Analyzing Chuck Hankins from Just Add Magic

By Nishtha Bajaj

Chuck Hankins, or Charles Peizer, the 15-year-old boy from 1865, is the true embodiment of the idea that villains are not born, they are made.
Just Add Magic, a children’s TV show, follows the journey of three girls — Kelly, Hannah, and Darbie — as they discover a magical cookbook hidden in Kelly’s attic. The trio becomes known as the Protectors of the magical cookbook.
The first season mainly revolves around saving Kelly’s grandmother, Betty Quinn, who has been cursed.

The first half of the second season focuses on Chuck, the boy who mysteriously disappeared in 1965 after a spell was performed by the then Protectors: Betty Quinn, Ida Perez, and Gina Silvers. As a result of the Last Ditch Layer Cake, Chuck returns to the present day.

Chuck's motive is clear from the start: he wants to save his sister, Rose, who was accidentally trapped inside the magical cookbook.
In the 1860s, Charles Peizer and his sister Rose were the Protectors of the book. They wanted to keep the book for themselves forever. The spell they created to achieve this came at a heavy price: the first person to take a bite would be trapped inside the book forever.
Rose unknowingly took the first bite and vanished before Charles’s eyes, leaving him confused, devastated, and alone.

Fast-forward to 1965: Gina introduces Chuck to magic, unaware that he already knows about it. Chuck pretends otherwise, needing the cookbook to swap Rose’s place with one of the Protectors and free her.
At the Pluot Festival, Betty Quinn gives Chuck a Can’t Recall Caramel to erase his memories of magic, hoping to prevent him from causing harm. However, it backfires and erases Chuck himself.

When Chuck returns after the Last Ditch Layer Cake, he is portrayed as cold, calculating, and dangerous. The girls believe he is after Kelly’s family and the cookbook, especially since Betty was involved in his disappearance. However, Chuck’s motives are much deeper.

Throughout the show, Chuck acts as an emotionless mastermind with a twisted view of reality. He lies, manipulates, steals, uses forbidden magic, and hurts others without remorse. His genius is undeniable: he breaks the curse that traps him in Lavender Heights in just a few days, something that took Mama P fifty years and the help of three Protectors.

Yet, glimpses of his humanity still exist.
Under the Fix-It spell, Kelly realizes that Chuck was not always like this. His cruelty is the result of deep hurt and years of trauma.

Toward the end of the season, the girls believe Chuck wants immortality and plans to trap their friend Hannah inside the cookbook.
However, when they find him at the location where the spell is supposed to be completed, they realize the truth.
After eating Memory Mallows, Kelly, Hannah, and Darbie understand that Chuck never wanted anyone else to suffer. In his desperate quest to save Rose, he had lost himself along the way.

In a final act of compassion, Kelly eats another Memory Mallow to remind Chuck of who he truly was — a boy filled with love and kindness, buried beneath 150 years of hurt.
Chuck, moved for the first time in years, realizes the consequences of his actions.
At that moment, Rose Peizer returns, along with Chuck’s lost humanity. The siblings leave together to live the life they had been denied.

Thus, through the character of ‘Chuck Hankins’ the show–Just Add Magic reinforces the truth that villains are not born; they are made.