Hello and welcome! My name's Heather, I'm a registered professional counselor and a
certified life coach and I'm a huge fan of Gilmore Girls. Today I'm going to be
analyzing the episode where Jess moves in with Luke. Let's get to the show.
That's probably one of the most awkward greetings ever. This can also be a sign
of them not being close. This can also be normal for them, maybe this is how they behave
in new situations especially with someone who they aren't close with or they don't know very well
So we see Luke trying to make an effort and make Jess feel welcomed. Jess is giving him absolutely
nothing, he's giving him one word answers, he's not really asking questions in return and he's not
really engaging. So what could this mean? It could mean that Jess is just really uncomfortable. Maybe
he's just more of an introvert and maybe he's not comfortable with Luke and he doesn't really know
him and maybe this is his normal behavior. Maybe he likes to keep to himself and he's very minimal in his interactions.
We can see that Luke tried his best to make Jess feel welcomed under the
circumstances so he's bought a new mattress with new sheets with Lorelai's suggestions.
He's bought food that he thinks Jess would like. Now, Luke is working under a lot of assumptions as
to what he thinks Jess would like and again he's doing his best to try to make just feel welcomed.
Especially, since Luke doesn't have a lot of experience with raising kids or raising teenagers,
we see that he does his best to help out with Lorelai and Rory and he's very much involved
in Rory's life. Now, this situation is going to be a little bit different because Jess is under
Luke's direct care and Luke is going to be his guardian. This is obviously new territory for Luke
and we can see that he's doing his best to try to piece together what he thinks he needs to do
in order to make the environment best for Jess. However, he hasn't really asked anyone for help
maybe he did talk to his sister Liz and he has an idea of what to expect with Jess, but it sounds
like he's not really asking for help or asking for more information and he's not really engaging
with Jess in a way that allows him to get more information about how he's feeling or who he is.
What are your thoughts about Jess being sent to live with Luke? Let me know in the comments below!
We don't know a lot about Luke and Liz's upbringing. Luke did
say earlier in the episode that Liz was a bit of a black sheep in the family and that Luke was the
one who basically had to grow up when their mom passed away when they were young. Luke said that he
helped the father take care of the diner, he was the one who ran the diner after his dad
passed away and Liz was nowhere to be found. So this gives us some information about what their
family dynamics could be. It seems like Luke might have taken on the identity as the responsible one
or the mature one and Liz has taken on the role as kind of the free spirit or maybe the black sheep.
And what's interesting about family dynamics is that everyone plays their own part everyone
plays their role and everyone also enables the other person to play that role. So for example, in
this case for Luke to agree to take Jess in, he's fulfilling his identity and his role of the family
dynamics of being the responsible one. He's agreed to let Jess live with him because he thinks that
he can fix Jess if he could give him a proper and stable environment. We hear throughout the episodes
how Luke would describe Liz and he's described her as being irresponsible or crazy and therefore he
expects her to make mistakes and for him to come and clean up those mistakes. A lot of times when
there's these types of dynamics within the family it can create feelings of resentment on Luke's
part. So he might feel that he's always cleaning up after Liz, he might feel resentment that Liz
didn't stick around when their dad passed away, he might feel resentment that she didn't decide to
help out in the diner and stay in stars hollow. So there could be a lot of resentment on Luke's part,
but maybe he doesn't express them to Liz because I think she's the younger sister and he's the older
brother so there's also those dynamics in play as well. And also Luke's not really touchy-feely so
he might not be comfortable expressing how he's truly feeling to Liz and instead he gets into
the action mode and he takes responsibility and he tries to fix things. By Luke taking on those
responsibilities it could also be his way of maybe showing his love and care for Liz because maybe he
does really care and he wants the best for her and this is his way of showing that he cares. Another
possibility is that he likes to take that role and he likes to fulfill that role as being the
responsible one. And it can help him fulfill the needs of feeling needed or it can help with his
self-esteem to know that he is there to fix things. And so that's why these dynamics within the family
systems are really interesting is because certain people are getting their needs met. For example,
if Liz is known as more the irresponsible one, she knows that she can make mistakes and that someone
else will come clean it up. And so she continues with this type of behavior because it's enabled
for her to continue this way. So in this case, maybe Liz feels that she is cared for or she's loved by
making mistakes and having someone else take responsibility for them. We can see that Luke
is feeling a little bit lost and he's not entirely sure how to interact with Jess. Again, they might
not be close at all and they don't really know each other well.
Luke is trying his best
to communicate with Jess and a lot of times if someone isn't really engaging in the conversation
we tend to ask more questions and that's what we see from Luke. Again, maybe Luke can give Jess a
little bit more space to settle in, but Luke is asking those questions because he wants
information from Jess. So he wants to know how he's doing and Jess again is giving him nothing.
Jess is probably experiencing a little bit of a shock because Stars Hollow is probably really
different from where he lived before. And he's probably dealing with feelings of rejection so
Liz was the one who sent Jess off to live with Luke. He's probably dealing with probably feelings
of abandonment, I would imagine and hurt or betrayal. Maybe some confusion as to why she would
just abandon him.
