One Day At A Time: The 10 Saddest Things About Alex | ScreenRant
Alex is smart, hilarious, moody, facetious, everything a typical adolescent can be — and while he constantly gets annoyed or exhausted by his family (mainly his sister), it's clear that he cares about them a great deal. His relationship with his mother, Penelope, is as intimate as it is demanding, but it's his grandma, Lydia, with whom he is closest.
Alex embodies the philosophy of One Day at a Time, in that he grows from a sweet kid to a self-aware adult over the course of the show, gradually and taking it step by step. Given his mostly trouble-free life, there isn't a lot that can be considered sad about this character. Then again, nobody lives in a perfect world, do they?
10 Never Gets To Go On Vacation
Alex wouldn't mind taking some time off school and traveling to a distant tropical island, or, at the very least, a theme park. But Penelope is far too busy to take leaves for herself, which leaves the kid slightly disheartened.
In fact, when they do go on vacation to meet his uncle, Tito, on a cruise ship, his mom mentions that they have a pair of Mickey Mouse ears, indicating that they have been to Disneyland. Alex indignantly responds that they are actually Ricky Rat and that she bought them at the Dollar Store.
9 Embarrassed By The Alvarez Family Museum
Penelope and Lydia maintain a set of keepsakes to do with their family in a special area of the house, but this regularly bothers both Elena and Alex because of the seemingly "childish" nature of the artifacts.
In one instance, he asks Penelope to get rid of his baby teeth, but she proceeds to tell him that they are needed to be strung into a necklace to give to his future partner. Alex is mortified by the prospect (even though it's so apparent that his mother is joking.)
8 Gets Into Trouble, Not His Fault
Alex apparently punches some kid from a different academy, which infuriates Penelope, who gives him a long lecture about why it's not a nice thing to do. She's completely right, of course, except for the fact that her son does that because he had been told to "go back to Mexico."
Penelope changes her mood instantly and takes Alex's side in the matter. Nonetheless, the most deplorable thing about the whole situation is that his family is from Cuba.
7 Doted On Too Much By His Abuelita
Abuelita Lydia's love for her only grandson transcends the limits of time and space (or so she would like to think.) Their mostly-adorable bond aside, it's quite unfair how much she likes him over Elena, to the point of weirding out Penelope on several occasions.
For example, when Alex playfully states that his dimples are responsible for "killing" women, Lydia heartily agrees, telling him that he is "the number one lady killer... the lady serial killer." Further, she overprotects him from Penelope's wrath, which the latter does not like at all, as she doesn't want her boy to grow up spoiled.
6 Misses His Dad
Alex is obviously dejected when his parents split up, as he and his sister both had a loving relationship with Victor. However, when his dad returns after walking out on his daughter's quinces, he goes to meet with him at a restaurant (pretending that it's actually a date with someone named Paige.)
While this makes his mother angry, it reveals that Alex really wants his father back in his life, although not if he continues to reject Elena's identity — he clearly tells Victor as much.
5 Doesn't Get The Freedom He Wants
Forget Lydia, Penelope is so concerned for her children's safety that she and one of her dates get off on discussing which one of them is more protective. Unfortunately, this means that the teenage Alex rarely gets to go hang with his friends, or to parties, as most kids in LA tend to do.
Penelope assures him that she's doing it for his own good, especially when she grounds him for flouting one of her core rules, but for a social butterfly like him, it might as well be a prison sentence.
4 Doesn't Get The Shoes He Wants
OK, so this one is more about his personal desires, but it counts, given Alex's interest in clothing, fashion, and basically keeping up appearances.
He keeps asking his mom for money to purchase some overpriced pair of shoes, which she inevitably rebuffs, instead telling him to aim lower. Penelope's hesitation when it comes to splurging on a luxury item is completely understandable, but it doesn't make her son any less sad.
3 Everyone Calls Him Papito
Alex has been called papito ever since he was born, a feature that is unlikely to entirely disappear regardless of how old he becomes. However, he lashes out at his family when they come to cheer him during his baseball games, claiming that they always go overboard with the celebration.
He also insists that he doesn't want to be called papito, anymore, as the term is usually reserved for children (and he's a man, now.) In any case, his family has agreed, sort of, to avoid using it in public, but not so much in private.
2 Gets Caught With Illegal Theater Snacks
Penelope tries to train her son in the art of theater snack "smuggling", which is totally acceptable according to her because they usually mark their items up by ridiculous margins. She shows him how to hide various items of food in different pockets, but they end up getting caught by an usher and thrown out of the theater anyway.
Alex informs his mother that the one thing he has learned is that he needs to find a job in order to actually purchase snacks and not have to be in an embarrassing situation ever again.
1 Penelope's Disheartening Mother-Son Talks
Alex suffers through several life-changing experiences in the story, the first of which is the racist student already mentioned above. In this case, Penelope says that Elena has not felt this sort of racism because Alex is darker-skinned than she is, which is certainly not on him.
Later, when he starts smoking weed, she morosely tells him that his white friends are likely to get away with a slap on the wrist, but he might face far more severe charges. As accurate as the scenarios are, and as much as Penelope only wants him safe and happy, it's just discouraging that a child has to deal with all of this at all.
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