Maggie Walsh

Maggie Walsh
Buffy the Vampire Slayer character
First appearance	"The Freshman"
Last appearance	"Primeval"
Created by	Joss Whedon
Portrayed by	Lindsay Crouse
Information
Affiliation	The Initiative, 314 Project
Notable powers	Knowledge of psychology, behavior modification, anatomy, biology, and cybernetics

Professor Maggie Walsh is a fictional character in the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The character is portrayed by Lindsay Crouse.

History

Walsh is introduced in Season Four, as Buffy's professor in a college course, but becomes an enemy when she plots to kill Buffy because she views Buffy as a threat to the Initiative. Walsh first becomes involved with Buffy when the young Slayer is enrolled in her Psychology class, along with Willow Rosenberg and Daniel "Oz" Osbourne in their first year at University of California Sunnydale. Walsh has a fearsome reputation as an academic and taskmaster. Like Buffy, she also leads a secret double life - as head of the Initiative, a secret government agency located below the university. The Initiative employs a team of commandos, led by Riley Finn, tasked with capturing vampires and demons for experimentation. Unknown to many in the Initiative, Maggie is also involved in Project 314, a secret program within the Initiative that created a hybrid demon-humanoid-mechanoid (demonoid) known as Adam. Various creatures captured by the Initiative were dissected to provide the parts for Adam.

Maggie maintains a close relationship with Riley, who looks upon her as a mother figure. As Riley develops a romantic relationship with Buffy, they inform Walsh that Buffy is the Slayer. She initially thinks that Buffy can be a useful ally to the Initiative with her slayer skills, but Maggie soon takes a dislike to her unpredictability and unwelcome curiosity, especially with regards to Project 314. She had cameras in Riley's room and spied on Buffy and Riley while they were consummating their relationship after capturing the Pulgara demon.

Maggie tries to kill Buffy by sending her on a mission on which she is ambushed by two demons released from the Initiative's holding cells. However, Buffy defeats the demons and appears on the monitors when Maggie prematurely announces Buffy's death to Riley. An embittered Maggie retreats to the labs of Project 314, where she plots how to use Adam to defeat Buffy. However, Adam awakens and impales Maggie, killing her, and escapes from the Initiative.

Maggie appears in the penultimate episode of Season Four, "Primeval," as a zombie, working under Adam along with others Adam has killed. Attempting to finish off Project 314, that was begun by Maggie, Adam has his workers manufacturing more creatures like him; part demon, human, and machine combined. (It was revealed that in the early stages of Project 314 before Maggie became a zombie, she had set Riley up to become one of the creatures by planting a chip in his body that can control him.) Zombie Maggie attacks Buffy with a bone cutter when she comes to Riley's rescue, but Buffy knocks her down and defeats her, and with some help from the Scooby-Gang of Willow, Xander, and Giles, she defeats Adam as well.

Quotes

(introducing herself to her class) "Those of you who come under my good graces will come to call me 'Maggie.' Those of you who don't, will come to know me by the name my T.A.s use and think I don't know about... 'The Evil Bitch-Monster of Death.'"

^[1]

Writing and acting

• Crouse viewed her character "no nonsense, and she seems to be a real teacher. She's like a President. She really would like to fashion the world in her image. She's not a mean person, she's just a straight-out scientist." ^[2]
• In a gender studies text, Jowett includes a section on the character, and argues the character is "masculinized by her roles as professor, scientist and leader"^[3]
• Crouse has explained how her character was initially explained to her, "Joss tried to explain to me who this character was. He said that she was a scientist, and that she was going to be doing research and eventually, she might hatch an evil plot, but her front was being a psychology teacher."^[4]
• Crouse gave some insight into her view on her character, "She's such an extremist. She has a vision of what she wants to do. She feels like she's testing the boundaries of something, and any human being always feels important no matter who they are. I'm sure she admires Dr. Frankenstein - or Einstein. She's probably a mix of those two. I like her caustic nature, because she's not a mean person. I have always imagined that Maggie treats people like grown-ups. That she doesn't want to live in a world of babies. She doesn't have the time for it. The Initiative is her baby."^[5]
• Crouse outlined her view of Maggie's relationships with Riley and Buffy, "Her teaching assistant Riley is really the child she never had, and there's probably confusion there that he's a potential something for her that's slightly out of her reach, but she's willing to prevent anyone else from being interested in him. I think she feels she's in direct competition with Buffy. The most complicated situation for her is having Riley fall in love with Buffy. Finding out that Buffy is the Slayer is a kind of a gas, and its nervous-making and exciting to have good people on her team; she's like a president - she wants a great cabinet underneath her. I think she'd like to fashion the world in her image, but Buffy puts a wrench in the works".^[6]
• Buffy writer, David Fury, said in an interview that "I don't think Joss had envisioned Maggie Walsh as being entirely villainous. As opposed to just sort of misguided" ^[7]

Notes and references

1. ^ Buffy 4.01 "The Freshman"
2. ^ Holder, Mariotte, Hart, The Watcher's Guide Vol. II (2000), p289-293
3. ^ Jowett, Lorna, Sex and the Slayer (2005), p175-176
4. ^ Stokes, Mike, "The Last Act", from Buffy the Vampire Slayer magazine #18 (UK, March 2001), page 20.
5. ^ Stokes, Mike, "The Last Act", from Buffy the Vampire Slayer magazine #18 (UK, March 2001), page 22.
6. ^ Stokes, Mike, "The Last Act", from Buffy the Vampire Slayer magazine #18 (UK, March 2001), page 23.
7. ^ Holder, Mariotte, Hart, The Watcher's Guide Vol. II (2000), p289-293

See also

• List of Buffyverse villains and supernatural beings