Baby Teeth
Written By: Melanie Dale
The teenaged Shelby Murphy (Alison Thornton) wakes up at the dentist's office, having had her wisdom teeth removed. Her overbearing, overprotective mother Miranda (Rochelle Greenwood) strokes an iron pendant around her neck and questions why her daughter's matching pendant was taken off, before asking if she can keep the extracted teeth. Once they're home, Miranda asks her drugged-up daughter some questions, asking Shelby if she's been keeping any secrets, to which Shelby reveals that she recently gave herself a naval piercing at her friend Kaitlyn's house. An aghast Miranda laments that she defiled the stomach she used to blow kisses on when Shelby was a baby, to which Shelby claims that she's ready to try "new blows and kisses", further revealing that she and Kaitlyn snuck out and went to a party where she tried Schnapps for the first time, prompting her horrified mother to say she could have been kidnapped and tortured "by them", and she puts Shelby on lockdown as a precaution. Shelby rebuts that Miranda did the same thing to her father, who left her after she smothered him too much, and argues that everyone will leave her if she doesn't stop coddling them.
The distraught Miranda goes to Shelby's old nursery, which has been turned into an untouched shrine, to grab a pair of rusty iron shears that reside in the crib. She walks over to a rocking chair in the corner and looks through old photo albums. She spots a photo of her own mother, who allegedly left her without saying goodbye or even leaving a note, telling her that Shelby got her wisdom teeth removed and hoping that she's happy wherever she is now. After some reflection, Miranda goes over to the closet, filled with kids' dresses with hems laced with iron nails and a box full of Shelby’s baby teeth, where she places the removed wisdom teeth and a lock of her daughter's hair. As Miranda walks out of the room, the iron horseshoe over the door inverts itself and a gold light starts to emanate from the box.
Later, Shelby's best friend Kaitlyn (Micaela Nyland) comes over to check up on her, and as Miranda leaves to make Jell-O for them, she hears rattling noises from the nursery closet, hastily grabbing the shears after noting that "Iron repels them." After finding nothing out of the ordinary, Miranda leaves, only for the box to begin glowing again. As Shelby and Kaitlyn lay in bed together and chat about Miranda's smothering, Kaitlyn shares some liquor in a flask with Shelby. When Shelby reveals that her mom saved all of her baby teeth, Kaitlyn is very much taken aback, though the girls just laugh it off. In the kitchen, Miranda prepares Jell-O for the girls, when she suddenly senses a presence and tells it "You can’t have her!", just as her face appears in the spoon she's using and echoes Shelby's sentiment about how everyone leaves her. Meanwhile, the box in the nursery continues glowing and ultimately falls over, spilling the teeth. The teeth are then sucked into a dress that similarly falls off its hanger, combining themselves into a hideous and malevolent Fae, which soon trashes the nursery.
Back in Shelby's room, as Kaitlyn takes some of Shelby's painkillers, they get the idea to go look for Shelby's teeth. Entering the wrecked room, Kaitlyn begins to look for the teeth, with Shelby saying she'll catch up because her mouth hurts. In the closet, Kaitlyn cuts her thumb on one of the iron nails sewn into Shelby's old dresses. Just as she remembers that her Irish grandmother talked about old stories of how iron sewn into one's clothes was supposed to protect them from something, Kaitlyn peeks into the closet, spying the Fae peeking through the dresses. She trips over a toy car trying to run, as the Fae skitters around the room and savagely attacks her. Miranda enters the nursery and notices its destroyed state, just as Shelby walks into the room. Miranda immediately blames Shelby and her friend for trashing the nursery. Noticing that the teeth are missing and that Shelby she's not wearing her pendant, Miranda reveals that Shelby's grandmother didn't abandon her, but she was actually taken away by the Fae, as they tried to swap her with a changeling as a baby and her mother saved her. Rather than being shocked, Shelby thinks that the Fae story is something Miranda tells herself to hide from the fact that her mother abandoned her. This is disproven when the Fae peeks out from a pile of toys, whereupon Shelby declares that the mess they're in now is all her mother's fault for keeping the baby teeth. As she tries to flee, Shelby spots Kaitlyn's corpse in the corner of the room, her lips having been torn off.
The Fae ends up tackling Shelby to the ground, putting its gnarled fingers into her mouth and ripping off her jaw. As the Fae eats Shelby's teeth, Miranda spots the tooth box and smashes it, causing the Fae to disintegrate. In the dress where the Fae once was, there's now a changeling that resembles Shelby. Miranda collects the baby and expresses joy about having another chance to raise Shelby right. Confirming that her new daughter will never leave her, Miranda sits in the center of the wrecked nursery, among the corpses of Kaitlyn and Shelby, and sings the baby a lullaby while rocking it to sleep, no doubt planning to smother her child nonstop all over again.
