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It's foreign exchange time in Sunnydale High, and Buffy is looking forward to meeting her exotic South American male exchange partner. Xander isn't so keen until it turns out there's a side order of "fe" with that "male." Ampata is her name, and Xander is very much the enchantee. His goofy charms win Ampata's affections in short order. Meanwhile, Willow catches the eye of the tactiturn axeman of Dingoes Ate My Baby. Since we're in Sunnydale, things are not all hunky dory. Unless dories are secretly much more dangerous than we've been told. There's an Inca Mummy loose, sucking the very life force out of people all over town. The Gang soon find out that the mummy is none other than Ampata, and she's going to make Willow her next victim. Xander offers himself instead of her, but Ampata won't kill him, and so dies from old age and crumbles to dust in seconds.
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| Number: |
Episode 16 |
| Titel: |
Inca Mummy Girl |
| Book: |
Matt Kiene
Joe Reinkemeyer |
| Direction: |
Ellen Pressman |
| on TV: |
USA: 06.10.1997 / |
| Guests: |
Mrs. Joyce Summers Kristine Sutherland
Daniel "Oz" Osbourne Seth Green
Ampata/Mummy Ara Celi
Peruvian Boy/Ampata Samuel Jacobs
Gwen Kristen Winnicki
Devon MacLeish Jason Hall
Peru Man Gil Birmingham
Sven Henrik Rosvall
Rodney Joey Crawford
Jonathan Levinson Danny Strong |
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It's culture shock time at Sunnydale High — the cultural exchange program has started. A South American boy named Ampata will be staying with Buffy for two weeks. She's not thrilled, and Xander's even less thrilled. At the museum, they see a 500-year-old mummy as well as local bad seed Rodney Munson. Rodney's idea of a good time, it seems, involves stealing the seal meant to imprison the mummy. In the process the seal breaks and the mummy awakens, reaching its desiccated arms out towards Rodney.
The next day Willow reports Rodney's disappearance, and Buffy and friends go to the museum to investigate. They find a broken part of the ceramic seal, and a guy with a knife who tries to kill them. He runs away after looking at the mummy, however, and then Willow points out that mummies generally don't have braces — it's not the mummy in the coffin, it's Rodney! But solving this problem will have to wait, because Buffy's way late for picking her exchange student up at the bus depot. Too late, as it turns out, for a female voice has lured the boy behind a bus, where a mummified figure grabs and kisses him.
Buffy arrives at the depot calling for Ampata, but finds not a boy but a beautiful young girl answering to that name. Xander is smitten. While Buffy and Giles are busy trying to decipher the piece of the seal they found at the museum, Xander is busily falling in love with the exotic beauty, as Willow unhappily watches. Then, in the school bathroom, the knife-wielding guy from the museum shows up, trying to convince Ampata to give up this attempt at life and to go back to being mummified. She refuses, instead choosing to kiss the guy, sucking his life out and extending her own.
Giles decides the only way to find the missing mummy is to get the rest of the seal, and for that he needs Buffy's help, so it looks like she won't be able to go to the cultural exchange dance at the Bronze that night. Xander takes Ampata — a real live date! Poor Willow looks on, heartbroken, as Xander and Ampata grow ever closer during the dance. (But Oz, the band's guitarist, seems to have taken a shine to Willow.) Buffy and Giles come to the realization that Ampata is the missing mummy, a realization bolstered by the discovery of a mummified corpse in Ampata's trunk. They head off to the Bronze to try to warn Xander, who is dancing with Ampata and doesn't notice her hand shriveling.
Ampata finds a hapless victim, but before she can renew herself, they are interrupted by Xander and the victim runs away. Desperate, she tries to take what she needs from Xander, but she can't — she loves him. She runs off to the library instead, sensing that Giles is about to re-assemble the seal. Buffy and Willow find Xander dazed from the almost-kiss and follow Ampata to the museum, where she tries to kiss Willow. Xander won't let her though — he insists that if she's gonna take someone's life, she take his. She tries, but Xander holds back. The mummy dries up and dies before their eyes, and Xander is once again left to contemplate his questionable taste in dates.
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Giles: "You have responsibilities that other girls do not."
Buffy: "Oh! I know this one! Slaying entails certain sacrifices, blah blah biddy blah, I'm so stuffy, give me a scone."
Buffy: "One day I'm gonna live in a town where evil curses are just generally ruled out without even saying it."
Devon: "What does a girl have to do to impress you?"
Oz: "Well, it involves a feather boa and the theme to A Summer Place. I can't discuss it here."
Xander on Twinkies: "And the exciting part is that they have no ingredients that a human can pronounce, so it doesn't leave you with that heavy 'food' feeling in your stomach."
Willow: "Well, you know, I have a choice. I can spend my life waiting for Xander to go out with every other girl in the world until he notices me, or I can just get on with my life."
Buffy: "Good for you."
Willow: "Well, I didn't choose yet."
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Four Star Mary - "Shadows" and "Fate" (Both From Four Star Mary EP, Four Star Mary Music, 1997)
The music of Oz's band, Dingoes Ate My Baby, is provided by the band Four Star Mary. On stage at the Bronze at the Cultural Exchange Dance, Dingoes/FSM play "Shadows" first and then, as Xander asks Ampata to Dance, "Fate."
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