Alan

Why can it not be what was said in the hospital which was the Geeks excluded Alan or at least Alan thought so. Alan may have been too butt hole like for the Geeks to want to include him. Why was Alan a butt hole? Who knows? Maybe Alan's family was more better to do although that would have been tough with Neil's dad. Maybe his dad was a jerk and daily exposure made it rub off. If there would have been a second season it would have been worth it to explore that some more. Maybe Alan was indeed the injured party as either Sam, Bill, or Neil was a jerk towards him and they just did not want to deal with Alan to make it right. It would have been worth an episode to look into it further.

Alan is the perfect example of why bullies act the way they do. Jealousy, low self-esteem, loss of control in their daily lives, feeling that negative attention is better than no attention at all, and home abuse. While we don't know if he's influenced by the last factor, we do know he was jealous of the groups closeness, and as such he wanted their attention. Every teen feels loss of control and low self esteem, so those are generic to fit Alan. The peanut episode was perfect in demonstrating why Alan did what he did; I'm glad they included that much depth to him tbh.

If only there were more seasons - his character really could've grown more, as you said:)

I have a teen daughter who went thru some bullying in middle school. My friend's son is real small for his age, going on 10th grade, like Sam. I think both our kids have benefited from this perspective. I often tell my kids that anger isn't an emotion, it's a reaction to either hurt, fear, frustration or even guilt. Alan definitely felt all of those, and great acting to demonstrate them!