A spell accidentally makes Hannah, Darby, and Kelly forget they were friends and Jake and Miss Silvers need to recreate the exact moment they met in order to restore their memories, but everyone who was there has a different memory of what happened. Fortunately, the one thing all version of events have in common is that Charlotte was there making fun of the girls, so they're able to get the full story from her.
112	* SecretKeeper: Jake, although it takes an episode to convince him.
113	** Piper becomes this in Season 3 [[spoiler: until Evil Kelly wipes her memory of magic.]]
114	* ShoutOut: One of the many recipes in the cookbook is ''Lazy Lasagna''. [[{{ComicStrip/Garfield}} Guess where that's from.]]
115	* SpellMyNameWithAnS: Darby or Darbie? The episode descriptions on Amazon Prime use Darbie, but the subtitles use Darby.
116	* StableTimeLoop: Early on in "Just Add Halloween", Darby recalls how she got pushed into a jellybean display at Mama P's during the last Halloween. Darby herself turns out to be responsible for this, using it as a diversion so the girls can sneak into Mama P's spice cabinet.
117	* TemporarilyAVillain: Ms. Silvers becomes the main antagonist of the BadPresent segment of the Season 3 premiere.
118	** The side effect of bringing the garden back in Season 2B,[[spoiler: is Kelly turning into a magic ControlFreak. It takes most of the season for Hannah and Darbie to figure this out.]]
119	* TitleOnlyOpening: The opening for the series' episodes just flashes the title of the show with a familiar music tone.
120	* TrueCompanions: The main three girls, obviously.
121	* WellIntentionedExtremist: Caroline, the BigBad of Season 2B, [[spoiler: also known as Jill, Terry's campaign manager]]. She's a former protector who believes that magic is dangerous to those who use it and needs to be destroyed for the good of everyone.
122	** [[spoiler: [[FallenHeroine Brainwashed Kelly from the third and final season]] thought keeping the cookbook forever was the only way to keep in from falling in the hands of bad protectors, and she's not completely wrong, as all the opponents they had faced were former protectors that went rogue, and since they had always managed to beat them, it makes sense that Kelly would get an ego. Plus even without the curse, Kelly had insecurities about whether or not Hannah and Darbie would still be her friends after the cookbook is no longer theirs to keep, and the poison made Kelly see the bad sides of her close ones and released her own dark side.]]
123	* WhamEpisode:
124	** "Just Add Jake" is the first episode of the series that truly changes the status quo as it features the girls' friend Jake discovering the cookbook and the fact the magic exists.
125	** Then "Just Add Birthdays" and "...Mama P" has Mama P/Ida Perez join the girls as an apparent ally to them, and reveals that she, Becky Quinn and Gina Silvers had all been protectors of the cookbook before the Kelly, Hannah and Darbie and that an argument caused the women to part ways. Also, Mama P was cursed to stay in Saffron Falls.
126	** "Just Add Pluots Part 1" shows that Mama P -- not Gina Silvers -- was the mastermind responsible for all of bad things happening around Saffron Falls and she had been using the girls to help her break her curse, not caring about Kelly's grandmother.
127	** "Just Add Pluots Part 2" has the girls find out the Becky herself had taken part in her curse being placed on her, as she had taken the cookbook and confiscated it, tearing its pages out. Also, the rumored Chuck Hankins finally returns after his 50-year absence and a new enemy was brewing...
128	** "Just Add Summer" ends with TheDreaded Chuck Hankins finally turning up and reuniting with Becky, Ida and Gina after 50 years.
129	%%** "Just Add 1965
130	** "Just Add Fire" is one of the show's darkest episodes by far, considering Chuck comes dangerously close to succeeding in his plan, and the heroes were nearly helpless in stopping him. Also, Becky turns out to have used her morbium to end her and her friends protector-ship, which in turn isolates her from her granddaughter Kelly. Also, Chuck knows about the "Rose" girl in the book.
131	** "Just Add Meddling" is where Kelly's obsession over the magic finally catching up to her and she's called out by both of her friends for it.
132	** "Just Add History" reveals that Chuck Hankins' actual name was Charles Peizer and that he was around in the 1860s.
133	** "Just Add Rose" is where Chuck/Charles' motives and backstory are finally revealed. Back when he and his sister Rose were the protectors, Charles and cooked a mulberry pie that made him immortal, but in doing so, he accidentally got Rose trapped in the book, and everything Chuck had done up to that point was to rescue his sister from the Cookbook... by placing one of the three current protectors in her place.
134	** "Just Add Goodbye". The cookbook moves on to Erin's daughter Zoe, and Kelly, Hannah and Darbie are no longer the protectors. Also, Gina Silvers finally leaves Saffron Falls to pursue her long-lost dream of becoming a famous pianist.
135	* WhamLine: "I have ways of making the others cook."
136	* WhamShot: Chuck Hankins returning from the Ferris Wheel. It's also the final shot of Season 1.
137	** The first time Chuck Hankins' appearance is personally seen onscreen.
138	** [[spoiler: The fake Erin turning into Kelly.]]
139	* WhatDoTheyFearEpisode: "Just Add Camping", in which a spell needs the casters to face their fears in order to work. Hannah fears being unprepared, Darbie fears being alone, and Kelly fears failure, leading to a DespairEventHorizon when the spell convinces her that there's no way to save her grandma.

Context Series / JustAddMagic