Oh, Angela Chase. No one — truly, no one — has been able to wear the scrunchy-faced angst of teenage girlhood quite like her. With her philosophizing voiceovers that constantly walked the line between profoundness and self-absorption, the too-believable My So-Called Life star and her arguably even more lovable cast of friends, enemies, and, well, Brian Krakows were some of the ’90s finest creations. Sure, sometimes MSCL got a little preachy, but the beauty of the show is that it was unafraid to just do high school: no exuberant wealth, no too-attractive 30-year-old stars, no tiptoeing around ugliness. The gang was made of living, breathing high schoolers we could identify with.
The cult favorite was canceled after just 19 episodes, and we doting fans never got to know what happened to our friends over at Liberty High when they finally grew up. But the injustice ends here: check out where we think they’d be today below.
Angela Chase
After graduating high school, Angela packed up and took her contemplative pout and folded Gumby-limbs to Reed College, where her plaid tent dresses grew more and more plaid and tent-y by the day with a little help from that Portland drinking water. When carrying in her stuff on move-in day, her mom, like, totally embarrassed her by dropping one of her duffel bags, causing all of Angela’s underwear to spill out across the lawn. But it was serendipitous after all, because she met her best friend and girl crush for the next four years, Lindsey-with-an-E Stewart, while picking up the clothes and talking about how lame parents are.
Angela majored in English, minored in women’s studies, and joined the Society of Beat Poetry along with Lindsey. They even bought matching black berets. This one time, Angela could have sworn she and Lindsey almost made out at a party. Two weekends later, Angela made out with their mutual friend Jessica just because the seed was planted in her mind. It was terrible.
After college, Angela took a publicity job with an independent book publisher and met her husband, Mark, at a reading. He repairs bikes. Both 32 years old now, Angela and Mark don’t have any children or any plans to have them, but they do have a giant black lab named Max.
To this day, Angela still rolls her eyes a lot.
Jordan Catalano
Very little is known about what happened to Jordan Catalano. Since his teachers in high school were too busy gazing into his blue, blue eyes to realize that he was functionally illiterate and that they needed to do something about it, Jordan had the pleasure of dropping out by choice after three years of loafing around until Angela’s class graduated.
After writing “Stay cool” in everyone’s yearbook (or some smudges and squiggles that he swore said that), Jordan Catalano hitchhiked to Nashville — or was it Oklahoma City? Kansas City, maybe? — and few stories about his fate ever made the trip back to Pennsylvania, because Jordan himself sure as hell never set foot in that place again. The only rumor that circulated held that he was the frontman of a band that’s “sort of like a cross between Pearl Jam and Green Day” that remains “so close to breaking through, you have no idea.”
Rayanne Graff
Rayanne didn’t graduate, but, like Jordan, she didn’t really care since the school was still pretty chill about letting her hang out in the bathroom all day under the pretense of being enrolled.
After some local art classes, she went into independent jewelry making, taking her feathered, beaded, bedazzled creations all across America to trade shows and the occasional Renaissance faire. She’s not married, but, as she explains it, she’s been “shacking up” with this guy Butch for six years now. He’s kind of a dick. She’s probably going to leave him.
Rickie Vasquez
Rickie got accepted to NYU on a full scholarship and started out studying drama, but he ended up in the film department in the hopes of becoming a director. Rickie was the object of many an art-boys’ and -girls’ affection throughout college, but was never much of a settler. He dated casually throughout his time there. Four years after college, he met his current boyfriend, Scott, who really, really loves the Mets and, yes, calls him Enrique sometimes. They live together in Chelsea.
Brian Krakow
Brian went to Stanford, where, on weekends, he’d go to bars a lot and bob his head near jukeboxes. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the nerd-chicks were pretty into it. He lost his virginity at the end of his freshman year. In his senior year, he met his first serious girlfriend, Cynthia, who pursued him with the aggressiveness and focus of a starved hawk.
He got recruited by a tech company after graduating salutatorian, and, once Cynthia began her medical residency, she started laying on the hints that she wanted to get married — and soon. After five years of dating, Brian finally proposed. They live in Pasadena with their two boys, Jeremy and Jason. Sometimes, when Cynthia’s in bed already and he’s finishing up a beer in the living room, Brian thinks about Angela Chase and lets out a muffled laugh (or is that a sigh?) while shutting off the lamps.
Sharon Cherski
Sharon Cherski, president of every club ever and overachiever extraordinaire, really, really wanted to go to Harvard, but was wait-listed and enrolled at Tufts instead. There, she was class president, a tour guide, and a member of the dance team. Right before high school graduation, she and her on-and-off boyfriend Kyle got back together and kept up a long-distance relationship while he played baseball at La Salle. He drove up to visit her every other weekend.
After college, Kyle got a job selling ads for The Philadelphia Inquirer and Sharon went to law school at UPenn. Shortly after graduating, she got pregnant with their only daughter, Ali. She has been very careful to keep her self-help sex tapes out of Ali’s hands.
Patty and Graham Chase
Patty divorced Graham during Angela’s third year of college, once she realized that Graham’s habits of calling her “Shorty,” never wanting to do it with her ever, and giving the googly-eyes to Hallie Lowenthal meant their relationship would never be OK again. She was single for six years, until she met Ted Ruskin, a client at the print shop. They are not engaged but have an unspoken long-term commitment. They have brunch frequently.
Graham, kicked out of the Chase household, moved to Baltimore. He works as a chef in a French restaurant there and is still good enough at working the sexy-dad angle to get his fair share of younger cuties. He and Angela talk regularly, but Danielle, only 15 when her parents’ marriage was falling apart at the seams, has never quite forgiven him.
Danielle Chase
Now 27, Danielle, the always-talking and never-listened-to little sister of Angela, graduated magna cum laude from Smith College with a degree in anthropology. Immediately after leaving Smith, she headed straight to Australia to do fieldwork. Occasionally, people back home remember she exists.