Ida Perez, better known as Mama P is one of the four tritagonists (alongside Gina Silvers, Becky Quinn, and Jake Williams) of the Prime Video original series Just Add Magic. She was a protector of the Cookbook from 1965 to c. 1975, alongside her closest friends Ida Perez and Becky Quinn, who had solved mysteries and helped out her town with the book's magic. She's the owner of the local cafe in Saffron Falls.

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 Admirable?[]

In General[]

• Despite all of her shady, manipulative tendencies, she genuinely cares about and respects her closest (and presumably only) employee Jake Williams, aiding him and his food sales/businesses behind the scenes, being protective over him and safety, and even viewing him as family, especially since her real family had issues after her father couldn't provide for them, due to losing his job.
• She regularly provides the girl trio with magic spices for their recipes and allows them to access her magic spice pantry when necessary, both before and after her reveal in the Season 1 finale, thus playing a major role in them being able to cook certain recipes and help their town.
• She seems to genuinely believe in hard work and perseverance, considering she was able to turn Jake into an adept and skilled employee with her mentoring style and respects him for it, and tried to do the same with Jacques after taking over Madame Roche's restaurant in Paris.

Season 1[]

• While it's ultimately revealed she was using the girl trio as a means to break her curse, and never actually cared about saving Becky, she still gets a number of genuinely nice acts in, implying that her facade of being a caring woman wasn't COMPLETELY fake.
  • In the pilot episode, she allows the girl trio to have some of her Cedronian Vanilla on the house for a shortcake Kelly and her friends were planning on making for Becky's birthday.
  • She knew that they'd be a price to pay for a recipe involving a Cedronian spice, so she sent Jake to deliver some dark cacao Nibs to the girl trio as a way to lessen the price the girls would have to pay.
  • While giving the girl trio some Livonian Sage and Taurian Thyme, she vaguely warns them by saying: "Time/Thyme is precious, use it wisely."
  • Repeatedly allowing the girl trio to use her spice pantry when they need to get spices for some of their recipes.
  • She helped Jake get into Young Entrepreneurs camp by recommending him without Jake even knowing, for a chance for Jake to sell some of his food/business ideas.
  • She served as a trickster mentor to Kelly, teaching her about a lot of the magic's risks, what certain measurements were, how to identify spice families and rearrange them and placing a spell on Kelly that Kelly would have to undo with P's teachings.
  • She was willing to charm the Pluot Festival committee into allowing Jake to sell his food there, because she genuinely believed his food is amazing and deserves a chance to be shared with the world. All this, despite knowing she'd pay a price in exchange, and people would dislike her own food.

Season 2A[]

• After reopening her restaurant with a new branding, she's confronted by the girl trio and Jake who insist she needs to apologize to everyone she had ranted to earlier. And while she initially gives out a backhanded apology to everyone, 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.
• Upon learning that Chuck had a trailer, she shows concern over the girl trio going there alone and their safety.
• She offers to cook a lockpicking spell for Darbie and Jake and aids the two of them in saving Kelly from being locked in Chuck's trailer.
• 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.

Season 2B[]

• She nearly kicks Terri Quinn and her mayor campaign crew out of the restaurant due to them 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.
• Also, when Lever wants Mama P to find dirt on Terri for his deal on a expansion of Mama P's 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.
• When the girl trio go to P's for help reversing an attention 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.
• After she did end up selling Terri out to Lever (after losing her memories of magic), 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 up 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.

Season 3[]

• 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 doesn't want to cooperate with Erin when she's unable to obtain morbium for the spell. While she still gives "Erin" some minor outside help, it's mostly because the latter threatened to re-erase P's memories if she didn't comply.
• Upon piecing together that the fake Erin was actually a magically-poisoned Kelly, and learning about Kelly's intentions for her, Hannah and Darbie to permanently keep the cookbook as well as her crafty plan to trick Hannah and Darbie into helping her, P tries to talk Kelly out of her plan, stating how out-of-character it was for her. P also secretly wrote a note to herself to eat the quiche (which would restore her memories and knowledge of magic) right before Night Bandit Kelly had her memories of magic erased.
• After regaining her memories of magic, 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 her 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.
• 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 rehired Jake as her employee after winning back his friendship and trust, giving her a nice wrap up to her arc.

