The highly ordered protein granule in the alveolar type II cell of some species doesn’t not often show any signs of where it “goes” in the cytoplasm, whether to exit at the apical plasmalemma or whether only to be dumped into the lamellar body to exit the apical plasmalemma with immature surfactant that the lamellar body holds.  This is probably an image of the closest encounter I have seen between a granule and the apical membrane, and it is not complete, nor definitive at all, but just a reminder of the fact that the issue remains unresolved.   See here four granules, the one on the left is very close to the apical membrane. There is a white line around a nearby apical membrane fold (typically called a microvillus, but certainly not a rigid one) and the bracket denotes the space between the former and the latter — close at best, but not a membrane fusion and release.

Banding is clearly evident within the granule.  Sadly, the back of this micrograph is labeled “duplicate” but i cannot find the original with the description of negative number, block number animal number and species, but it will be either guinea pig or ferret.

Just for comparison, here is a close encounter of granules with a lamellar body, which is actually a fairly frequent event. Lamellar bodies on left upper and lower right. three angled structures are granules (you can see the linear banding in the center one.