"Gingerbread" is Joss Whedon's mash up of Hansel and Gretel and The Crucible.
Joyce finds two children while "bonding" with Buffy on a patrol night. The children have symbols are their hands that lead Giles to believe that the deaths were caused by someone involved in the occult. That leads Joyce to believe that the children were killed by a witch, and soon she has all of the adults in Sunnydale on a witch hunt. But it isn't all Joyce's idea. She has some little voices telling her what to do. And soon the whole town has turned against Willow, Buffy, and Amy (remember Amy, the witch?).
Quotes:
Joyce: Is it a vampire?
Buffy: Mom, what are you doing here?
Joyce: I brought you a snack. I thought it was about time or me to come out and watch. You know, the slaying.
Buffy: You know, the slaying is kind of an alone thing.
Joyce: It's, um, you know, something we could share.
Buffy: Actually, it's pretty dull, you know. It's bam, boom, stick... poof.
Joyce: Good, honey. Kill him!
Joyce: It's Mr. Sanderson from the bank. And he's getting away!
Buffy (to Joyce): Stay! (runs after Mr. Sanderson from the bank)
Buffy (to Joyce): I'll take care of everything. I promise. Just try and calm down.
[cut to Buffy and Giles]
Buffy: Don't tell me to calm down!
Buffy: Find me the thing that uses this symbol and point me at it.
Buffy: Find me the thing that uses this symbol and point me at it.
Giles: Hmm.
Buffy: Hmm, what? Giles, speak.
Giles: I wonder if you're not letting yourself get a shade, uh, more personal because of your mother's involvement.
Buffy: Oh, it's completely personal.
Xander: So, a burrito?
Oz: This is a burrito.
Xander: Damn straight.
Oz (to Willow): I haven't seen you all day. Where you been?
Xander: Not with me. No sir. Ask anyone. No.
Xander: Why was your mom there?
Buffy: More bad. She picked last night, of all nights, for a surprise bonding visit.
Willow: Your mom would actually take the time to do that with you? That really wasn't the point of the story, was it?
Xander: What a burn. I mean, Buff's mom was just starting to accept the whole slayer thing, and now she's gonna be double freaked out.
Willow: Makes me grateful that my mom's not interested in my extracurricular activities. Or my curricular activities.
Joyce: Are you embarrassed to be hanging out with your mother? I didn't hug you.
Buffy: No, it's just... this hall is about school, and you're about home. Mix them, my world dissolves.
Mrs. Rosenberg: Willow, I didn't know you were going to be here. Oh, hi, Bunny.
Buffy: Hi.
Mrs. Rosenberg: Willow, you cut off your hair. That's a new look.
Willow: Yea, it's just a sudden whim I had... in August.
Joyce: Well, it's, uh, it's been a while.
Giles: Right. Not since, um, not since... not for a while.
Mrs. Rosenberg: There's a rumor going around, Mr. Giles.
Giles: Rumor? About us? About What?
Mrs. Rosenberg: About witches. People calling themselves witches are responsible for this brutal crime.
Giles: Indeed? How strange.
Willow: Ha, ha. Yes. Strange. Witches.
Cordelia: If you're going to hang with them, expect badness. 'Cause that's what you get when you hang with freaks and losers. Believe me, I know. That was a pointed comment about me hanging with you guys.
Buffy: Yea, I got that one.
Buffy: Hey, is Willow around?
Xander: How can I convince you people that it's over? You assume because I'm here, she's here. that I somehow mysteriously know where she is.
Buffy: Those her books?
Xander: Yea. She's in the bathroom.
Xander: Look, I'm getting sick of judgment. The innuendos. Is a man not innocent until proven guilty?
Buffy: You are guilty. You got illicit smoochies. Gonna have to pay the price.
Xander: But I'm talking about future guilt. Look, everyone expects me to mess up again. Like Oz. I see how he is around me. You know, that steely gaze... that pointed silence.
Buffy: 'Cause he's such a chatterbox.
Xander: No, but it's different now. It's more a verbal nonverbal. He speaks volumes with his eyes.
Buffy: What is this?
Willow: A doodle. I do doodle. You too. You do doodle too.
Principal Snyder: This is a glorious day for Principals everywhere. No pathetic whining about students' rights. Just a long row of lockers, and a man with a key.
Cordelia: Hey! Get your grubby custodial hands off that.
Security Officer: Stay back.
Cordelia: That hair spray costs $45, and it's imported.
Giles: They're confiscating my books.
Buffy: Giles, we need those books.
Giles: Believe me, I tried to tell that to the nice man with the big gun.
Buffy: There's something about the symbol that we're missing. Willow said she used it in a protection spell. It's harmless. Not a big bad. So then whey would it turn up in a ritual sacrifice?
Giles: I don't know. Ordinarily, I would say let's widen our research.
Buffy: Using what? A dictionary and My Friend Flicka?
Giles: This is intolerable. Snyder has interfered before, but I won't take this from that twisted little homunculus.
Snyder (entering the library): I love the smell of desperate librarian in the morning.
Giles: You get out... and take your marauders with you.
Snyder: Oh, my. So fierce.
Snyder: Just how is, um, Blood Rites and Sacrifices appropriate material for a public school library? Chess Club branching out?
Snyder: Just remember, lift a finger against me, and you'll have to answer to MOO.
Buffy: Answer to moo? Did that sentence just make some sense that I'm not in on?
Snyder: Mothers Opposed to the Occult. A powerful new group.
Buffy: And who came up with that lame name?
Snyder: That would be the founder. I believe you call her Mom.
Mrs. Rosenberg: This isn't exactly a surprise.
Willow: Why not?
Mrs. Rosenberg: Oh, well, identification with mythical icons is perfectly typical of your age group. It's a classic adolescent response to the pressure of incipient adulthood.
