Luke O'Neil is a freshman at Boring, along with his best friends, McQuaid, a pessimistic geek, and Tyler Bowen, a squeaky-voiced, immature teen.

Immediately, the boys are seen as social outcasts and join the A/V Club, where Luke develops a crush on Kate Messner, the principal's daughter and a sophomore at Boring.

Meanwhile, Luke deals with discovering VHS tapes that his father made before leaving him and his mother years prior.

Throughout the season, Luke's mother, Sherry, begins to grow close to Ken Messner, Kate's father and the principal of Boring, and Kate is struggling with her identity and sexuality, Tyler struggles with his friends' interest in girls, and McQuaid develops a crush on Emaline, only to be rejected.

[5] The A/V club scenes were filmed at Willamette Falls Studios, a non-profit Public Access center in Oregon City.

Emine Saner from The Guardian wrote that the creators "took the idea of nostalgia and teenhood so far they just ended up repeating tropes", however praised Kate's storyline as well as Winston and Kennedy's performances.