Ida Perez, better known as Mama P is one of main antagonists of the Amazon Prime original series Just Add Magic, serving as the main antagonist of Season 1 and the major anti-hero in subsequent seasons. She's the owner of the local cafe in Saffron Falls and one of the Cookbook protectors in 1960s, along with Gina Silvers and Becky Quinn.
She was portrayed by Amy Hill as a senior, Tiana Le as a teenager and Charlotte Mary Wen as a young adult.
What Makes Her Magnificent?[]
In General[]
- Amy Hill does great job portraying her character as an old lady, who's quick to switch her mood from friendly to cunning.
- Despite (originally) caring less about people of Saffron Falls, in Season 2 she managed to repair her reputation and became less manipulative towards citizens. Aside from repairing her friendship Gina and Becky, she openly stated to Jake, her only employee, that he's a family to her.
- According to some trivia notes from Amazon Prime, she never had a sick day during work, because she used magic to make herself feel better.
Background[]
- Even before being cursed to stay in Saffron Falls forever (even if she partially brought her misery onto herself), she already suffered from a tragedy of having her family fall apart after Chuck caused her father to get fired, with Mr. Perez failing to find a new job.
- Created a recipe that would allow her to keep the Cookbook forever, and made sure it couldn't be undone or countered. Moreover, she intentionally made the last part of recipe (e.g. the recipe needing a Morbium seed to work and only three current protectors being able to cook it) vague, so that if someone stole the recipe and tried to use it for themself, they'd get confused with the last part and thus be unable to complete it.
- Despite being trapped in Saffron Falls for almost 40 years and never being able to travel around the world in her youth, she instead used to it built up a reputation as a great cafe owner, who's beloved by everyone, while secretly using her knowledge of magic to both enchant people into loving her food and shut down any competing businesses in a unique and creative ways (e.g.: causing a cockroach outbreak in coffee shop, resulting in it to being closed), all while raising zero suspicions from everyone but Gina Silvers.
- Plus, it's implied she would have been able to break her curse a lot sooner had Becky not used her morbium seed to end their protector era early.
- She was also able to gather nearly every spice type in town, which she hid in a secret cabinet inside her shop.
- Apparently, she used the Walk-In-My-Shoes Schnitzel a lot as a protector to impersonate other people.
Season 1[]
- In the show's premiere, she gave Kelly, Hannah and Darbie Cedronian vanilla for partially no benefit for her self and later sent Jake to deliver the Merwaldian cocoa beans to them in order to ease the downside of recipe with Cedronian. While girls didn't use the beans, her intentions still count.
- She later continued to provide girls with spices, but kept her knowledge of magic hidden from them until the right time came.
- When the girls tried to get answers from her by feeding her Bitter Truth Truffles, she quickly deduced what they're up to and ate the second truffle to undo the spell before they could ask questions.
- When Jake told her about the Cookbook's whereabouts (as he learned it from Hannah and Darbie, who where under a truth spell at the time, but Jake thought it was all just a bizarre story, and didn't take anything seriously), she went to the Quinn residence under facade of making a delivery and successfully stole the Cookbook. While the book refused to obey her, she managed to have Jake recover the book without raising much of suspicions.
- Upon catching Darbie, Kelly and Hannah snooping around and trying to steal her Merwaldian white cocoa beans to reverse a half-your-age spell on Hannah, Kelly and the latter's parents, she used the beans to bake cookies that reversed the spell.
- After revealing her as past Cookbook protector, she successfully used Ms. Silvers' cold nature to manipulate Kelly, Hannah and Darbie into believing she's their ally and Ms. Silvers is evil.
- When Hannah came up with report papers, she obtained from Mrs. Silvers' book, describing some incidents happened in the town, she quickly told them Ms. Silvers caused them using magic, while in truth it was her.
- She served as a trickster mentor to Kelly, secretly using the girl to engineer her curse's destruction, but at same time putting her through series of impressive tasks regarding magic, like having her rearrange the spices' families or trying to undo the spell Mama P placed on her. Not only Kelly passed them all, but her lessons with her helped Kelly undo a BFF spell Hannah and Darbie did earlier in the episode.
