Inca Mummy Girl (Buffy episode)
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"Inca Mummy Girl" is Episode 4 of Season 2 of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. See also List of Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes.
Plot synopsis
Summary
Sunnydale High students are on a field trip to a museum exhibiting a mummified Incan girl. A joker stays behind after hours to steal the seal that the mummy has in her grip. When he accidentally breaks the artifact, the mummy girl pulls him into the casket and sucks up his life. After overhearing about the foreign exchange student Buffy is expecting, the mummy goes to the Sunnydale Bus Depot to assume his identity. The 500-year-old girl becomes Ampata.
Xander falls head over heels for the Latin beauty. Ampata tells Giles that the man on the seal with a knife represents a bodyguard. When Xander and Ampata are hanging out, the bodyguard appears again. A shaken Ampata urges Giles to destroy the seal. She is attacked in the ladies' room but sucks the bodyguard dry. Xander takes her to the dance, but she starts to shrivel again. She runs off mid-dance to look for another life to suck. Xander tracks her down and kisses her; he passes out. Meanwhile, Buffy and Giles finds out the truth. Giles goes to the museum to reassemble the seal while Buffy races to the dance. At the museum, Buffy saves Giles, Xander saves Willow. Ampata crumbles.
Expanded overview
To prepare for Sunnydale High's cultural exchange program, Buffy visits an Incan exhibit with her schoolmates. She is paired with an exchange student with whom her mom signed her up. Xander becomes jealous when he learns that she will room with a guy. After everyone leaves the museum, a class clown breaks the seal on a mummy whiles trying to steal it. The princess wakes up, for the curse is broken, and pulls the unfortunate student into her coffin. She mummifies him by a kiss on the lips. When the Scoobies rush to the museum, they encounter a sword-wielding guard and the remains of the missing student.
Buffy's exchange student arrives at the bus station, and the mummy girl sucks out his life, too. The 500-year-old becomes a beautiful teenager, and Xander is smitten. Giles asks her, who has assumed the name Ampata, to decipher the seal, but she tells him to destroy it. This bodyguard appears again and again, but is then killed in the ladies' room by Ampata's kiss.
Xander asks Ampata to the dance to enliven her. She gladly accepts. Willow is downtrodden to find her crush with another girl when the guitarist (Daniel "Oz" Osbourne) at the Bronze notices her. Meanwhile, Buffy and Giles open Ampata's trunk and discover the real Ampata's body. Giles tries to piece together the seal while Buffy tries to save Xander from Ampata's deadly kiss. But Ampata feels too much for Xander and leaves for the museum. She 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 as Ampata crumbles.
Writing and acting
Ampata’s surname, 'Gutierrez', is named after Joss Whedon’s personal assistant, Diego Gutierrez. The original script reveals the surname was originally 'Duarte'.
Ara Celi played the part of 'Ampata'. She had been a former Miss Texas who turned to acting. She has also appeared in , Nip/Tuck, All My Children (as Raquel Dion Santos). She has also been seen in The Hangman’s Daughter, Bruce Almighty and American Beauty.
Production details
Nicholas Brendon and Ara Celi each ate eight to twelve Twinkies for one scene.
Seth Green reveals on the Season 4 DVD commentary to "Wild at Heart" that Oz was originally supposed to have worn thick black-framed glasses inspired by the lead guitarist of Weezer. Whedon decided at the last moment to abandon the idea because it was too tacky.
The scenes of the museum were shot at the Natural History Museum, at 900 Exposition Boulevard near the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.
Music
'Dingoes Ate My Baby' was the fictional musical front for the real-life band 'Four Star Mary'.
- Christophe Beck - "Ampata's Kiss"
- Four Star Mary - "Fate"
- Four Star Mary - "Shadows"
Quotes and trivia
There is a black and white oval sticker labelled by the letters “WP” seen behind Xander when he says to Ampata, “Why’d you run away?”. The letters stand for the Sunnydale band, Widespread Panic. The same sticker appears in a number of episodes : "Halloween", "Bad Eggs", "Surprise", "Phases", "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered", "Becoming (Part 2)", "Dead Man’s Party", "A New Man", "Wild at Heart", "The Yoko Factor", and "The Replacement".
Continuity
Arc significance
Sunnydale museum was later seen in "Becoming (Part 1)", "Doomed" and "Smashed".
This episode features the first appearance of Dingoes Ate My Baby. Oz, the lead guitarist, would becomes a series regular, while Devon the singer proves a short-term boyfriend of Cordelia's. Oz notices Willow despite (or perhaps because of) her Eskimo costume.
The episode establishes that Buffy wears dungarees when she is sad. She later wears them in "Ted", "Becoming (Part 2)" and "Helpless".
Jonathan Levinson makes his first appearance. He is seen being seduced at the dance by Ampata.
Timing
- Stories that take place around the same time in the Buffyverse:
| Buffyverse | ||
| Main | Canon | Index Chronology: Ancient | Modern | BS1 | BS2 | BS3 | BS4/AS1 | BS5/AS2 | BS6/AS3 | BS7/AS4 | AS5 | Future | Flashbacks | |
| Buffy | Characters (main) | Characters (minor) | Episodes | Plot | Comics | Film | Pilot (unaired) | Promo: History.. | Novels | Promos: Pre-"Bargaining" | |
| Angel | Characters (main) | Characters (minor) | Episodes | Plot | | |
| Spin-offs | Comics | Fan made productions | Fray | Novels | Spike movie | Undeveloped productions Buffy Animated | Card Game | RPGs | Tales of Slayer (prose) | Tales of Slayers | Tales of Vampires | Toys | Video Games Upcoming: Blackout | | | | | | Portal Through Time | Spike vs Dracula | | |
| Powers | Angel Investigations | Circle of the Black Thorn | Order of Aurelius | The First Evil | The Initiative | Monsters | Old Ones | The Powers That Be | Ra-Tet | Scooby Gang | Senior Partners | Watchers' Council | Wolfram & Hart | |
| People | Adam | Amy | Andrew | Angel | Anya | Buffy | Caleb | Connor | Cordelia | Dawn | Darla | Doyle | Dru | Eve | Faith | Fred | Giles | Glory | Gunn | Harmony | Holtz | Illyria | Jasmine | Jenny | Joyce | Jonathan | Kate | Kennedy | Lilah | Lindsey | Lorne | The Master | Mayor Wilkins | Oz | Professor Walsh | Riley | Spike | Tara | Warren | Wesley | Willow | Xander | |
| Places | L.A. | Sunnydale Bronze | Caritas | Hellmouth | Hyperion | Library | Magic Box | Pylea | Sunnydale High | |
| Music | Complete Tracklist | Use of Music in Buffy & Angel | Dingoes Ate My Baby | Film | | | Once More, With Feeling | |
| Key Terminology | "Demon" | "Slayer" | "Vampire" | "Watcher" | "Werewolf" | "Witch" "Child of Senior Partners" | Shanshu | Sunnydale Syndrome | Tro-Clon | |
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