Inca Mummy Girl

These snapshots may contain SPOILERS for the entire series, so if for some reason you haven't yet seen some of the episodes and do not want to know what is going on, read no further.

----------------------------recap----------------------------
While on a field trip to the local museum, one of the students breaks a ceramic seal in the coffin of an Incan mummy. The mummy rises and must consume the life-force of others in order to remain alive and retain her human appearance. She tries to fit in with the students at Sunnydale, and even starts to develop real feelings for Xander. But when Buffy, Willow, and Giles realize who and what she really is, they may have to rescue Xander before he becomes the mummy's next victim.

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AMPATA: They told her that she was the only one. That only she could
defend her people from the nether world. Out of all the girls in her generation she was the only one...
BUFFY: ...chosen.



While this episode had lots of potential it just didn't quite live up to it. The scenes with Xander just become more embarrassing the more you watch. And the plot could have actually been good. We have a villain with some parallels to Buffy, a tragic background, and, just to make things complicated and more interesting, yet another love interest for Xander that isn't human.
There are weaknesses in the writing and in the delivery- okay, Xander, we get the point, you don't like it that a boy is staying at Buffy's house. Although the special effects mostly work, I was not impressed with the mummy. We have a tragic villain, a mummy who started out as an innocent teenage girl who was sacrificed, but we don't get to feel much of her pain. There are some good points to this episode- some parts are funny, with Willow hoping for a happy ending for the mummy story and later considering whether she should wait for Xander to notice her or get on with her life. Oz noticing Willow in her Eskimo costume.

On the whole while this episode wasn't bad it wasn't good either. Just another MOTW.




Foreshadowing
BUFFY: (speaking to Giles) One of these days you're gonna have to get a grownup car.




My views/status of characters;
Buffy - like
Willow - like
Xander - neutral
Giles - like
Cordelia - like
Spike - absent
Angel - absent
Oz - like

Overall I consider this an average episode compared to the rest of the season.