- She was willing to charm the Pluot Festival committee into allowing Jake to sell his food here, because she genuinely believed his food is amazing and deserves a chance to be shared with the world.
- When Kelly discovered the Curse Breaking Candied Stone Fruit recipe, capable of breaking break any curse for a high price, she successfully tricked Kelly into not only breaking her curse instead of Becky's, but causing the whole town to be affected with the downside of the recipe. When Darbie tried to stop her, Mama P quickly ate the first fruit to make her plan unstoppable and locked Darbie in her cabinet.
- While she does freeze most of Saffron Falls' residents in time as a downside, she's not sadistic about it, and she doesn't make any of the residents truly suffer.
- Even if the main girl trio was able to unfreeze the town, she still won in the end, as her curse was gone, and Mama P was free to finally travel around the world, receiving no punishment for her manipulations and abuse of magic.
Season 2[]
- In a couple of weeks, she not only visited New York City, Puerto Rico, The Bahamas, London, and Paris, fulfilling her dream, but opened a successful bakery in Paris, which is just as beloved as her original American cafe. In fact, she obtained the rights on the ownership of bakery's building by secretly enchanting the previous owner into selling the building to her.
- While she returned to Saffron Falls against her will (thanks to Settle the Beef Sandwich Kelly gave to her grandmother), she quickly realized why she did this, but ultimately chose to remain in town and repair her reputation, while maintaining her manipulative behavior.
- When the main girl trio searched for spices in her locked cabinet, she successfully smuggled one spice from cabinet and used it in a recipe that unlocked the cabinet, regaining access to all of her spices.
- Used girls' fix-it behavior, caused by Chicken-N-Fixits spell, to have them fix some things in her cafe, with Darbie openly calling it sneaky.
- Although she originally gave a backhanded apology to citizens of Saffron Falls for her rant against them, midway through (especially when she noticed Jake), she changed her tone and gave a sincere apology, admitting that what she did was selfish and arrogant and hopes everyone would give her a second chance, even if they didn't forgive her.
- Helped Kelly and Darbie steal Chuck's copy of Cookbook by coming up with recipe that would undo the defense spell on Chuck's trailer. She later volunteered to stay behind and cover their tracks, but in reality she stole her Morbium seed back.
- She, Gina and Becky came up with plan to defeat Chuck by using May You Stay Macaron (the very curse, that was on Ida) to trap him in Lavender Heights, ensuring he won't get his hands on them, the girls or the spices (yet, they underestimated Chuck, when he used Ida's Morbium seed to possess Jake, and thus evade the curse easily).
- While she did celebrate her revenge on him for ruining her family life, when Jake (actually Chuck possessing him) chewed her out and asked her why she hates Chuck so much, she finally opened up about her tragedy Chuck caused, which "Jake" actually showed remorse for. She even said that she should be more honest with Jake, calling him the closest thing she has to family, feeling better after getting the pain off her chest. She invited him for a lunch in an expensive "Le Grand Falls Restaurant" just to making things with him, all because she knows how much he wanted to go there.
- When she and the other heroes discover Chuck's possession of Jake's body, she and the others act normal around him to not arouse any suspicions. Mama P would then take him out to "Le Grand Falls Restaurant" nonetheless as a way to get him out of her restaurant (worried he's spelling the customers with his food) and buy enough time for others to devise a counter-spell.
- When Jake's officially restored to himself, she knew about how Jake had a rough couple of days after being possessed and offers to clean up for him and allows him to go home early and rest. She also tells him about how she took him (technically) to "Le Grand Falls Restaurant", because she wanted to do something nice for him, saying she was capable of being nice to others. She even gives him a hug afterwards.
- She went on an unusual spending spree for items to fix and redesign her restaurant, and lied to Jake about being sick -- even faking sickness-- so she could secretly made a deal with a group of business people.
- While she originally planned to kick Terri Quinn and her mayor campaign crew out of the restaurant for barely ordering anything, upon learning Terri is competing against Adam Lever, Mama P is quick to change her mind and offer Terri to make "Mama P's" her campaign headquarters, not only to boost her own popularity, but also because she genuinely believes a scumbag like Adam would be a terrible new mayor.
