11. "Gingerbread"
Joyce decides it would be a great idea to make a mother-daughter bonding thing out of slaying, so she comes to see Buffy while Buffy is on patrol. Buffy has to go after a vampire, so she leaves her mother alone by the playground. Joyce spots a young boy and girl in the playground, they're dead and they have a weird symbol on their hands. The police come and photograph the bodies and take them away. This horrible crime takes its toll on Joyce, she can't sleep and becomes obsessive about bringing the murderers to justice. Buffy tries to tell her that when she and Giles investigate something like this they want to keep it low key. Instead Joyce gets the entire community together.
At the vigil Joyce holds, we get to meet Willow's mom. Willow's mom seems to be some type of psychologist that knows lots of intellectual and behavioral theories but doesn't know anything about her daughter or for that matter notice much about her daughter. The meeting takes off with the mayor making a speech about not letting this type of thing ever happen again, then Joyce takes over and gets the parents really upset. It seems that all the adults are in agreement that it is some type of witch cult that performed the killings. Then we see a guy, Jonathan (he's a new character), Amy (making another guest appearance she was also in "The Witch" and "Bothered, Bewitched, Bewildered"), and Willow performing some type of ritual that uses the symbol that was found on the children's hands.
The next day at school the police are there opening the lockers and confiscating anything that has to do with the occult. Willow tells Buffy the symbol had to do with a fortune telling spell that she, Amy, and Jonathan were doing for Buffy's birthday, which was harmless. The authorities take away the majority of the books in the library. It seems that Buffy's mom has started an organization called 'MOO' Mothers Opposed to the Occult. She was the one who ordered the locker check. Which results in Amy and Willow getting taken to the principal's office.
When Willow gets home her mother is waiting for her. Her mother believes that Willow is just acting out which is a completely natural thing to do as a teenager. Willow attempts to tell her mom that she really can do spells but her mother doesn't believe her, she just grounds her. Willow's mom also forbids her to see Buffy and her other friends.
Buffy goes home to confront her mom about 'MOO'. Joyce tells Buffy that being the Slayer doesn't seem to be improving Sunnydale and that what Buffy is doing is fruitless. Buffy agrues with her about the books being taken from the library, she brings up censorship. Joyce is determined to weed out the "bad influences". This is why she also tells Buffy she isn't allowed to hang out with Willow anymore. Buffy storms out to go patroling and we see the dead children sitting at the table with Joyce. The children tell Joyce that she has to make the bad girls pay, Joyce tells them she will.
Buffy talks to Angel about what her mother said about her being the Slayer being unimportant. He tells Buffy that she has to fight, that some things are worth fighting for. It's in this conversation that Buffy realizes they know nothing about the dead children. She goes to the library where- SHOCK! Giles is trying to use a computer. They manage to IM Willow whose stuck in her room. She searches the Net and finds articles related to the two children. It seems every fifty years the two children show up dead in some city and start a majoy controversy leading to deaths and prejudices. Willow's mom comes in and sees her on the computer, she takes away Willow's computer. However, that doesn't matter Giles has already started to put the puzzle pieces together. The title comes from Giles' speech about fairy tales being based in truths. The fariy take we're talking about is "Hansel and Gretel" about the two children who are almost cooked and eaten by a witch but live to run back home and tell the tale. Giles' connects this to demons that thrive not on hurting humans but on seeing humans hurt each other. By taking people's deepest fears and make them do irrational and horrible things to each other.
Buffy and Giles go to get Joyce so she can stop the uproar. However, when they get to Buffy's house they are both knocked out. Willow is taken from her room by her mom and a mob. Buffy awaken tied to a wooden beam beside Amy and Willow. The mob is going to burn the three girls at the stake. Amy manages to turn herself into a rat and make a run for it when the books that are at the girls' feet are lit. This still leaves Willow and Buffy about to be burned alive.
Back at Buffy's house, Cordelia revives Giles. He has her mix a spell in his car that will let people see the demon's true form. Meanwhile, Xander and Oz are trying to get to the girls to save them, they eventually climb into a vent and begin crawling. Buffy pleads with Joyce to not do this, but Joyce is not aware of what she's doing to her own daughter. She is only thinking about what the two dead children want. Cordelia and Giles get into the municipal building. Cordelia gets a fire hose and puts out the fire at Buffy's and Willow's feet. Giles does the incantation and throws the potion at the two children. The children grab each other and become one big bad demon. Buffy manages to lift her stake out of the pile of books and impales the demon on it when she leans forward. At that moment, Xander and Oz come crashing out of the ceiling proclaiming that they are there to rescure Buffy and Willow, very sheepishly.
The next scene is in Willow's room. She and Buffy are trying to perform a spell that will turn Amy back from a rat to a human. It doesn't work. Buffy suggests they get Amy "one of those wheel things".
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