Ryder Scanlon

Seaman Ryder David Scanlon, USN is an athletic but somewhat socially awkward teenage boy. He is Lennox 's younger brother and the nephew of Mel Burke. After his mother, Meredith Scanlon went to prison and his father, Lewis Scanlon took off, Ryder had suffered a momentary nervous breakdown and allegedly set the Scanlon house on fire while burning 20 of his father's suits in the driveway (referenced in Pilot).

However, since coming into Mel's custody, he has shown no further evidence of pyromania or other destructive tendencies.

Out of the two Scanlon children, Ryder is the one who looks up to Joe the most and frequently asks for his advice. Because he lacks confidence, he frequently ends up seeking out help and advice from other characters (with mixed results)

Holly was Ryder's manipulative, controlling girlfriend, and he did everything to try to make her happy. During a school field trip in the third season, Ryder got suspended for smoking which causes Holly to break up with him (plus, Holly also cheated on him with Tim Logan.)

Whilst being homeschooled, after being suspended for using drugs on a school trip, he meets another homeschooled boy from the neighborhood (for 1 episode only).

After upsetting him for calling him a nerd, Ryder meets the boy's sister, Keira. She soon becomes his girlfriend. Although the breakup between Keira & Ryder isn't discussed, Ryder then starts to date a single mother, Stella.

They soon break up due to Stella finding out that Ryder wanted to break up a few days before a school dance after reading a breakup letter that Ryder wrote in preparation. However, before Stella read the letter Ryder had changed his mind about the breakup. Stella still broke up with him anyway.

In 2015, Ryder enlisted in the Navy.

He got accepted in and set off on his journey on becoming a new and improved man.

As of now he is back home on a break but is mostly likely to leave again.

While he is at home, he takes care of things he wouldn't necessarily feel obliged to do before he's time away, so he takes care of Mel and cooks for the family and participates in things he wouldn't do before. So, in a way he's grown up a lot but is still the fun-loving character we all fell in love with for the first seasonal episode.