- Upon encountering Lever personally, she privately made a deal with him to secretly support him in exchange for a new restaurant for his future outdoor mall, wanting to expand her business. She managed to make many influential people in town, including previous mayor (even if mostly because of magical chips from her cabinet) support Adam, but despite this, she was against digging up dirt on Terri, not wanting to betray her like that, and only did it when Adam blackmailed her with shutting down her cafe.
- When the girl trio go to her for help in reversing a spell they did on themselves and explain the issue involving Noelle, she tells the girls the materials needed for a counter-spell and how to make it. She also decided to personally deal with Noelle, saying that she had Noelle's spices and wouldn't give them back to stop her from spelling her customers.
- Despite losing all her memories about magic, it doesn't affect her manipulation skills, which were nearly perfectly intact and she's still shown to be a savvy business lady and master manipulator. This showcases that Ida's deceptive and manipulative tendencies are basically in her blood, and that she's a skilled trickster with or without magic.
- When her UV dryers broke, she knew that the sales rep would try to scam her and she was prepare to handle him. Although she temporarily has her manipulative tendencies transferred away from her thanks to a spell used on her gone wrong, but that's another story. And even then, Jake's exposure of seeing Mama P in action over the years made him become a savvy businessman as well, allowing him to out-con the sales rep himself, showing that P's style of business had rubbed off on him.
- Also, her aforementioned extracted confidence and charisma would help Gina Silvers pass the interview to become Fox Canyon's new music teacher
- Upon being called out by Terri and Kelly for selling out the former's secret to Adam, Mama P was genuinely ashamed of herself and decided to make amends. With the help from Gina and Becky, she formulated a scheme that involved them breaking into Lever's political headquarters and having Gina and Becky look through his records, while Ida would distract everyone with muffins. However, the true plan kicks-in when Adam arrives in the room, whereupon she secretly records him confessing his corrupt activities. Upon making the recording public, Mama P successfully got Adam disqualified from race and made Terri the new mayor, successfully atoning for her prior betrayal.
Season 3[]
- In an alternate reality where Gina Silvers became the corrupt mayor of Saffron Falls who used magic to keep everyone in line, Ida was shown to still have a lot of experience with magic and knew Gina well enough to protect Kelly and Darbie from her power and inform her just what she was capable of and how she became the woman she is now.
- Plus when Ida hears about how Hannah was with Gina Silvers explaining how she was trying to fix the timeline and bring back Becky, she knew Gina would be unwilling to reason with her and turn her into a marble statue, and she was able to arrive to Silvers' place in time to hold Silvers off and buy Hannah time to escape, even though she knew how powerful Silvers was, vowing to stop her from harming more people even though she was risking herself being turned into a marble statue, which indeed happens when Silvers confronts her.
- Upon having her memories of magic restored by "Erin Chua" (in reality, a magically-poisoned Kelly disguised as Erin), specifically so she could help "Erin" cook a mysterious spell, Mama P proved she couldn't easily be budged and was shown to be unwilling to easily cooperate with "Erin" when she's unable to obtain Morbium for the spell, though Mama P still gives some minor outside help.
- When "Erin" gets frustrated over being unable to find Morbium with P's attraction spell, and felt like she'd be no help to her, Mama P's reminds "Erin" that even if she did somehow find Morbium, the girls would find a way to stop her and P could help her manage them, only for "Erin" to re-wipe her memories of magic.
- Upon regaining her memories of magic from "Erin" and re-confronting her, Mama P's able to detect that "Erin" wasn't the real Erin, due to noticing fake Erin eating shrimp, despite the real Erin being allergic to shrimp.
- Then, when "Erin" threatens to wipe Mama P's memories of magic again, P shows no fear over the threat, and reveals that though only one morbium was needed, all three of the current protectors had to cook the recipe in order for the spell to work, and she was confident the girls wouldn't work with "Erin". But when "Erin" accidentally reveals she "had ways of making the others cook", she was able to use context clues -- as well as details from past conversations -- to piece together that Kelly was the mastermind who used Chameleon Cauliflower to pose as Erin.
