Three middle school-aged girls — Kelly Quinn, Darbie O’Brien and Hannah Parker-Kent — are seen baking brownies for Kelly’s grandmother’s birthday. Her grandmother, also known as Grandma Quinn, has a mysterious illness that renders her practically brain dead. The girls get a phone notification from Charlotte, their school’s supposed annoying mean girl reminding them about the upcoming basketball team tryouts.
Buddy, Kelly’s younger brother sneaks up behind them and attempts to sneak a taste of the brownie batter. The girls reprimand him and chase him all the way up into the attic after Buddy knocks over the pan. This leads them to discover a cookbook in a box. Upon further inspection, they find out that the cookbook belonged to Grandma Quinn. Kelly takes this as a sign that she’s supposed to bake one of her grandmother’s secret recipes. They agree to bake a recipe from the cookbook instead, deciding on a strawberry shortcake oddly titled “Shut’em Up Shortcake”.
Reading over the recipe, they realize they need something called Cedronian Vanilla. So the girls head on over to a restaurant called Mama P’s to retrieve the ingredient. We’re introduced to Jake, a friend of the girls and an employee at Mama P’s. Mama P herself hands the girls a bottle of Cedronian Vanilla and mentions Grandma Quinn’s birthday, even though the two women have seemingly never met. As the girls return to Kelly’s, they’re stopped and intimidated by Ms. Silvers, a scary neighbor.
The girls start to bake the shortcake, Darbie slacking off and practicing her basketball shots for tryouts while the other two bake. Her only contribution to the recipe is adding the Cedronian Vanilla in. Reading over the recipe again, the girls find fine print they initially glossed over that says adding Cedronian spice comes with a price, but choose to brush it off. Darbie and Hannah soon leave, but not before Kelly gives Hannah a slice of the shortcake to cheer her up after doubting if Darbie will make it onto the basketball team at all.
At dinner, the Quinn family are gathered to celebrate Grandma Quinn’s birthday. During dessert, Kelly brings the shortcake to the table but is interrupted by Buddy wanting to carry it. The two argue over the platter, which ends up with the shortcake falling onto the floor. Buddy eats the shortcake with his bare hands as Kelly gets mad, apologizing to Grandma Quinn for ruining her party. She mentions that she baked a recipe from her old cookbook, which causes Grandma Quinn to suddenly regain the ability to talk, telling Kelly to ‘trust her instincts’ before reverting back to her brain dead state. Later that night, Kelly browses the cookbook in bed before heading to sleep. The emblem on the book starts glowing, which startles her as she tries to ignore it.
The next day, Kelly finds out that Buddy is completely unable to talk. She confronts Hannah about it at school, blaming his situation on the ‘Shut’em Up Shortcake’. Hannah says she ate her slice and isn’t mute. Darbie approaches them, inversely not being able to stop talking. Hannah falls mute shortly after. Kelly realizes they’re dealing with actual magic and remembers the fine print written above the shortcake recipe. Since Darbie added the Vanilla, the price she had to pay was not being able to stop talking.
At basketball tryouts, Darbie trips and injures her knee due to her clumsy and careless nature. The three meet up at Kelly’s after school to go over what happened during the day. Kelly goes downstairs to apologize to Buddy about their argument over the shortcake and he regains his voice. Hannah regains her voice too, and Darbie is finally able to stop talking.
Kelly assumes the magic just wore off and decides to bake another recipe to heal Darbie’s leg: “Hazelnut Healing Tart”. Kelly says she’ll be the one to pay the price and adds in the Vanilla. Jake (with a broken wrist) comes over to visit while they bake the tart to drop off some dark cocoa nibs from Mama P. He tastes the batter and comments that his wrist feels a lot better before leaving. Darbie eats the tart and her leg heals, but now Kelly can’t move her arm at all.
The three decide to go on with basketball tryouts the next day, and they all get onto the team despite Kelly’s situation. The coach appoints Kelly as the team captain instead of Charlotte, but Kelly rejects the offer and says Charlotte should be team captain instead, since she has an attitude more fit for the job. This causes Kelly’s arm to start working again. Charlotte thanks Kelly for letting her be captain after tryouts end.
