On the July 24 episode of The Young and the Restless, Jack lamented to Diane that he’s afraid the best thing he can do for Billy now is to stop enabling his stupidity. Which means cutting Billy off completely, no more second, third, fourth, seventeenth chances. Jack thinks he knows why he’s doing this. But we know better. Please join Jack—and us—on the couch, for a very thorough head-shrinking.
Jack Abbott: Golden Boy
There is such a huge age difference between Jack (Peter Bergman) and his brother, Billy (Jason Thompson), that Jack had time to sleep with Billy’s mother, Jill (Jess Walton), years before Billy was born. So the two didn’t grow up together and didn’t have a common childhood experience.
Jack accepted Billy, even though he hated Billy’s mother (this would be after he slept with her… and during) because Jack always only wanted one thing in life: His father’s love and approval. When John (Jerry Douglas) died, Jack stepped in as a quasi-father figure to Billy, not because he wanted to, but because he still wanted to make John proud.
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Billy Abbott: The Unfavorite
Billy was John’s late-in-life child, but he wasn’t Daddy’s favorite. Jack was John’s firstborn son. But he wasn’t Daddy’s favorite, either. That honor fell to Ashley (Eileen Davidson), the one Abbot child who wasn’t even biologically John’s! (Though he never knew that.)
Jack resented Billy and thought that if he kept helping him out, then that would prove that Jack may not have been John’s best child, but he was his best boy. That still counted for something.
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Billy Doesn’t Appreciate Jack
Except that, no matter how much Jack tried to help Billy, his brother never appreciated it. And if Billy never appreciated it, then it was the same as John not appreciating it. And if John wasn’t appreciating it, then why was Jack bothering?
He may have told Diane (Susan Walters) that this would be for Billy’s own good, but, in reality, this is Jack throwing in the towel. Nothing he does for Billy makes Jack feel better about himself. Which is what this was all about in the first place.
