Maggie Walsh

"Mother."

- Adam

Professor Maggie Walsh was a UC Sunnydale psychology professor and Director of The Initiative. She was also the mentor of Riley Finn, who served as her Teaching Assistant, and the creator of Adam.

History
Maggie initially portrayed herself as an ally of Buffy Summers, but became an enemy when she plotted to kill Buffy and remove her as a threat to the Initiative. She first became involved with Buffy when the young Slayer was enrolled in her Psychology class, along with Willow Rosenberg and Daniel "Oz" Osbourne in their first year at UC Sunnydale. At the university, Maggie had a fearsome reputation as an academic and taskmaster. However, like Buffy, she also led a secret double life: she was a chief member of the Initiative, a secret government agency located below the university. The Initiative employed a team of commandos, led by Riley Finn, tasked with capturing demons and vampires. The captured demons were taken back to the Initiative, where experiments were performed on them. Maggie was also involved in the 314 Project, a secret operation intended to create a race of supersoldiers part human, part demon and part machine. The first of these was Adam.

Maggie maintained a close relationship with Riley, who looked on her as a mother figure. As Riley developed a relationship with Buffy, the identity of the Slayer became known to Maggie. Though she initially thought that Buffy was a useful ally, Maggie soon disliked her unpredictability and unwanted curiosity, especially in regards to Project 314. She also grew jealous of Buffy's hold over Riley, and spied on them making love on the Initiative's monitors.

Eventually, Maggie tried to kill Buffy by sending her on a mission on which she was ambushed by two demons released from the Initiative's holding cells. However, Buffy defeated the demons and appeared on the monitors when Maggie prematurely announced Buffy's death to Riley, causing the latter to lose trust in her. An embittered Maggie retreated to the labs of Project 314, where she plotted how to use Adam to defeat Buffy. However, Adam awoke and impaled Maggie, killing her, and escaped from the Initiative.

Reanimated


"Mother kept her secrets well... Didn't you?. This is all as she planned it. Except she thought she would be alive..."

- Adam

Maggie's corpse was "artificially reanimated with moderate brain activity" and employed by Adam as a servant for the final stage the 314 Project, which involved unleashing locking up the Initiative and then unleashing all captured demons on the soldiers so they would annihilate each other. This would leave behind a large number of human and demon corpses to build an entire army of creatures like Adam. Walsh also set Riley up to be part of 314 by implanting a chip within his body that could be used to control his actions.

When Buffy appeared at the Secret Laboratory to confront Adam and save Riley, corpse Walsh tried to attack her with a bone saw. Riley ripped out the tubes pumping blood to keep Walsh reanimated and she collapsed, dead for good.

Behind the Scenes

 * She was portrayed by Lindsay Crouse.

Appearances

 * "The Freshman"
 * "Fear, Itself"
 * "Beer Bad"
 * "Wild at Heart"
 * "The Initiative"
 * "Hush"
 * "A New Man"
 * "The I in Team"
 * "Primeval"