This episode contains examples of:
- Bittersweet Ending: Shelby and Kaitlyn are killed, but Miranda is able to kill the Fae and turn it into a changeling baby of Shelby. She ends the episode having learned nothing, singing the baby a lullaby and preparing to smother her all over again.
- Both Sides Have a Point: Miranda is quick to point out that Shelby's desires for a thrill-packed lifestyle could easily get her into trouble, but Shelby is just as quick to rebut that her mother's smothering attitude isn't doing her any favors, either.
- Bratty Teenage Daughter: Shelby, who is shown to have gotten a naval piercing, is a fan of liquor, painkillers, and parties, and can't wait to leave home when she turns 18. She also despises her overprotective mother and enjoys rubbing her "bad girl" lifestyle in her face.
- Changeling Tale: The Fae, born of Shelby's collected baby teeth and hair, turns into a changeling of her when Miranda kills it. After it previously killed Shelby herself, Miranda is all too happy to smother the new baby with love and have a second chance to raise her daughter right. Miranda also was nearly swapped with a changeling as a baby, if not for her mother protecting her.
- Chekhov's Gun: The iron pendant Miranda always makes her daughter wear, allowing the Fae to kill her when she gets tired of her mother's overbearing nature and takes it off.
- Chromosome Casting: This is the first episode in the series not to feature any men whatsoever. The only male presence we get at all is the voice of the doctor announcing Shelby's birth and gender in Miranda's mind.
- Cold Iron: Miranda has iron objects housed all around Shelby's old nursery to keep the Fae away, including a horseshoe above the door, a pair of shears in her crib, nails sewn into the hems of all her old dresses, and an arrangement of them fashioned into a mobile. She also has Shelby and herself wear matching iron pendants as a precautionary measure.
- "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: As Shelby angrily tells Miranda, none of the episode would have happened if she hadn't saved her baby teeth.
- Creepy Souvenir: Miranda has compulsively saved all of Shelby's baby teeth, which even the dentist finds disgusting. Kaitlyn is quick to point out how unsettling it is, and the teeth are later broken out of their magic box to create the Fae. She's also revealed to have kept a lock of her daughter's hair in her old photo album, which she creepily sniffs before adding it to the box.
- Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: As Miranda warns Shelby, the Fae are vengeful creatures that shouldn't be angered. Sure enough, while she's ranting that fairies aren't real and no one believes in them, the Fae rips her jaw off.
- The Fair Folk: The primary threat of the episode, as they tried to take Miranda away as a baby and her mother let herself be taken in her place, hence why she's so protective of Shelby. The one that menaces Miranda and Shelby is formed from the latter's baby teeth, a lock of her hair, and one of her dresses, and it looks like a shriveled, skinless infant with unnatural strength.
- Freudian Excuse: Miranda is said to be so smothering and overprotective of Shelby because her own mother just up and left her one day. It's gradually revealed that Miranda's mother was taken away by the Fae, since they tried to come for her when she was a baby, hence why she's also so suspicious about the iron charms to keep them away.
- Gross-Up Close-Up: The opening shot is a close-up of Shelby's mouth, bloodied from having her wisdom teeth removed.
- Hates Being Alone: Miranda, who lost her mother to the Fae and clings to everyone around her to protect them from the same thing, to the point where Shelby claims everyone hates her.
- Hated by All: Shelby shamelessly tells her mother that everyone leaves her because of her smothering, suffocating attitude.
- Hell Is That Noise: The chattering of Shelby's baby teeth, housed in the mouth of the Fae.
- Here We Go Again!: The Fae ends up turning into a changeling baby that looks like Shelby when Miranda smashes the sacred box that held Shelby's baby teeth. She happily cuddles the baby and sings it a lullaby, planning to smother it with love all over again and showing that she hasn't learned a thing.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Miranda's mother, thought to have abandoned her, actually allowed herself to be taken by the Fae when they came for Miranda, who was only a baby.
- Ignored Aesop: Miranda learns absolutely nothing by the episode's end, preparing to coddle and suffocate her new changeling daughter all over again instead of letting her be independent.
- I Just Want to Be Loved: Miranda's mother was taken by the Fae in her place when she was an infant, and she's so protective of Shelby and refuses to let her leave home to protect her from the same fate, but mostly because she just wants someone to keep loving her. It's later shown that her clingy attitude ends up driving everyone around her away, including her husband, but she learns nothing from this and goes on to coddle her new baby all over again.