- Upon learning about magically-poisoned Kelly's intentions for her, Hannah and Darbie to permanently keep the cookbook and her crafty plan to trick Hannah and Darbie into helping her, P would state how out-of-character Kelly was being, try to talk her out of her plan, and once again wasn't scared of Kelly. And P would even compliment Kelly on covering her tracks, and secretly wrote a note to herself to eat the quiche (which would restore her memories and knowledge of magic) right before P had her memories of magic erased, which P gracefully allowed Kelly to do, claiming she wanted to get away from magic and enjoy her carefree vacation.
- ...but when poisoned Kelly was gone, magic-amnesic Ida would just find and eat the quiche that would restore her memories of magic, including Kelly's intentions with the book.
- She'd then head back to Saffron Falls using two planes and a boat to warn Hannah, Darbie, Becky and Gina about Kelly going rogue and plan to permanently keep the book using her recipe (granted, everyone already knew by the time she got back, but it's the thought and sheer determination that counts) Then she informs them of a magic recipe they could use to get inside Kelly's head, helping them out with a the ingredients for it.
- Even though she was shocked to find that most of her magic spices were ashy and useless (from Caroline Palmer's spray from season 2B) she still had a hidden stash of spices that was unaffected by the spray and still in ripe condition as the mastermind didn't notice it.
- She and Silvers would help the girls with a recipe to save Becky from disappearing forever. This would indirectly lead to Ida finally making amends with Gina.
- Upon finding out that Gina was hired to play piano out of state, she encourages Gina to live her long time dream, clearing trying to make up her cursing her in the past.
- Once Erin Chua and her daughter Zoe moved out of Saffron Falls, Mama P was able to rebuy her restaurant (partially with magic) and decided she needed to actually be in everyone's lives. She even used magic to transform Springtown Coffee back into Mama P's, and re-hired Jake as her employee after winning back his friendship and trust, giving her a nice wrap up to her arc.
What Makes Her a Baddie?[]
- During her time as Cookbook protector, she was the prankster/troublemaker of the OCs with the least morals. She would also curse Gina at some point so she'd be unable to play piano in public.
- As previously mentioned, when she was stranded in Saffron Falls, she was secretly using her skils regarding magic to shut down various competing food business and locations, while also sabotaging a football team's match on one occasion because of a grudge she had on the quarterback's mother.
- While she was Kelly's magic tutor and was teaching her about using various magic, some of her tasks were pretty risky and/or dangerous, namely those where P would secretly put a spell on Kelly and would force her to use her magic knowledge to cook a counter-spell, without access to the cookbook or P coming to her aid. If Kelly were unskilled or didn't have the knowledge, she'd probably just make the situation worse for herself. It's a VERY good thing Kelly knew her stuff.
- She tricked most of Saffron Falls into eating her charmed pluots as part of her plan to break her curse, and was completely callous about the town being cursed to be frozen in time.
- Before everyone was frozen, she went up on stage as "Citizen of the Year", and gave a long-winded rant about how much she hated Saffron Falls, as she complains about being stuck in town for her whole life, insults the people of town, claiming she wouldn't miss any of them (special mention goes to a man who never tipped her, another man who constantly used the restroom despite not being a customer, and something related to a woman), calls pluots dumb and a festival honoring them even dumber.
- And when everyone was frozen, she gloats to Gina Silvers (who resisted the effects) about finally breaking her curse, points the finger at Becky claiming she wasn't so innocent, and steals Jake's food bike as she makes her getaway.
- She's also a magical con artist as she tricks people into giving her what she wants via giving them enchanted food. The French restaurant's a good example of this in action.
- Even when she semi-reforms herself and rejoins the main gang as an ally, she'd continue to make questionable decisions, such as making a deal with business people, doing shady business with Adam Lever so he'd add a new restaurant for his outdoor mall, which would mean expanding Mama P's. She was even willing to get dirt on Terri Quinn just so he'd keep his end of the deal.
Trivia[]
- Mama P is the only Just Add Magic MB to be a main character (unless you count Kelly Quinn, but even then, she doesn't become an MB until Season 3)
External Links[]
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