At night, the three are gathered again at Kelly’s, Darbie finally nailing her basketball shots as Kelly reads over the cookbook. She discovers more fine print, reading that spells don’t wear off like they assumed. Rather, they can be reverted back to normal by doing good and noble acts. Kelly realizes that Grandma Quinn may not have an illness at all, and that she’s under some kind of spell, saying that they have to keep cooking the book’s recipes to save her grandmother.
Mama P confronts Ms. Silvers, cryptically saying that something has ‘started again’. Ms. Silvers replies that she leave the girls alone.
Tropes:
- Chekhov's Gun: The dark cocoa nibs from Mama P that Jake dropped off at Kelly’s. In “Just Add Birthdays”, Kelly and Hannah bake them into cookies for Darbie’s birthday, subsequently finding out that these are magic cocoa nibs that cause anyone who eat them to act younger than they actually are.
- Early-Bird Cameo: When the girls open the cookbook, they find a picture of a younger Grandma Quinn along with two other girls. These two turn out to be a younger Mama P and Ms. Silvers, who appear later in the episode. This, among other things, also hints at the connection between the three women.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Phrases like ‘holy banana pants’ to substitute swear words and the characters acting more childish than how they act later on in the series definitely count.
- Establishing Series Moment: Even with all of the Early-Installment Weirdness, the premiere episode still manages to establish how the series' three lead characters were all great friends, who are loyal and trustworthy to each other. While, also showing there would be a nice mix of real and fantastical elements, and showing the serious steaks of how dangerous and pwerful the cookbook's magic is. Needless to say, the stakes are about to get pretty high.
- Girls Love Chocolate: Darbie certainly does, as she’s shown eating the chocolate the girls were supposed to use for Grandma Quinn’s brownies in the first scene.
- Gosh Dang It to Heck!: ‘Holy banana pants!’
- Hand Gagging: Hannah and later Kelly does this to Darbie in order to shut her up.
- She uses gum, Darbie’s headband and a popsicle as gags in later scenes.
- Lighter and Softer: The first episode has a lighter, less grim tone compared to the rest of the series. Justified considering that the first episode was originally released as a pilot with a young demographic, but upon finding a good chunk of the fan response came from adults liking the show, they retooled the series to be more mature. This is exemplified in the lighting, the first episode being noticeably brighter than the rest of the series. The only scene with darker lighting in the first episode is Grandma Quinn’s birthday dinner scene, since it was filmed a year after the pilot was made to replace the original scene.
- In the original scene, instead of Kelly and Buddy arguing over the platter causing the shortcake to fall over, Buddy sneezes into the shortcake. Kelly’s mother was also played by a different actress.
- Motor Mouth: What happens to those who pay the price while baking “Shut’em Up Shortcake”.Darbie: Hey, guys! How's it goin' today? I'm fantastic. Woke up at 6:30 without the alarm clock, thank you very much, and I am not a morning person. Wow, you guys both look really cute today! Hey, did you bring some of that shortcake? Because I've been thinking about it all morning-Hannah: Darbie! Stop!Darbie: That's the thing, I can't! Couldn't even stop while I was brushing my teeth, swallowed a lot of toothpaste. I'm laughing right now but I'm actually really concerned that something's wrong with me!
- Pilot: Served as the pilot episode before the rest of the season was made.
- Put on a Bus: Charlotte isn’t seen again until “Just Add Halloween”.
- Rouge Angles of Satin: Hannah’s phone autocorrects ‘laryngitis’ to ‘Lauren glitters’.
- Running Gag: Hannah warning Darbie when she’s just about to trip over something. Darbie ends up actually tripping and injuring herself when Hannah loses her voice.
- Supreme Chef: Kelly is able to list off the ingredients in Jake’s empanadas just from taste alone.Kelly: I taste chicken... mushrooms... serrano... ooh, and tarragon. No, not tarragon... it’s roasted cumin.Jake: Nice.Kelly: Cooking’s in my blood.
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The Other Darrin: The actress playing Kelly’s mother in the original dinner scene has been replaced for the reshoot. - The Speechless: ”Shut’em Up Shortcake” causes those who eat it to lose their voice.
- Training Montage: A montage of the girls at basketball tryouts is set to “Rollercoaster” by Bleachers.
- Unexpectedly Real Magic: The girls choose not to heed all the signs that point to the cookbook being magic and bake a recipe from it anyway, not knowing the consequences.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Despite the girls getting in, the basketball team are never mentioned again after this episode.
