Did his "real" voice bother anyone else during the A&E thing? Everytime he came on the screen and started talking, he wasn't so...Spike...anymore. Did not likey.

I didn't see the A&E thing--but I do avoid cons and interviews with James to avoid this.

cereal to add that I've finally gotten the nerve to click the links to the pictures. Not as bad as I was expecting. Totally early 80's. At least his curl is natural. My dad had the 80's 'fro and it was a perm. * shudder *

I've no idea what was hip in Modesto but in Manhattan, where I grew up, that look was 5-10 years behind the times.

From my brief stay in Modesto (for my bro and SIL's wedding), I have to say it's not exactly the most happening corner of California. I'd buy them being a bit behind Manhattan trends.

Which reminds me I really need to find out if SIL ever knew JM. She's only a few years older, and IIRC he's a Methodist PK, and her family faithfully attended the biggest Methodist church in town...

Well, I'm about the same age as JM, and I can tell you that I went to high school with plenty of curly-headed boys who had hair-dos (hair-don'ts?) just like his. It was the Ugly Decade, after all.

Those yearbook pictures are priceless. And if I read the very small type correctly, JM played Thoreau in The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail, a play I was in back in high school. (I was Ralph Waldo Emerson's wife, Lydian.) Loved that play to death. It makes me very weirdly happy to know that JM was in the same play.

I totally had hair like Marsters in high school - a few years earlier - completely natural. It can't be that uncommon among Jewish kids (me - not Marsters as far as I know) cause I've heard it called a "Jewfro".

Entertainment Weekly's Ken Tucker (a longtime Buffy fan) gives the last episode an A+ and says, "Here endeth a magnificent series, magnificently."

When I was in junior high school, which would have been about the same time JM was in high school, the Jewfro was a big ol' no-no. Then again, So Cal versus No Cal. No Cal held onto the 70s looks way longer than So Cal did.

And this is from the penultimate Buffy review at Scoopme. I admit it made my allergies act up:

How will we carry on without them?

Whatever happens. Whoever lives. Whoever dies. We lose them anyway.

It hurts. It hurts a lot, and it hurts already. I can’t watch now, without it being connected to this inevitable ending, this final bow. Every moment of beautiful joy extracted from clever, intelligent, hysterical, awesome, captivating writing wrecks me as it lifts me up.

Every line pricks, because I smile or cheer, and then remember that it is the last time that Anya and Andrew will ever get to wheelchair fight. It is the last time that Buffy and Faith reach across the void at each other. It is the last time that Willow doubts her magic, or Giles holds the family together.

Every thing is the last thing, and knowing it is coming makes me incapable of seeing just the moment.

It’s because we love them. We will lose them, and we will mourn them, and, in a way, that preemptive grief is all we have. Because when it ends, next week, there will be nothing left to hold on to. Nothing rational. It will just be gone, and each and everyone of us will clutch the empty spaces where our hearts used to be, and we will feel silly for mourning something so seemingly trivial and small as it were actually family.

It is almost easier to say goodbye now, but it really isn’t goodbye, as long as we know there is one tale left. We still have one week left to rationalize that these people aren’t really real. They aren’t really with us.

But we’re just fooling ourselves, or at least I am.

They are real, if only because they are the better natures we hope for in ourselves. Through thick and thin, these people have laid it all out on the line for each other because of friendship and loyalty over crisis that we could never hope to overcome. We all want friends like these.

We all want to be like them ourselves, and not because they have powers and gifts and a calling.

Anya summed up our allegiance to them best:

"And, yet, here’s the thing, when it’s something that really matters, they fight. I mean, they’re lame morons for fighting, but they do. They never... they never quit. And so I guess, I’ll keep fighting too."

Amen.

Go.

Go be heroes.

One last time.

I actually had real work to do today, so I didn’t get a chance to respond to Cindy’s posts here and here from earlier. I’ve skipped and skimmed, and I sense that the conversation has moved on, but I really feel compelled to make a few points to clarify and defend my earlier position.

Please feel free to skip, starting here.

While I totally agree with Cindy’s points that vengeful actions are morally wrong in the Buffyverse, I take issue with the following statements

To justify something means to make prove something or somebody right (righteous); to make it/them free from blame; to absolve (from) guilt.

The desire is understandable, sympathetic; it's not justified.

Which is why I feel that, in the Buffyverse, a desire for vengeance is often, though not always, justified. Sometimes, a person who desires vengeance is “free from blame” for that desire.

In Season 1, “Nightmares”, Buffy’s desire to exact vengeance on Billy’s behalf is presented as morally right. We don’t know in what form or if vengeance was taken on the coach. The fact that Xander and Giles prevent the coach from leaving the hospital suggests that they were preparing to take further action, possibly taking him to the authorities.

In Season 2, no one questions Giles’ moral correctness for wanting to take vengeance on Angelus for Jenny’s murder. Buffy stops him, but only for his own safety, not because he is wrong. In fact, most members of the group have a desire for vengeance that is never questioned as being morally justified.

In Season 3, Cordelia’s feelings are acknowledged by Willow as justified. From “The Wish”:

XANDER: Excuse me? I need to be both giving and receiving mirth. Is it too much to ask for a little back up?

BUFFY: I don't know, Xand. I'm here for you. I'm supporto gal. But I feel kind of funny doing the "us against Cordelia" thing. She's had a rough time.

WILLOW: (stricken) It's true. Cordy belongs to the "justified" camp. She should make us pay. And pay and pay and pay and pay... In fact, there's really not enough "pay" to make up for-

In Season 3, we also have Buffy’s desire for vengeance against Faith for trying to kill Angel (among other things). In Season 4, we are presented with another instance of Buffy wanting vengeance on Faith for Faith’s body stealing. Only Angel, in the Angel episode “Sanctuary”, stops Buffy for taking vengeance, but he doesn’t tell her she’s wrong for wanting it.

(Continued in next post)

(Edited to add omitted quote)

(I can’t thing of any examples for Season 5.)

In Season 6, Dawn’s feelings of abandonment are strong enough to summon a vengeance demon. Although Dawn herself may not have been wanting or seeking vengeance, nobody questions Hallie’s characterization of Dawn’s feelings and seem to accept them as justified. Nor does anyone question Anya’s feelings leading to her decision to return to her life as a vengeance demon.

And in Season 7, Buffy does not condemn Wood’s desire to kill Spike. Of course, she doesn’t know nor care to know what those feelings are, so she cannot judge them as justified or unjustified. We know, Giles knows, Spike knows. Giles does question Wood’s plan to kill Spike:

GILES: And this has nothing to do with personal vengeance.

WOOD: Does it matter? (pause) He's an instrument of evil. He's going to prove to be our undoing in this fight. Buffy's undoing. And she's never gonna see it coming.

PUSH IN as WOOD brings home his case.

WOOD (cont'd): I'm talking about what needs to be done. For the greater good. You know I'm right.

While Giles does question the desire leading to action, he does not question the desire itself. Even Spike doesn’t question Wood’s moral right to be vengeful.

What I am trying to say in all of this is that in the Buffyverse, the desire for vengeance is often understandable and occasionally justified. Not all instances are justified. Marcie’s weren’t; Professor Walsh’s weren’t; Faith’s weren’t (at least initially). I don’t believe it is true that desire for vengeance is never justified. I feel we have been told and shown otherwise.