- Invasion of the Baby Snatchers: Miranda was almost taken by the Fae when she was a baby, and her mother sacrificed herself to them so she could be safe.
- It Runs in the Family: As we see in Miranda's photo album, all the women in her family wore matching iron pendants like she and Shelby do, all of them likely being as superstitious of the Fae as her.
- Jawbreaker: The Fae kills Shelby by tearing off her jaw and eating her teeth.
- Jerkass: Shelby, who detests her smothering mother and can't wait to leave her like everyone else has/will.
- Jerkass Has a Point: As blunt and bratty as she is about it, Shelby is still right that Miranda's smothering behavior has driven everyone away from her and the Fae being able to form from Shelby's baby teeth is her fault for obsessively hoarding them.
- Killer Rabbit: The Fae is about the size of a human baby, but it packs a lot of strength for such a small creature, able to rip off Shelby's jaw with ease.
- Knight Templar Parent: Miranda is vehement in restricting all activities that Shelby considers fun and adamant about having protective charms everywhere she is. Though she turned out to be right in her beliefs, the ending has her preparing to smother her new changeling baby with love all over again, having learned nothing.
- Missing Mom: Miranda states that her mother abandoned her when she was only a baby, and keeps smothering Shelby so she doesn't lose her as well. We learn near the end that the Fae took her mother when they tried to kidnap her, and has been trying to keep them away from Shelby for the same reason.
- Muggle in Mage Custody: Miranda's mother was taken by the Fae when she was a baby, and she hopes that she's happy wherever she is now.
- My Beloved Smother: Miranda is obnoxiously coddling, suffocating, domineering, and overprotective, to the point where her husband left her because he couldn't stand being smothered anymore. Though she has reasons to act this way, she doesn't learn from her mistakes by the end of the episode.
- Mythology Gag:
- The "Father's Day" ashtray can be seen on Shelby's nightstand, where it holds her iron pendant.
- Much like the doctor from Jordy Verrill's fantasies, the Creep tells the viewers that the tale is sure to be "extreeeeemely painful".
- Only the Leads Get a Happy Ending: Miranda is the only character to get a happy ending, smothering her new daughter a second time after Kaitlyn and Shelby are killed.
- Our Fairies Are Different: The Fae are malevolent beings that live up to the old Gaelic tales about how they abduct children. The one that harasses the cast is formed from Shelby's baby teeth and hair, as well as one of her dresses, and it becomes a changeling baby when Miranda smashes the box the teeth were housed in.
- P.O.V. Cam: The opening scene is largely from Shelby's point of view as she revives from her wisdom tooth extraction.
- Properly Paranoid: Miranda was completely right about the Fae being on the prowl for Shelby, though it doesn't save her or Kaitlyn (who she was also right about being a bad influence).
- Sealed Evil in a Can: The Fae manifests from Shelby's baby teeth and a lock of her hair, locked in a box in her old nursery closet.
- Shout-Out:
- The Fae's appearance and voice makes it so that it resembles the Crypt Keeper.
- Billy's tricycle can be seen in the corner of Shelby's nursery.
- During her rant to Shelby for sneaking off to a party, Miranda claims that she's seen Taken and warns Shelby that she could've been kidnapped and held hostage on "some pedophile's yacht halfway around the world".
- Miranda asks Shelby if she was "sliced up, Friday the 13th style" during her surgery, and also notes her still-swollen cheeks as being "early Miley Cyrus from the Hannah Montana years."
- Struggling Single Mother: Miranda struggles to keep Shelby under her thumb and keep her from leaving, since her suffocating nature has made everyone leave her.
- Supernatural Repellent: Shelby's nursery has been decked out with iron to keep the Fae from getting in, and she and Miranda wear matching iron pendants as an extra safety measure.
- The Tooth Hurts: The opening scene has Shelby waking up from having her wisdom teeth removed. Her saved baby teeth also come together to form the Fae, which kills her.
- Toxic Friend Influence: In Miranda's eyes, Shelby's friend Kaitlyn is a highly toxic influence on her daughter.
- Ungrateful Bitch: Shelby thinks her mother and her suffocating nature is an annoyance, and even after knowing why her grandmother really disappeared, she tells Miranda that the whole situation is her fault.
- Vomit Discretion Shot: Shelby vomits in an empty extraction dish after seeing her surgically removed wisdom teeth.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Miranda never wants anyone to leave her, but only acts so protective and coddling because she wants to keep them safe from the Fae, who took her own mother when she was a baby.