Willow: Oh, is that what it is?
Mrs. Rosenberg: Of course, I wish you could have identified with something a little less icky, but developmentally speaking --
Willow: Mom, I'm not an age group. I'm me. Willow group.
Willow: Mom, how would you know what I can do? I mean, the last time we had a conversation over three minutes, it was about the patriarchal bias of the Mister Rogers show.
Mrs. Rosenberg: Well, with King Friday lording it over the "lesser" puppets --
Mrs. Rosenberg: You're grounded.
Willow: Grounded? This is the first time ever I've done something you don't like, and I'm grounded? I'm supposed to mess up. I'm a teenager, remember?
Mrs. Rosenberg: You're upset. I hear you.
Willow: No, Ma, hear this. I'm a rebel. I'm having a rebellion.
Willow: I can summon the four elements. Okay, two, but four soon. And I'm dating a musician!
Mrs. Rosenberg: Oh, Willow!"
Mrs. Rosenberg: I don't want you hanging out with those friends of yours. It's clear where this little obsession came from. You will not speak to Bunny Summers again.
[Cut to Buffy and Joyce]
Joyce: I don't want you seeing that Willow anymore.
Buffy: Okay, maybe I don't have a plan. Lord knows I don't have any lapel buttons.
Joyce: Buffy.
Buffy: And maybe next time that the world is getting sucked into hell, I won't be able to stop it because the anti-sucking book isn't on the approved reading list.
Buffy: I have to go. I have to go on one of my pointless patrols and react to some vampires. If that's all right with MOO. And nice acronym, Mom.
Angel: I heard about this. People are talking. People are even talking to me.
Buffy: It's strange. People die in Sunnydale all the time, and I've never seen anything like this.
Angel: They were children. Innocent. It makes a difference.
Buffy: And Mr. Sanderson from the bank had it coming?
Buffy: My mom said some things to me about being the slayer. That it's fruitless. No fruit for Buffy.
Buffy: Okay, so I battle evil. But I don't really win. The bad keeps coming back and getting stronger. I'm like that kid in the story, the boy that stuck his finger in the duck.
Angel: Dike. It's another word for dam.
Buffy: Oh. Okay, that story makes a lot more sense now.
Angel: Buffy, you know I'm still figuring things out. There's a lot I don't understand. But I do know it's important to keep fighting. I learned that from you.
Giles (using the computer): Session interrupted? Who said you could interrupt, you stupid useless fad! No, I said fad, and I'll say it again!
Xander (entering with Oz): At that point, I will become frightened.
Oz: Take heart, we found your books.
Xander: You can put your heart back. We can't get them. They're locked up in City Hall.
Buffy: We need to get some information.
Giles: Yea, well, somebody else do it, this thing's locked me out.
Xander: Well, if you wouldn't yell at it...
Oz: I can look around, but Willow would really know the sites we need.
Buffy: That's great. She can't even come to the phone. The wrath of MOO.
Xander: So, they have names. That's new.
Giles: There is a fringe theory, held by a few folklorists that some regional stories have actual, very literal antecedents.
Buffy: And in some language that's English...
Oz: Fairy tales are real.
Xander: Wait, Hansel and Gretel? Breadcrumbs, ovens, gingerbread house?
Giles: Of course. It makes sense now.
Buffy: Yea, it's all falling into place. Of course that place is nowhere near this place.
Buffy: Hansel and Gretel run home to tell everyone about the mean old witch.
Giles: And then she, and probably dozens of others are persecuted by a righteous mob. It's happened all through history. It happened in Salem, not surprisingly.
Xander: Whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm still spinning on this whole "fairy tales are real" thing.
Oz: So, what do we do?
Xander: I don't know about you, but I'm gonna go trade my cow for some beans. No one else is seeing the funny here?
Cordelia: Wake up!
[slaps Giles]
Giles: Cordelia?
Cordelia: Took you long enough to wake up. My hand hurts.
Giles Pity.
Cordelia: Things are way out of control, Giles. First the thing at school, and then my mom confiscates all my black clothes and scented candles. I came over here to tell Buffy to stop this craziness, and found you all unconscious, again. How many times have you been knocked out, anyway? I swear, one these times you're going to wake up in a coma.
Giles: Wake up in a...? Oh, never mind. We need to save Buffy from Hansel and Gretel.
Cordelia: Now, let's be clear. The brain damage happened before I hit you.
Buffy: Mom, you don't want this.
Joyce: Since when does it matter what I want? I wanted a normal, happy daughter. Instead I got a slayer.
Mrs. Rosenberg: Torch.
Joyce: Thanks. This has been so trying, you've been such a champ.
Mrs. Rosenberg: Oh, you too, Joyce.
Joyce: We should stay close. Have lunch.
Mrs. Rosenberg: Oh, I'd like that. How nice.
Giles: And, uh, drop a toadstone into the mixture.
Cordelia: This? It doesn't look like a toad.
Giles: No reason it should. It's from inside the toad.
Cordelia: I hate you.
Buffy: Cordelia, put out the fire!
Cordelia: Oh, right.
Cordelia: Okay, I think I liked the two little ones more than the one big one.
Demon: Protect us. Kill the bad girls.
Buffy: You know what? Not as convincing in that outfit.
Buffy: Did I get it? Did I get it?
[Xander and Oz fall from the ceiling]
Oz: We're here to save you.
Willow: She's doing that selection thing your mom used to be so good at.
Buffy: She forgot everything?
Willow: No. She remembered the part where I said I was dating a musician. Oz has to come to dinner next week. So, that's sort of like taking an interest.
Buffy (re: Amy): Maybe we could get her one of those wheel thingies.
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