How did Angela meet Rayanne?

General discussion about the nineteen episodes of "My So-Called Life". Note: Our episode guide can be found here.
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Nostradamus
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How did Angela meet Rayanne?

Post by Nostradamus » Aug 19th 2002, 6:47 am

Angela's very first voice-over in the pilot begins with this line: "So I started hanging out with Rayanne Graff." We see in the first scene that they are friends; they trust each other; enjoy each other's company; they are comfortable discussing their private lives; and of course they apply each other's makeup. Yet we never actually see, nor are we told about, their first meeting.

This may seem an insignificant detail, but consider how Angela knows her friends. Sharon and Brian, her "normal" friends, have been in Angela's life since childhood and either met at school or were introduced by parents. At that age, social life is much less complex than in the teens, and both Brian and Sharon have a similar socio-economic background to Angela, so making their acquaintance would not have been hard.

Rickie and Jordan, on the other hand, move in entirely different circles than Angela, and with the added pressure of adolescent anxiety, it seems unlikely that she would have ever met them, let alone befriended them, without Rayanne's help. But Rayanne herself is so unlike Angela she might as well be from another planet. In the pilot Sharon seems to have heard only bad rumors about Rayanne, and Brian knows even less. Angela's parents obviously have no prior knowledge of Rayanne or her family. So how did these two come together?

I realize it would have been impractical for the writers to give us the exact origins of every relationship in the show, but it seems like a bit of a cop-out to gloss over this one. Without Rayanne being close to Angela the entire plot falls apart. It seems too easy to say they just "started hanging out".

There's been a lot of good discussion lately about what might have happened with the characters after the end of the series so I'm hoping someone can theorize about this piece of their past... :?:
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Post by Debs » Aug 19th 2002, 8:34 am

I think perhaps Amber touched upon something when she and Patty first met outside the school in Guns and Gossip. She spoke of being "that age" when the whole world revolved around your friends.

I don't think it is absurd to think that the two girls simply struck up a conversation one time while queueing for lunch. Rayanne probably made Angela do that hard laugh that she does and they probably had good fun. They got off on it and soon a friendship was formed. As Rickie states later on in the series, Rayanne always wanted to partly be Angela, and I think this attraction was there right at the very beginning. Opposites attract and all that.

I love this friendship and all that came of it. Angela grew up because of Rayanne and she made a good friend in Rickie. This couldn't have been possible without her.
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Post by mooneyguy » Aug 20th 2002, 11:52 am

Debs wrote:I don't think it is absurd to think that the two girls simply struck up a conversation one time while queueing for lunch.
I think its more likely they met in the bathroom. Or maybe in front of the fruit dispenser, with Angela offering some change to Rayanne (to keep her from banging on it!) :D
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Post by bluemonster » Aug 20th 2002, 10:58 pm

Debs wrote:As Rickie states later on in the series, Rayanne always wanted to partly be Angela, and I think this attraction was there right at the very beginning. Opposites attract and all that.
I think there's definately some truth in this... I know from my own high school experience that when you're in a period of "changing" like Angela is at the beginning of the series, it's easy to become fascinated with people you previously never would have interacted with, and sometimes this makes friendships just kind of happen. since Rayanne is going through her own changes and obviously adores Angela, it doesn't seem so strange that the two would have become close very quickly. maybe they really did first talk in the bathroom, something big is always going down in there. it was Rayanne's idea to dye Angela's hair, maybe Chase Face was asking for beauty advice... or maybe not.
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Post by Debs » Aug 21st 2002, 5:05 am

Yes, and you can imagine the hurt Sharon must have felt - she'd been Angela's best friend forever and now Angela had moved on. That definately happened to me on more than one occaision and it hurts like hell - especially at that age. And that's what's so great about the show - there are so many ways in for the audience that you can identify with more than one character.
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My Humble Opinion.

Post by foolishoptimist » Aug 23rd 2002, 11:36 pm

In the pilot, in the intro, Angela explains how Rayanne told her, her hair was holding her back.
Dyeing her hair is like the pivotal point in Angela's life. The point where she stopped being the way everybody expected her to be.

I always imagined that THAT was the start of their relationship. That Angela was probably in the bathroom, looking at herself in the mirror. Rayanne would have just been hanging out in there, and offered that up as one of her unsolicited comments.
Angela didn't take it as criticism, she took it as some deep, meaningful comment on her life, and so she didn't automatically reject it, or dismiss it as nonsense like most people seem to do to Rayanne.
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angela and rayanne

Post by jes » Oct 16th 2002, 10:18 pm

i believe they met in the bathroom. i havent watched the shows in years (i would love to know if they are still aired in re runs if anyone knows if they do by the way). THey were always in there and lets face it, thats where you meet alot of people in highschool. When you get to thinking about it, where else was there to hang out but the bathroom. Plus its not very hard to meet new people in highschool. you talk to them and they talk back... unless their preps i guess. Plus Rayannes not exactly shy... It was a great show, i have no clue why they canceled it after only 19 episodes but in a way it was a good thing, i mean the show never got corney. It stuck to how highschool really was and not like this new lagrassi jr high crap they show the teenagers of today. we were lucky to have decent shows as kids. i mean we had my so called life, the jeffersons, roseanne and good mtv. kids of today dont have any of that.

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Re: My Humble Opinion.

Post by So-Called Loon » Oct 27th 2002, 2:34 am

foolishoptimist wrote:In the pilot, in the intro, Angela explains how Rayanne told her, her hair was holding her back.
Dyeing her hair is like the pivotal point in Angela's life. The point where she stopped being the way everybody expected her to be.

I always imagined that THAT was the start of their relationship. That Angela was probably in the bathroom, looking at herself in the mirror. Rayanne would have just been hanging out in there, and offered that up as one of her unsolicited comments.
Angela didn't take it as criticism, she took it as some deep, meaningful comment on her life, and so she didn't automatically reject it, or dismiss it as nonsense like most people seem to do to Rayanne.
Strange that i'd never even given the question of how they met a thought. I quite like this idea as the original catalyst. I can imagine them being kind of confrontational at first, and then Angela just getting fascinated by this bizarre character who's so unlike her. Meanwhile Rayanne is introducing her to a new world.
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Update

Post by Nostradamus » Nov 1st 2002, 9:21 am

A little more fuel for the fires of speculation: In episode ten, "Other People's Daughters", Angela gives the following clue in voice-over.
I'd been friends with Rayanne Graff for half a year but I'd never been to her house.
If we assume this episode takes place in early November (just after # nine, "Halloween") it puts their friendship start date around late May/early June of the same year. Perhaps they spent a lot of time together over summer break? A bit odd, though, if Rayanne didn't meet Patty until after school had started again. Then again, Angela didn't meet Amber right away either.

In the context of my original question this info doesn't mean that much; Angela and Rayanne may have met long before they became real friends.

Any thoughts, comments?
I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.
-- Clarence Darrow

I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.
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Re: How did Angela meet Rayanne?

Post by majesty » Aug 3rd 2008, 10:10 am

I like the idea of them meeting in the bathroom, Rayanne simply stating, "You know, you'd be a total hottie if it weren't for your hair. You should be a redhead." And that would start the friendship which would start the show. I like that we don't begin their relationship right at the beginning, and we don't know exactly how it came to pass. It just is.

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