We see that liz is calling and Jess doesn't want to talk to her. He even said that he's
been there since 10 am and he's probably wondering "Why didn't she call when I arrived? Why did she
wait until the evening to even bother calling to see if I got here safely?" So it's possible that
they don't have the strongest relationship or the strongest bond. Now I've talked about
attachment styles before in my previous videos, but basically there are three types of attachment
styles the first one is secure attachment the second one is insecure attachment and the third
one is avoidant attachment. Now these attachment styles are determined when we're infants and it's
based off of the relationship that we have with our caregivers. For avoidant attachment styles,
typically what happens is that the child or infant has learned that they can't rely on their primary
caregiver, in this case it would be Liz. We've also learned that Jess' father pretty much abandoned
and left the family so he probably has learned at a young age that he can't rely on anyone. People
with avoidant attachment tend to keep people at an arm's length they try to distance themselves
from people emotionally and they try not to get too close even though they may crave to have that
closeness and that intimacy they don't trust them because they expect people to leave them
because that's a pattern that they've learned growing up.
Jess' sarcasm and his remarks can also be
a sign of avoid an attachment. So instead of giving a genuine clear answer, he
uses humor or sarcasm to try to mask any feelings.
So Luke is trying to validate Jess's feelings by saying
that he understands if Jess wants to call Liz whenever he's ready and instead of Jess reacting
to that or expanding further, he changes the subject and asks Luke if he wants to play poker.
Now maybe this is Jess's way of trying to reach out to Luke and try to bond with him.
Although, it's still technically gambling, but it's nice of Jess to ask Luke. And again, this could be
his way of wanting to get close to luke and I mean, they could definitely talk about other things
if they're playing poker, but Luke essentially just says no. Now I would be curious to see what would
happen if Luke actually said yes.
Jess gets up and leaves. So why does he do that? It's possible that he feels frustrated
and fed up that everyone's telling him what to do and he basically doesn't have
a say because Luke agreed to go to the dinner without even consulting Jess about it. And I
could understand why Jess may be feeling frustrated. He just arrived in a new town,
he doesn't know anyone, his mom basically sent him away, he has to live with a stranger and now he
has to go to a dinner that he doesn't want to go to. And he probably feels that his sense of freedom
is being infringed on and that he has no say. Luke is doing what he thinks is best he wants Jess to
get to know people, he wants him to settle in and ultimately he wants to make sure that he's on the
right track in life. Now he could have also asked Jess about this earlier if he wanted to go to
the dinner before agreeing to go. This might have helped Jess realize that he has a sense of freedom
and that Luke understands him.
So we see Jess's perception of the situation which is that Luke was the one
who sent him away from his home and forced him to live with him. This isn't the case because we
know that Liz was the one who asked Luke to take Jess in. Maybe Liz did tell Jess that Luke was the
one who asked Jess to live with him. It seems very unlikely. It's interesting that he doesn't say that
it was his mom's idea or it was his mom's fault. He's actually blaming it all on Luke.
Now this could also be possible because Luke is there and his mom isn't, so it's
easier for him to direct his anger towards Luke as opposed to Liz. And we see that Luke said that
he's just trying to help and Jess doesn't want it he never asked for it he didn't ask to be in this
situation and this can create even more rebellious behaviors from chess we'll see it later on in the
series and uh how he doesn't want to be a part of the town he doesn't want to be close to luke
and he wants to basically get out of there fine you got it thank you you're welcome
and luke pushes jess into the lake so i don't i mean it's definitely funny i don't exactly
know how that helps a relationship maybe luke did this uh to show his frustrations or maybe
he did this as a prank to jess but we know that communication isn't their strong suit
and they communicate more so through their actions so maybe this is luke's way of showing jess these
are some of the consequences for your actions so far this is done hey you will get up you will go
to school you will come home you will work in the diner until closing you will do your homework and
then you will go to bed so we see that luke is trying to take care of the situation and
he's trying to set boundaries for jess he's trying to implement rules he's trying to help just quit
smoking and this can be a good thing for jess however we don't know if les set any boundaries
for him at home and it's also possible that at this stage of being a teenager he won't react
kindly to boundaries you will not steal he will pay back taylor dosey you will graduate from high
school and you'll return pierpon to his yard but when you're put in a situation as a teenager and
you're forced to basically follow the rules of someone who you don't really know it's going to
be hard to be able to adapt to that especially if you lived your whole life without having any
rules or boundaries to follow now i don't know if this is the right way to handle this but this is
the way it's being handled and that my friend is the end of this discussion where are you going out
well always die now luke even admits that he's not sure if this is the best way to handle the
situation but this is how he chooses to handle it and he also lets just know that he doesn't want
anything bad happening to jess he's doing this out of a place of caring i'm not too sure if that's
well received by jess because he does get up and leave but we do see that luke is learning and he's
trying to do the best that he can and to do the best to adapt to the role as a caregiver now which
is shown with him saying well at least i asked where he was going now it's probably going to take
time for the both of them to adjust to this new way of living right so this is a new
family dynamic now make sure to subscribe if you haven't already and give this video a thumbs up
thank you so much for watching and feel free to check out my other therapist reviews videos
and i look forward to seeing you in the next one until then be kind and love yourself