Just Add Magic is an American live-action family television series, loosely based on the book of the same name by Cindy Callaghan. [1] It was produced by Amazon Studios . A pilot was produced in 2015 and the series commissioned for a full season the following year. [2] Amazon Prime Returns: The New York Times, Vol. [3]
Premise
Amateur preteen heads Kelly, Darbie, and Hannah, discover an ancient recipe book while searching for Kelly’s brother in the attic. The recipes they find inside have strange names like “Shut’em Up Shortcake ” and “Healing Hazelnut Tart ” and require unusual ingredients, such as “Cedronian vanilla ” and “Taurian thyme “. When Kelly’s brother eats a bite of the shortcake and can no longer talk, the three friends realize they are dealing with magic spells . After Darbie can not stop talking, they also realize the spells come with a consequence. [4]
Kelly, Darbie, and Hannah investigate how the magical recipes work and face the temptations of using magic to help overcome the everyday challenges of being middle school girls. Goal Kelly has one overriding goal: Find the magical recipe that will fix her grandmother’s mysterious illness, even if it means crossing creepy Mamma P or scary Ms. Silvers. [4]
Cast and characters
- Olivia Sanabia as Kelly Quinn
- Abby Donnelly as Darbie O’Brien
- Aubrey Miller as Hannah Parker-Kent
- Judah Bellamy as Jake Williams
- Catia Ojeda as Terri Quinn
- Andrew Burlinson as Scott Quinn
- Dee Wallace as Grandma Becky Quinn
- Amy Hill as Ida “Mama P” Perez
- Ellen Karsten as Ms. Gina Silvers
Guest starring
- Mira Furlan as The Traveler
- Zach Callison as Chuck Hankins
Series overview
| Season | Episodes | Originally released | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First released | Last released | ||||
| 1 | 13 | January 15, 2015 | January 14, 2016 | ||
| 2 | 13 | October 14, 2016 | January 12, 2017 [5] | ||
Episodes
Season 1 (2015-16)
| No. overall |
No. in season |
title | Directed by | Written by | Original release date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | “Pilot” | Joe Nussbaum | Nancy Cohen, Joanna Lewis & Kristine Songco | January 15, 2015 |
| Three friends, Kelly, Darbie, and Hannah discover a cookbook in the attic, whose recipes have magical effects. Kelly’s grandmother is seemingly confused; She rarely speaks, or does anything, but why not. | |||||
| 2 | 2 | “Just Add Brains” | Joe Menendez | Andrew Orenstein | January 14, 2016 |
| The girls make Brain Boosting Bolognese to help with school and understand the cookbook. But being an unfortunate downside. The girls learn that the cookbook is seemingly infinite: trying to read through it they never seem to get any closer to the last page. Also, three pages are torn out and missing, and the cookbook sometimes flips to a page on its own when the girls express their wish to accomplish a specific purpose. The girl learn that Kelly’s grandmother, Mama P, and Ms. Silvers were once very young friends just like Kelly, Hannah, and Darbie, and that a strange woman named The Traveler gave them the cookbook. | |||||
| 3 | 3 | “Just Add Dogs” | Joe Nussbaum | TBA | January 14, 2016 |
| To find a lost dog, the three friends cook up Lost and Found-ue, but end up attracting everything that has been lost in the neighborhood. The three missing pages from the cookbook float into Kelly’s bedroom. One of the items they return is a silver charm bracelet to Ms. Silvers, who says that it has been missing for many years. Later, she opens one of the charms and seedlings from within. | |||||
| 4 | 4 | “Just Add Mom” | TBA | John-Paul Nickel | January 14, 2016 |
| Wanting more information from Mama P, the girls make Bitter Truth Truffle. However, Kelly’s mom eats one first. Kelly goes out with her mom to keep her from causing problems with her truth-telling. Hannah and Darbie both eat a truffle and find that telling the truth to each other is not so bad, although they agree that without Kelly, they probably would not be friends. Jake comes over, and unable to lie, they tell him all about the book and magic. They make him promise not to tell anyone. They get Mama P to eat a truffle, but before they can ask her anything, she eats a second one, which ends the spell’s effect on her. Mama P cooks a spell and leaves to leave town, but a mysterious wind prevents her from crossing the town border. | |||||
| 5 | 5 | “Just Add Jake” | Joe Menendez | Lauren Thompson | January 14, 2016 |
| Not believing in magic, Jake mentions the cookbook to Mama P, and she steals it. But when it comes to looking through it, all the pages go blank. The girls try to convince Jake that magic is real by trying out three random magical recipes on him, so that he’ll help them get the cookbook back. | |||||
