Hello and welcome, my name is Heather I’m a registered professional counsellor and a
certified life coach and I like to analyze different scenes from the show Gilmore Girls. If you’re
new here, thank you so much for being here. Today I’m going to be watching clips from
the episode There’s the Rub, where Dean catches Jess and Paris hanging out with Rory on her
big night in. Let’s get to the show.
Totally normal that Rory would like a night in and to spend some time alone and it’s
perfectly healthy in relationships to foster that sense of self. A lot of times when we’re
in relationships, we tend to get caught up in spending time with our partners. We put
our hobbies on the back burner and we are less likely to hang out with our friends and we
get lost in the relationship, especially when we’re younger. It’s also important for
our partners to realize that this is healthy and we can see that Dean looks disappointed.
Now I’ve mentioned before that it’s possible for Dean to have preoccupied or insecure attachment,
if that was the case, then hearing this from Rory and can bring up feelings of insecurity
and rejection. So let’s see how Rory handles this.
Good, so she does a really great job reassuring him that she wants to spend time with him
the next day and this can help ease any feelings of insecurity or feelings of rejection Dean
may have felt. And we see that he assures her that he’s not mad. He does say he’s
confused, which can be a normal reaction, especially from someone who doesn’t spend
a lot of time alone. Generally speaking, people feel uncomfortable being alone and being alone
is viewed as a negative thing. There’s a difference with being alone and feeling lonely
and usually if people are very uncomfortable being alone, it’s a sign that they
need to develop a stronger relationship with themselves and that’s where therapy or
working with a registered counsellor can help.
Rory is having her night in, that Paris crashed, and then Jess shows up with a bunch of food.
They do eat a lot on the show.
Jess clearly says this to see Rory’s reaction because he already said that he just wanted
to get out of the construction zone and he could have left it at that. You can also see
how he says it and that he’s trying to insinuate something or he’s trying to flirt with
her. And because she says no, he reconfirms that he wanted some quiet. Now what if Rory
would have said yes she thought he came to see her? Would he admit that he actually wanted
to see her? What do you think? Let me know in the comments below!
Another example of how Jess was able to influence or manipulate the situation to get what he
wants. First by not leaving after dropping off the food, then by saying she didn’t
tip him, and then offering to take fries instead of money, and now he’s invited himself for
dinner but convinces Rory that she was the one who invited him and ignores her protests
of saying no. If he wanted to avoid the construction at Luke’s, he could have asked if he could
stay a bit before heading back.
It’s possible that she knows on some level
that it’s not appropriate to have dinner alone with Jess at her house, it could be
considered an intimate setting. On one other hand, they’re friends, but on the other
hand we don’t really know what Jess’ intentions are. Rory can also be conscious of not wanting
to hurt Dean’s feelings, especially with everything that has happened between him
and Jess and maybe she feels inviting Paris as a buffer will help her feel more comfortable
with the fact that Jess is staying for dinner.
It appears that Jess wasn’t too happy with the fact that Rory invited someone else to
join their dinner, which could signify that he was expecting to be alone with Rory. Maybe
Jess is uncomfortable having someone else there, we know he’s not the friendliest
of people. Rory defends her actions by saying that she was just being polite. What else
could have Rory done? She could have been assertive and told both Jess and Paris to
leave and that she wants to spend the night alone.
Apparently some fans wished that Jess and Paris got together, I never thought about
this before but it might have worked, it might have been really intense because Paris is
intense, but there’s potential. What do you think? Let me know in the comments below!
Rory is now freaking out because Dean is coming over to say hi and that he’s got a surprise
for her. She tried talking him out of coming over by saying she looks like a mess and that
Paris is over. Now she could have used that as an opportunity to give him a heads up as
to what he might be walking into, so why didn’t she? Well, usually when people lie or try
to hide things from others, it’s usually from a place of fear. Fear of how the other person
would react or fear that they’ll get judged. Lying could also come from a place of guilt,
knowing that what they did will cause harm to someone and so they try to hide it from them.
Rory is trying to get Jess out of there as quickly as possible because she knows
that Dean will get upset and that it’ll most likely lead to a fight. I would imagine
that if most people were in Dean’s shoes , they would probably be upset as well.
As soon as Jess sees Dean, he starts belittling him and he knows that it doesn’t look great
that he’s leaving Rory’s house. He could have just left but instead he starts demeaning
Dean by saying it’s so nice that Dean brought ice cream.
And then Jess continues to provoke Dean and only
stops when Rory says something. Maybe Jess enjoys the fact that he can get a rise out
of Dean and he gets an ego boost knowing that. It might also be possible that he’s trying
to take the attention away from Rory so Dean focuses on getting mad at him instead of getting
into a fight with Rory, but honestly, I think this is making the situation worse because
Dean’s already flooded, meaning that his physiological state is triggered, and then
Jess is getting him even more riled up.
We see that Dean is extremely upset and he’s expressing feelings of anger, we know that he and Jess
don't get along and he’s now reacting to Jess’ comments.
And he’s probably angry because of Jess provoking him.
He might also be feeling confused because Rory told him that
she wanted to spend the night alone and he finds her with his nemesis and feels betrayed.
