Mama P

* Senior
* Young Adult
* Teenager

### Goals

Have Chuck Hankins forget about magic and reclaim from him her Morbium seed (failed).
Keep the Cookbook for herself by cooking "Keep the Cookbook Casserole" with Gina and Becky (abandoned).
Break her curse to leave Saffron Falls.
Travel around the world (both succeeded).

### Crimes

Malefic
Brainwashing
Attempted murder
Assault
Harassment

### Type of MB

Charismatic Manipulator

**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

* She has a great convincing facade of kind-hearted and friendly old lady towards nearly everyone who attends her shop, with her being 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 (even if she partially brought her misery onto herself), she already suffered from 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 (about needing Morbium seed 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, this didn't detract from her magnificence, as she used her time here to gain access to nearly every time of magic spice, and she hid them in her own shop inside a hidden cabinet. She would use her spices to both enchant people into loving her food and shut down any competing bussinesses in a unique and creative ways (e.g.: causing a cockroach outbreak in coffee shop, resulting in it to being closed), at same time raising zero suspicions from everyone but Gina Silvers.
* Apparently, she used the Walk-In-My-Shoes Schnitzel a lot as a protector to impersonate other people.

### Season 1

* In the show's premire, she gave Kelly, Hannah and Darbie Cedronian vanille for partially no benefit for her self and later sent Jake to deliver to girls Merwaldian cocoa beans to ease the downside of recipe with Cedronian. Even if girls didn't use the beans, her intentions still counts.
	+ She later continued to provide girls with spices, but keeping her knowlegde 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 to her (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 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 child 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, descibing 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 empressive 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 comity 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 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.
* 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, recieving no punishment for her manipulations and magic abuse.

### Season 2

* In a couple of weeks, she not just visited New York City, Puerto Rico, Bahamas, London, and Paris, fulfilling her dream in process, but opened successful bakery in Paris, which was as beloved as her original American cafe. In fact, she obtained the rights on ownership of bakery's building by secretly spelling the previous owner into selling 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 repaired her repuation, yet maintained her manipulative behavior.
* When 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 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 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 in Lavander Heights, thus cutting him from obtaining the spices (yet, they underastimated Chuck, when he used Ida's Morbium seed to possess Jake, and thus evade the curse easily).
* With Chuck seemingly trapped in Lavender Heights, and Jake (actually Chuck possessing Jake) confused about why she hated Chuck, she finally decided open up to "Jake" and explain how Chuck's seemingly harmless threat lead to tragedy, which "Jake" actually shows 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 had plans to take Jake out for a fancy lunch at "Le Grand Falls Restaurant" wanting to make things up to Jake, knowing how much he wanted to go there. Then when she and the other heroes found out Chuck had been taking over Jake's body for the past few days, she and the others act normal around "Jake" as to not arouse suspicion. Mama P would even take him out to "Le Grand Falls Restaurant" as a way to get him out of her restaurant (worried he's spelling the customers with his food) long enough for the girls to try finding a recipe to save Jake, and Becky and Gina to look inside Chuck's trailer to find clues as to how he did his 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.
* She nearly kicks Terri Quinn and her mayor campaign crew out of the restaurant due to they barely ordering anything, but upon hearing about how Terri was competing against Adam Lever and how the latter wanted to turn part of town into an outdoor mall, she was clearly appalled by Adam's intentions and allows the crew to stay. She even offers to make her restaurant Terri's official campaign headquarters, and tells Terri that she believes in what she stood for. Although, she said it would be good for business.
* Upon encountering Lever personally, she'd privately make a deal with him saying that she'd only support him if he added a new restaurant for his outdoor mall, which would mean expanding Mama P's. Also, when Lever makes wants Mama P to find dirt on Terri for the deal to be official, P clearly is shown to be hesitant about doing so, not wanting to betray Terri, but she agrees to find the dirt anyway.
* While working under Adam Lever she'd trick several the most influential people in Saffron Falls into eating some enchanted food that would make them support Lever overnight (i.e.: Bob Ellison and Macy Goldman and even Mayor Angela Davies).
* When the girl trio go to her for help reversing a spell they did on themselves and explain the issue involving Noelle, she'd tell the girls the materials need for a counter-spell and how to make it.
	+ She'd also personally deal with Noelle, saying that she had Noelle's spices and wouldn't give them back as so wouldn't continue spelling her customers.
* Despite losing all of her memories of magic, it doesn't affect her manipulation skills which were nearly perfectly intact and she's still shown to be a savvy business lady. 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 allowed him to be a savvy businessman as well, and he'd out-con the sales rep himself, showing that P's style of business had rubbed off on him.
	+ Not to mention working alongside Adam Lever to sabotage Terri Quinn's mayor election so Lever would be mayor and Ida could have her restaurant expanded. (Although she clearly has guilt for betraying Terri, and she'd even apologize to Kelly about what she did after the damage)
	+ After she did end up selling Terri out to Lever, she clearly wasn't proud of herself for doing so and she'd even apologize to Kelly about what she did. Kelly's able to convince P would make amends and use her deceptive tendencies for good, and P would have Becky and Gina assist her in help to stop Adam Lever from becoming mayor, using a scheme that involved breaking into Lever's political headquarters and looking through his records. Ida would distract everyone with muffins while Becky and Gina stuck in his office. Then when Adam Lever arrives in the room and brings that he had no intention of actually living up of his promises as mayor and that he had a reporter trash Terri to make himself look better. Mama P secretly recorded his speech and sent to the news resulting in everyone turning on Adam and him getting disqualified from the election, making Terri Quinn the next mayor by default. She'd even apologize to Terri Quinn and Jake and admit she was being selfish.
* When an extraction spell on Mama P goes wrong and various people would gain Mama P's personality via being touched, P's confidence and ability to charm people ends up being used to Gina Silvers' advantage as it enables her to nail her interview and become Fox Canyon Magnet School's new music teacher.

### Season 3

* In an alternate reality where Gina Silvers was 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 was.
	+ 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" (really a magically-poisoned Kelly disguised as Erin) specifically so she could help "Erin" cook a mysterious spell, Mama P proved she could'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 P still gives the latter 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, 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 deteemination 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 uneffected by the spray and still in ripe condition as the mastermind doesn'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 amemds 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 rehired 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, by when she was stranded in Saffron Falls, she was secretly able to use varied magic recipes to shut down various competing food business and locations, she even sabotaged a football team just 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 breaking her curse, and was completely callous over the town suffering the downside of her spell and being cursed to be frozen in time.
	+ And before everyone was frozen, she went up onstage 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 her whole life, insults the people of town, claiming she wouldn't miss any of them (special mention going 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 into her desire 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)

## Navigation

**Mama P** | Chuck Hankins
 Season-Specific
Caroline Palmer | The Night Bandit