| 6 | 6 | “Just Add Birthdays” | Elodie Keene | Sarah Carbiener & Erica Rosbe | January 14, 2016 |
| Kelly and Hannah make a cake for Darbie when they forget her birthday. They also make cookies with carob chips Mama P gave them several episodes earlier. Those who eat the cookies start acting much younger than normal. | |||||
| 7 | 7 | “Just Add Mama P” | Elodie Keene | Andrew Orenstein | January 14, 2016 |
| Convinced Mama P knows more than she is letting on, the girls whip up some Mind Peering Peppermints. They hear nothing suspicious in her thoughts, which leads them to trust her. They try to read Ms. Silvers’ mind, and they do not want to try it. | |||||
| 8 | 8 | “Just Add Besties” | Joe Nussbaum | Luisa Leschin | January 14, 2016 |
| Mama P mentors Kelly’s magic cooking skills, while Darbie and Hannah try to get a reclusive author’s autograph by cooking a spell that makes them their BFF. Mama P makes Kelly organize all the ingredients in her secret room, and then curses her and challenges her to overcome it without resorting to the cookbook. After a false start in which she invites a new spell, she does overcome the curse. The BFF spell works too well, and Darbie and Hannah’s attempt to end the spell fails. When they describe what they did, Kelly intuitively knows how to end the spell, and does. Mama P tells Ms. Silvers that Kelly has “the gift” just like her grandmother did, and Ms. Silvers warns Mama P not to make her curse Kelly the way she cursed Mama P. | |||||
| 9 | 9 | “Just Add Do-Overs” | Keith Samples | John-Paul Nickel | January 14, 2016 |
| The girls learn that long ago The Traveler gave Mama P, Ms. Silvers, and grandma each a morbium root seed; Morbium makes any recipe a thousand times more powerful. Mama P says she’s a long girl, but the girls realize that Ms. Silvers was in the charm bracelet they returned to her. Hannah takes a piano lesson from Ms. Silvers to try to recover the seed, but things go wrong: Kelly’s brother breaks a lamp while under Kelly’s care, Darbie’s school project goes wrong, and Ms. Silvers catches Hannah and kicks her out.
So the three girls cook up a “do-over” spell that resets time so they can try again. On the third try Darbie ‘s school project is a great success, Kelly realizes that her brother is acting out because he wants to spend time with her, and Hannah finds that Ms. Silvers’ charm bracelet is empty, but also a scrapbook filled with newspaper clippings About bad things that have happened around town. Ms. Silvers has enacted. |
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| 10 | 10 | “Just Add Memories” | Vanessa Parise | Lauren Thompson | January 14, 2016 |
| Grandma, Mama P, and Ms. Silvers all have pictures of Chuck Hankins, a boy from when they were young. The girls find that he was missing a long time ago. Kelly cooks a Pho-get Me Not spell to examine her memories of the day her grandmother got sick, hoping to find some clue as to what caused it, but eating the Pho-get Me not made her lose time and memories. She sees that her grandmother wanted to talk to her that day, but that she was too busy to talk to her grandmother. She sees that when her grandmother was driving her to a basketball tryout, Ms. Silvers walked up a box of ingredients that the girls later found in the attic. Willie Thompson, a man of the girls helped previously, tells Hannah that Chuck disappeared from a Ferris Wheel, and that Chuck was dating Ms. Silvers, but that went with Grandma. The girls trade notes, | |||||
| 11 | 11 | “Just Add Camping” | Keith Samples | Sarah Carbiener & Erica Rosbe | January 14, 2016 |
| Suspecting a clue to Kelly’s grandmother’s malady hides deep in the forest, the girls set up a Father / Daughter camping trip. The Kelly’s Grandmother is a great hostess, and she’s a great guy. Later, the book flips open to a recipe that can break any curse, but the negative consequences will make things much worse. | |||||
| 12 | 12 | “Just Add Pluots Part 1” | Joe Nussbaum | Luisa Leschin | January 14, 2016 |
| The girls consult with Mama P about the recipe that will break the curse. At first she says it’s too dangerous, but then she thinks that more and more people will have the consequences of the negative consequences over all of them. Hannah gets Kelly grounded by her parents, worried that the magical price will be too high. Kelly escapes grounding by cooking a spell to make Darbie look like her. Hannah and Kelly argue at Mama P’s, and Hannah realizes that all the things in the scrapbook would benefit Mama P, not Ms. Silvers. She meets Ms. Silvers and they discuss Mama P’s plans. Ms. Silvers reveals that she is too cursed: outside her house, no one can hear her play music.
