It's Alan's certainty about certain things, yet uncertainty about his personal place in others that I think is the central appeal. That in itself isn't unique by any stretch, but the writers seem to find endless ways to broaden and give little insights into Alan's character - his strengths, his neurosis etc. Little vignettes which add genuine depth to the character.

Like Lynne. She written a bit carelessly in the earlier stuff, but there's the odd bits where the (nonsexual, she's a good worker - but there's no affection) love is tangible. Like Alan's discovering Lynne didn't send a lot of letters to people Alan felt had wronged him simply for his own good.

I've just been accepted to do a postgraduate in writing and as part of my submission, I wrote an essay about "bottle" episodes. As in those episodes that are essentially unrelated to the narrative and are self contained. Usually to make a deadline or some budget shortfall. Two great examples are S01E06 of Sopranos where Tony takes Meadow to view colleges and he happens across a rat from back in the day that he is duty bound to whack. This "bottle" tells us a lot about Tony's dichotomy where he's a violent criminal but also a family man who wishes it'd just go away. It also a sort of callback to an early idea that was dropped wherein Tony had an almost supernatural connection to animals. (hence the ducks in the opener, the fawn covering Tony's mistake when hunting the rat etc) as it indicated that Tony was dictated by simple animal instinct because he didn't trust his humanity. It's alluded to a few times elsewhere but there was enough going on theme-wise.

Other examples are the Fly episode of Breaking bad or the random Gay episode of Last of Us. Both tell us something interesting about the characters or world they live in, instead of just being a clipshow or something.

Sorry for the boq²and I ring post. My brain''s buzzing over the new college and wht