Dean caught some inconsistencies with Rory and Jess’ story and feels that she’s lied
to him. In a way she was because she wasn’t upfront with Dean and she knew that if Dean
found out that Jess was ocer then they’d get into a fight, which is why she tried to sneak Jess out of
there as quickly as possible when she found out Dean was coming over.
It’s not okay that Dean is getting that angry at Rory, honestly,
I don’t see why they couldn’t have gone to another room. He’s clearly triggered
and he’s angry, again, it’s normal for him to have his own feelings and I can understand
where he’s coming from, the important thing is how it is communicated. It sounds like
in Rory’s mind, that having Paris there would offset anything inappropriate happening
and that Dean should have assumed that Paris was the social buffer or chaperone, as Jess put it.
They weren’t doing anything wrong, they were discussing books and eating. I wonder if they had a previous conversation in which
they agreed that Rory wouldn’t hang out with Jess, in that case, there is a violation of trust.
We see Rory stumble with her wording and her explanation, which could be caused by Dean’s
reaction and now she’s getting triggered. When we perceive a threat, our bodies go into
a fight, flight, or freeze response and it looks like Rory may be experiencing the freeze
response. This can also be an indication of how Rory normally responds to conflict or
perceived threat. The other possibility is that she doesn’t know how to explain to
Dean without him getting upset, so she’s having troubles trying to spin her explanation
in a way that makes sense and doesn’t upset him further.
So did Rory lie to Dean?
The situation did happen, there wasn’t a premeditated plan set in place for Rory to
hang out with Jess and Paris without Dean, she was actually doing laundry, she did tell
Dean that Paris crashed her hermit night, but she intentionally left out that Jess was
there. It could be considered lying by omission, which is still a lie.
This is obviously not the best way to communicate and he's not allowing Rory to explain
and he's yelling at her because of his heightened physiological state.
And because of his heightened physiological state, Rory isn't able to explain herself.
If this fight happened in one of my sessions, I would slow things down to help get them in a calmer place and not feel flooded.
The important key is to focus on how each other is feeling and finding that common ground and empathy
between two people in conflict. Sometimes it’s okay to take some time or space before
revisiting this conversation, it might actually be more functional than what’s going on
right now.
So Paris comes in to stop the fight. According to Bowen’s theory, it’s easy for friends
and family members to get triangulated in a situation. Basically what that means is
that when 2 people are in conflict, typically a 3rd person will be triangulated into that conflict.
Dean and Rory are in conflict and Paris asserts herself to be triangulated into participating
in that conflict. There are functional ways and dysfunctional ways to triangulate. A functional
way is when the triangulation helps to resolve that conflict whereas a dysfunctional way
is to participate in the conflict and you take sides or if you make the conflict worse.
Oftentimes people who get triangulated in will side with their friend and bash the other
person which doesn’t help resolve the conflict. For example, Paris could have jumped in and
told Dean to back off and that he’s overreacting and that Rory didn’t do anything wrong and
I’m sure you can imagine that it can escalate the situation it can quickly get even more heated. In this
case, Paris interferes and takes the blame off of Rory, so why would she do this? She
might be feeling a heightened sense of anxiety seeing Rory getting yelled at and this is
her way of helping or to reduce those feelings of anxiety. She already knows that Rory doesn’t
want to get into a fight with Dean and she’s kinda aware of the dynamics with Jess and
so she’s trying to defend her friend by absorbing the blame as a way to end the conflict.
Since Paris was able to end the conflict, Rory feels a sense of relief and she probably
feels less anxiety also, which would explain why she went along with Paris’ lie. So remember
why most people lie? It’s usually out of a place of fear, and Rory already knows how
Dean would react if she tried telling him the truth. Albeit she didn’t do the best
explaining what happened and ended up looking more suspicious, but she wants to do whatever
she can to avoid getting back into the fight or conflict with Dean, so she goes along with it.
Lying in any capacity is harmful for the relationship and I’ve said it before that
Dean can read Rory really well and I think he knows that she just lied to him, which
explains his response now.
So he’s apologized for yelling, I’m glad he mentioned it, it’s definitely a start,
but it’s very minimal and it’s usually not enough to be considered a meaningful apology. I’m
guessing that at this point he’s still highly triggered or flooded. He could have elaborated
and said something like, “I’m sorry for yelling and for jumping to conclusions, my
reaction was extreme and I’m sorry. I should have let you explain the situation to me.
I was just surprised to see Jess here on your night in and it made me feel insecure.
I felt like you didn’t want to spend time with me.” Again, the problem was not fully
addressed and Rory could have also apologized here as well, she could have apologized for
not telling what he was walking into or reassure him that she won’t hang out with Jess, if
that’s what they’ve previously agreed to.
She does try to reassure Dean by saying that if she were to hang out with anyone tonight it
would be with him.
Rory also tries a repair attempt by asking him to stay and have ice cream together but
he decides to leave. It’s possible that he wants to leave because he suspects there’s
something off about Paris and Rory’s explanation, it could be because he feels ashamed for reacting
the way he did, maybe it’s also because he wants to try to process his emotions on
his own and he wants time and space to do that, either one of these possibilities or
a combination of them can help explain what he might be going through, and we won’t
ever know unless we are able to ask him directly.
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a thumbs up! Make sure to take a look at my other therapist reviews videos of Gilmore Girls and I look
forward to seeing you in the next one. Until then be kind and love yourself.