What Makes Her Inconsistent?[]

• She's way too much of a manipulative, two-faced, self-serving jerk to be PG or even NPG. Some of the following reasons include:
  • During her time as a protector, she was the prankster of the group and overall had less morals than her friends/partners.
    • In contrast to Becky and Gina, Ida didn't show any concern for when the Can't Recall Caramel backfired on Chuck Hankins and he disappeared in thin air. Ida was more concerned about Chuck stealing her morbium and wanting it back (Though, considering Chuck had gotten her dad fired from his job and ruined her family's life, this is a bit understandable.)
    • At some point, she overused the magic for even trivial purposes and made a bunch of recipes on her own, to the point where Becky and Gina had to temporarily confiscate the cookbook. And unlike with Kelly in the present day, it's implied that Ida never acknowledged she had a problem, learned her lesson or apologized for overusing the magic.
    • She created a recipe from a casserole in an attempt to keep the book forever, only giving up because realized her partners would need to help, and knew that they'd never agree to it. Even in the present, she doesn't show guilt over trying to keep the cookbook forever.
    • Not to long afterwards, she got into an argument with Gina that eventually ended with her cursing Gina to be unable to play piano outside of her house, and pretty much taking away her dream and her career.
  • During her 40 years trapped in Saffron Falls, she enchanted most of her customers to love her food using magical recipes, and at the same time, she also used magic to shut down nearly any competition that would show up in town, closing countless restaurants and food businesses, and getting rid of various loud noise and music events. This would lead to her being one of the most beloved citizens in Saffron Falls, but it also placed several employees and business owners out of a job. Even after getting a minor change of heart in the later seasons, Mama P's never shown apologizing to any of the employees or business owners for getting them shut down. (This also makes P a hypocrite, considering her own father was fired from his job, placing the family in debt, so she knows how it feels when people suffer due to being out of a job.)
  • She even cursed the Rockberry Wolves to never win just because of a grudge she had on the quarterback's mother, making her a bit petty.
  • In Season 1, she pretended to be an ally to the main girl trio after finding out they were the new protectors who was willing to aid them in curing Becky Quinn (Kelly's grandmother, and P's former best friend), but it's ultimately revealed she was using them as a means to break her curse, never actually cared about saving Becky, and was using Gina as a scapegoat for everything she did.
    • Even before that, she lied about having never seen the cookbook before, and initially tried simply stealing the book from them as a means to find a recipe to break her curse, only failing because the text disappeared before she could do anything.
  • She's mostly apathetic to Saffron Falls hating her in near the beginning of Season 2A, and while she does eventually apologize, it's mostly because the plot's events forced her to, and even then, she's still prone to having shady and manipulative tendencies towards others, even if it's not as extreme.
  • She took advantage of the girl trio being under a Chicken-N-Fixits spell, and turned them into her fixing slaves.
  • She refused to attend Hannah and Darbie's intervention, as she didn't believe Kelly was overusing magic, like the others did.
  • 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, and helping out her business.
  • She's a Hero by Proxy, as the main reason she returns to Saffron Falls in Season 2 and makes amends with everyone is due to the effects of a spell forcing her to return and Jake needing to be able to sell his food, rather than her wanting to make amends on her own accord.
    • In a late Season 3 episode, she openly states that she didn't like doing the right thing, claiming it was very unrewarding.

Trivia[]

• She's so far the only Just Add Magic character to be Inconsistently Admirable.
• Out of all six of the main protectors from the original series, Mama P's the only one to not be Near Pure Good (which makes her stand out).

External Links[]

• Mama P on the Magnificent Baddie Wiki