Inca Mummy Girl

Season 2, Episode 4
Written by Matt Kiene and Joe Reinkmeyer
Directed by Ellen S. Pressman
Original Airdate: 6 October 1997

Ampata “You are strange.”
Xander “Girls always tell me that. Right before they run away.”

REGULAR CAST

Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers
Nicholas Brendon as Xander Harris
Alyson Hannigan as Willow Rosenberg
Charisma Carpenter as Cordelia Chase
David Boreanaz as Angel
Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles

GUEST CAST

Kristine Sutherland as Joyce Summers
Ara Celi as ‘Ampata Gutierrez’
Seth Green as Daniel “Oz” Osbourne

CO-STARRING

Jason Hall as Devon MacLeish
Henrik Rosvall as Sven
Joey Crawford as Rodney Munson
Danny Strong as Jonathan Levinson
Kristen Winnicki as Gwen Ditchik
Gil Birmingham as Peru Guy
Samuel Jacobs as Peruvian Boy

SYNOPSIS

When Sunnydale High starts it’s cultural exchange program, Buffy is stuck with an exchange student that her mom signs her up with. When Xander discovers that Buffy’s exchange student is a guy, he freaks. During a museum trip, a 500-year-old mummy girl, with a cursed seal, is on display. After everyone leaves, a mischievous Rodney tries to take the seal but breaks it. The mummy girl wakes up now the curse is broken. She pulls Rodney into her tomb and mummifies him. When Buffy, Xander, Willow, and Giles finally put together the pieces of the missing boy, freaky mummy girl, and Sunnydale, they rush to the museum to try to save the day. However, they encounter the mummy’s guard and discover that Rodney has now been mummified.

Buffy’s exchange student arrives at the Bus Station, and the mummy girl sucks the life out of him too. Then after those two wonderful meals this 500-year-old looks 16. Xander falls in love at first sight. Giles asks this girl, Ampata, to decipher the seal but she warns him to destroy it since she knows that its destruction will free her from the curse permanently. The guard that is supposed to protect the mummy keeps trying to find the rest of the seal and keep the mummy dead. But unknowingly Buffy and the gang are getting in the way. This bodyguard keeps popping up trying to get the girl back into the box. In the ladies’ room Ampata encounters this knife guard, and then sucks the life out of him too.

Ampata is supposedly shaken by the weirdness of this knife guy, then Xander asks her to the dance to try to relieve her, as well as get a date with his dream girl. She accepts and they go. However, Xander’s feelings for Ampata alienate Willow. Meanwhile, at the dance, a guitarist, Oz, shows an interest in Willow, but has no clue who she is. Buffy and Giles stay in on Dance night to figure out this mystery. They discover that Ampata is the Mummy Girl. Giles tries to put together the pieces of the seal while Buffy tries to save Xander from Ampata’s deadly kiss. But there’s no need: Ampata feels too much for Xander and she can’t kill him. So, back at the museum, Ampata tries to stop Giles from putting the seal back together. Buffy saves Giles…then Ampata starts to deteriorate as she tries to feed off Willow. Xander puts his life on the line to save Willow, but Ampata dies before she can kill him.

They all go home, as their wacky love lives take yet another turn, leaving Oz wondering who Willow was.

TRIVIA

This episode sees the first appearance of many new characters. The key one is Seth Green, who makes his first appearance as Oz in this episode. He appears in ten episodes of the second season, and becomes a series regular for season three. The other characters are Danny Strong’s Jonathan, who becomes critical later in season six, and Devon MacLeish, played by Jason Hall, who appears until season four.

Oz’s band, Dingoes Ate My Baby, are shown playing at the Cultural Dance. Their name comes from a famous Australian outback incident, in which Lindy Chamberlain was accused of killing her baby, which had actually been taken by dingoes. The band was first mentioned in the unaired Buffy pilot, where Xander says, “They don’t know any chords yet, but they have really big amps”. The Dingoes’ music was provided by real-life band Four Star Mary, with whom James Marsters has occasionally performed. Four Star Mary themselves appeared in the fourth season finale Restless.

For the first and last time, David Boreanaz is absent from an episode where he credited as a series regular. In another note, this is the first time he’s been absent since season one’s Nightmares.

CONTINUITY

Oz wonders who that girl is in this episode. He’s referring to Willow, and refers to her the same way in Halloween. He finally meets her in What’s My Line? (Part 1).

Xander asks Ampata if she’s a Preying-Mantis, referring to Natalie French from Teacher’s Pet.

GOOFS

In Oz’s close-up during the song ‘Shadows’, just before Xander and Ampata walk in, Oz’s fret-hand is obviously not doing what the guitar in the song is doing.

Giles is just about ready to add the final piece to the seal. Then Ampata attacks him and picks up the seal, which is entirely whole although we never saw Giles finish assembling it.

When the bodyguard attacks Ampata as she is sitting with Xander, a bag gets knocked off the seat and onto a footrest. But when Xander gets up to chase the bodyguard, the bag is back on the seat.

The corpse in Ampata’s trunk shifts sides in between Buffy’s first and second attempts to lift the lid on the trunk.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

School Hard / Reptile Boy