Where are our favorite Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters now?

LOS ANGELES, CA – OCTOBER 23: Michelle Trachtenberg attends the Third Annual “InStyle Awards” presented by InStyle at The Getty Center on October 23, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for InStyle)

Michelle Trachtenberg – Dawn

Her place in the Buffy-verse: Michelle Trachtenberg has the tough job of playing one of TV’s most hated characters. Deemed loathsome by many critical outlets, Trachtenberg did the best she could to make Dawn, Buffy’s sister, a contributing member of the cast — although it’s debatable whether she succeeded or not.

Dawn arrived on the show in the season premiere of the fifth season as Buffy’s sister, having been retroactively fitted into the show. That is, the characters believed she had been there all along, even having memories of a non-existent childhood with Buffy and her mother. The audience knew she had not been there all along, and this created a tension and cognitive dissonance among fans. Eventually, the characters realized that Dawn was just the key to unlock dimensions and that she hadn’t been there all along, but the whole storyline left a bad taste in audiences’ mouths.

Her post-Buffy career: On the heels of the emotional series finale of Buffy, Trachtenberg found herself on one of the most critically-acclaimed series on cable, Six Feet Under. She played Celeste, a pop star under Keith’s Security. After that, she went on to play Nurse Chloe Payne on the briefly aired medical drama, Mercy, and Emma on the hit show Weeds.

Where is she now? Trachtenberg might forever be known to some fans as Georgina Sparks, resident mean girl on the smash CW hit, Gossip Girl. She joined the show in 2008, and was a polarizing force among fans until 2012. These days, she’s voicing the character of Judy, on the animated series Human Kind Of.