So it’s been a while since I’ve done a Pop Culture Potpourri post. I’m sorry about that. They’ll resume after surgery and radiation begins. My mind’s been other places and I just haven’t been able focus on the nonsense that I love so much.

BUT …

By happenstance or perhaps serendipity it came to pass that I was finally able to watch my way through the one and only season of My So-Called Life for the first time since it aired in the ’90s. It all started with a conversation with my friend Angel (hmmm … she inspires quite a few of these posts lately). On March 7th she mentioned spending a lost weekend watching her way through the box set. I was totally jealous. My So-Called Life is one of my most favorite TV shows ever, no one before or after has ever done teen angst better.

Later that day a Tweet from @Netflix appeared in my Twitter stream. It read, Hey Jordan Catalano and Angela Chase fans: you can instantly watch My So-Called Life. What show takes you right back to high school. I very nearly died from the happiness. I informed the hubs that there would be no cooking, laundry or conversation until I watched my way through the entire series. The Japanese earthquake occurred on that Friday so I put my viewing marathon on hold to watch the news footage and pray that the thousands missing after the tsunami would be found alive. I started watching the remaining episodes as a way to decompress from the wall to wall news coverage.

Once I started watching the show Angel and I chatted back and forth about it, making small comments here and there. And then, she messaged me asking, “so…what do you think *happened* (since the show stopped, rather than ended)” She believes …

Angela and Jordan get married and have a kiddo but end up splitting…she moves back home until she can get herself together, Brian comes to his mom’s house everyday to take care of things (because his dad died) and starts spending time with Angela and …her son…yeah…a son

and they ended up ~in love~ and get married…and have a little girl

then Brian’s mom passes away and they move into Brian’s old house to be near her parents (who stay together)

I finished watching the series and sat down to offer my opinion as to where everyone winds up. My views are a bit more pessimistic.

I think that Angela gets out of the car and goes to Brian. They spend all of high school and college together before splitting amicably and realizing they cannot grow w/o letting go of the security blanket their relationship has become.

Rayanne and Angela never make amends and Rayanne falls out of the picture completely. She’s Tino’s baby mama and a bartender at a biker bar. She occasionally lives with Amber when she and Tino are fighting. Amber currently has her man of the moment living with her. Rayanne and Tino’s kids are in foster care.

Sharon and Angela resume their friendship and stay friends for life. Brian comes home and eventually marries the twice divorced Sharon. Sharon’s a real estate agent. Brian’s a confident adult now (an engineer) and is the caretaker Sharon’s always been looking for. He of course still thinks she’s beautiful and considers her a trophy wife and showers her with all the material things she could ever want.

Ricky graduates high school and moves to New York where he is currently the gossipy but lovable maitre’d at Red Hook’s (Brooklyn) most talked about new Italian restaurant. It’s a small place where all the foodies in the know go.

Angela graduates college and moves to Philadelphia, where she writes a music column for Philadelphia Weekly. She’s single and mopey and has dated a string of sensitive ponytail guys. She’s single mostly because she’s inherited her mother’s judgmental and bossy ways while maintaining her father’s lack of a backbone making for a passive aggressive woe is me type character. She’s still above it all. She’s perfected the heavy sigh and eye roll.

Jordan has to die young. It’s just who he is. He’s the tragic figure. His band has a smattering of success and move to Los Angeles while record companies throw money, booze, drugs and women at them. They record one album, which doesn’t sell as expected and are dropped after their first tour also fails to get a buzz going. Despondent, Jordan falls deeply into drug addiction and ends up living on the streets before dying of a drug overdose (heroin).

Angela writes a book about Jordan and keeps a daily updated blog about his life.

Patty and Graham split shortly after the restaurant opens. Graham and Hailey are currently living together in a swanky apartment, where they throw a lot of parties and hang out with the “in crowd.”Danielle lives with them when she’s home from Temple University in Philly, where she’s studying to become a nurse.

Patty lives alone in the house, she’s as judgmental and bitchy and better than everyone else as she’s always been but now she’s bitter too. I don’t think she’s so much lonely as she is bitter that somewhere along the way people stopped taking orders from and deferring to her nagging pain in the ass self.

So what do you think? Where do think the characters end up? What do you believe their fate is? I’d love to read your opinions.