Darbie tries to stop Mama P, but Mama P locks Darbie in her secret ingredient room and eats the first bite of the magic recipe, so her curse will be broken, rather than Kelly’s grandmother’s. Kelly goes home and gets yelled by her mother, but she wants to give her bigmother what she thinks is the first bite. |
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| 13 | 13 | “Just Add Pluots Part 2” | Joe Nussbaum | Andrew Orenstein | January 14, 2016 |
| In 1965, Rebecca Quinn (Kelly’s grandmother) is on the Ferris Wheel with Chuck. He takes a bite of a candy apple, and disappears. The three girls argue. Gina Silvers says the spell was just supposed to keep Chuck away from magic. Ida Perez (Mama P) asks if Rebecca got the Morbium seed back, saying that Chuck stole it. Rebecca promises Gina that they’ll get Chuck back.
In the present, Kelly’s dad lets Kelly go to the Pluot Festival because they are sending her mother away to New York for treatment and he wants the family to be together. Ms Silvers shows up at the Pluot festival, but will not get involved and advises Hannah to abandon her friends and run away to avoid the consequences. Jake and Hannah free Darbie, and mix a magic protection protein shake. At the Pluot Festival, Kelly refuses to drink the shake and continues it out. She gives her grandmother what she thinks is the last bite of the recipe, but it does nothing. Mama P goes on stage and tells off the town. Jake gives Kelly his shake, so she can be protected. Mama P – and Ms. Silvers. Mama P – and Ms. Silvers. The two old women bicker about who is to blame. Mama P and Ms. Silvers tell the girls that Kelly’s grandmother is not innocent either – that after they cursed each other, she threw the book over a waterfall to get rid of it, in effect making their curses permanent. Mama P steals Jake’s Miss Silvers leaves the town. The girls consult the book, which opens itself to a blank page, which the girls take to mean they need to create their own spell to break the curse. They go to Mama P’s ingredient room and realize that they need the properties of three different ingredients families, but mixing them would modify those properties, so they make a layer cake, with each layer producing its own effect. As they bake, the magic recipe appears in the book, in their handwriting. They name it Last Ditch Layer Cake. As the girls are about to serve the cake, Ms Silvers shows up with the Morbium root and tells the girls she was going to use it to break her own curse, but they need to strengthen the spell. They express confidence in their work and say they do not need it. They eat the cake, and the town starts up. In addition, Grandma is back to normal and Ms. Silvers plays piano on stage and everyone can hear her. Grandma is a family owned and operated family owned and operated family owned business. She tried to get rid of the book, tearing out the three pages, but the spell she cast backfired, and in effect she cursed herself. Grandma and Mrs Silvers, who are the only ones in the world, The Ferris Wheel stops, and a young man in a leather jacket with rolled up jeans steps off and walks away through the crowd, unnoticed. |
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Season 2 (2016-17)
| No. overall |
No. in season |
title | Directed by | Written by | Original release date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 | 1 | “Just Add Halloween” | Joe Nussbaum | Andrew Orenstein | October 14, 2016 |
| 15 | 2 | “Just Add Summer” | Joe Nussbaum | Luisa Leschin | January 12, 2017 |
| The Miso Soup spell has no effect, so instead Kelly cooks to “Settle The Beef” However, the spell warns that if the beef is not settled, a bigger problem will arise. Kelly gives the spell to Grandma but after she asks Kelly does not tell her that the sandwich containing the beef was magical. Immediately after eating the sandwich, their neighbor Willie comes over and expresses his anger at Grandma for not inviting her to her wedding. They settle their disagreement. At home, Kelly’s mom expresses her anger about Grandma getting the “first ice cream” with Kelly, Darbie asks Grandma not to cheer so much at her basketball games, And Buddy is angry Grandma washed his lucky jersey and claims