Smart Payoff

Smart Payoff (also known as Lonely Amy ) is the 33rd episode of Sailor Moon R. It was preceded by Dog Day for Artemis and followed by Child's Play.

Plot
Sapphire tells Emerald that Prince Diamond is getting impatient with her failure. Emerald places a Dark Wedge on the next vulnerable spot, Albert Einstein School for the Gifted, and summons a droid named Mistrust, who puts all the students, including Melvin, under her spell. Melvin accuses Amy of cheating when she becomes top in the class (again). Other students spread rumors about her, but Lita fights them off.

Amy soon discovers that everyone who accused her of cheating goes to the same school, and discovers that it is full of dark energy, and transforms into Sailor Mercury and fights Mistrust. Mistrust creates several clones of herself, but Sailor Mercury freezes them with Mercury Ice Bubbles Freeze. The other Sailor Scouts arrive, but Mistrust uses her power to make Sailor Mercury hallucinate that they are saying mean things about her and have turned against her.

Tuxedo Mask arrives, but Mistrust creates more clones and knocks him out the window. Sailor Mercury is able to fight the illusion through the power of friendship (which Mistrust does not understand), which is stronger than Mistrust's powers. She uses Shine Aqua Illusion to freeze her antennas, and Sailor Moon destroys her with Moon Scepter Elimination, also destroying the Dark Wedge and returning Melvin and the others to normal. They later come and ask Amy to help them study.

Trivia

 * For unknown reasons, Kathleen Laskey was a stand-in for Mary Long as Molly Baker for 1 line "I think you're the one who's gone weird, Melvin. You know darn well how hard Amy works".