that is why they lost their most recent game. Later, Grandma is visited by Ms. Silvers who claims she will never forgive Grandma for how she used her Morbium, the magical seed the traveler gave each of them. Then Mama P comes all the way back from her job in Paris and expresses her anger at Grandma as well. She says she’s only regrets her behavior towards is Jake. Kelly realizes the bigger problem in question is the three of them, who just can not seem to be happy. There is a knock on the door, and it opens to reveal Chuck. Then Mama P comes all the way back from her job in Paris and expresses her anger at Grandma as well. She says she’s only regrets her behavior towards is Jake. Kelly realizes the bigger problem in question is the three of them, who just can not seem to be happy. There is a knock on the door, and it opens to reveal Chuck. Then Mama P comes all the way back from her job in Paris and expresses her anger at Grandma as well. She says she’s only regrets her behavior towards is Jake. Kelly realizes the bigger problem in question is the three of them, who just can not seem to be happy. There is a knock on the door, and it opens to reveal Chuck. | |||||
| 16 | 3 | “Just Add Chuck” | Joe Nussbaum | John-Paul Nickel | January 12, 2017 |
| (Original Cooks) refuses to believe anything he says. While they confer, Chuck runs away. Kelly, Darbie, and Hannah have a spell to get their chuck to trust them. They help Chuck adjust to modern life, but Kelly loses all of her trust and is suspicious of everything, including Darbie’s father’s new friend Amy, and Hannah Herself. Without her trust she confronts Grandma about how Ms. Silvers claimed she misused her Morbium. The girls manage to restore Kelly’s trust, in order to bring back some of Chuck’s memories. They explain to Grandma that Kelly was under a spell. Grandma claims Chuck stole her Morbium, but the girls realized she was lying. | |||||
| 17 | 4 | “Just Add 1965” | Keith Samples | Lauren Thompson | January 12, 2017 |
| Darbie suspects her parents may be getting back together. The girls use a “What If These Walls Could Talk” spell to watch what happened the day OC’s prepared the Can not Recall Caramel and try to figure out why Chuck disappeared. However, everything appears to be normal. The OCs make plans to meet up at a restaurant after the Pluot festival. The girls go there and see them on Chuck disappearing. They begin to argue, but bring up nothing suspicious. Later, Darbie uses the spell to see if her parents are truly getting back together but she discovers that they think she’s “getting the wrong idea” and that her father is dating Amy, the woman at the park. Darbie is furious and upset. Meanwhile, Chuck saves Buddy from a car, earning Kelly’s parents gratitude. | |||||
| 18 | 5 | “Just Add Saphron” | Keith Samples | Aminta Goyel | January 12, 2017 |
| 19 | 6 | “Just Add Fixings” | Joe Nussbaum | Brand Franklin-Williams | January 12, 2017 |
| 20 | 7 | “Just Add 8529” | Gregory Guzik | Zachary Panozzo | January 12, 2017 |
| 21 | 8 | “Just Add Muscles” | Aprill Winney | Taylor Cox & Jacquie Walters | January 12, 2017 |
| 22 | 9 | “Just Add Fire” | Aprill Winney | Matt Goldman | January 12, 2017 |
| 23 | 10 | “Just Add Meddling” | Lily Mariye | John-Paul Nickel | January 12, 2017 |
| 24 | 11 | “Just Add Secrets” | Joe Nussbaum | Luisa Leschin | January 12, 2017 |
| 25 | 12 | “Just Add History” | Joe Nussbaum | Lauren Thompson | January 12, 2017 |
| 26 | 13 | “Just Add Rose” | Joe Nussbaum | Andrew Orenstein | January 12, 2017 |
References
- Jump up^ White, Hilary. “The Kids’ Book That Amazon Is Turning Into A TV Pilot” . POPSUGAR Moms . Retrieved February 19, 2016 .
- Jump up^ Tartaglione, Nancy; Andreeva, Nellie (February 18, 2015). “Orders 5 Original Series Including ‘Man In The High Castle,’ ‘Mad Dogs'” . Deadline Hollywood . Retrieved January 1, 2016 .
- Jump up^ Hipes, Patrick (June 8, 2016). “Amazon’s ‘Just Add Magic’ Renewed For Season 2” . Deadline Hollywood . Retrieved January 1, 2016 .
- ^ Jump up to:a b “Watch Just Add Magic Season 1 Episode – Amazon Video” . Www.amazon.com . Retrieved February 1, 2016 .
- Jump up^ “Amazon.com: Just Add Magic – Season 2” . Www.amazon.com . Retrieved January 13, 2017 .