Check Please is ultimately a story about creating a community where everyone can thrive and what happens when those communities don't exist. Bitty is an unconventional hockey player who comes to Samwell with deep-seated trauma from bullying and deliberately chose his school because he'd read it was a safe place for him. And that impression gets proven correct, as these "bro-y jocks" wholeheartedly embrace him--with the ones who take their time being those who grew up internalizing (on some level) self-hatred and shame. But then, within a program that accepts everyone's differences, a character like Dex can go from saying things like "I thought guys at Samwell would be . . . less good at baking" to someone who respects Bitty, Whiskey can acknowledge there's something going on with him even if he's not in a place to accept it (or tell the world), and Jack basically learns that he's a person with emotions other than anger and jealousy.
Because of Jack's growth at Samwell, he is deliberate in signing with a team that values diversity and growth, and he is proven right when the Falconers accept him after he comes out. His proposal speech basically says it all: "It started here and it started with you, Bitty." Jack is, for the first time, able to be his own person and his own player, separate from his dad's legacy. He has learned to rely on others and trust them with his fears and anxieties. Without Samwell, he would've been bitter, stuck in the past, and unable to self-reflect . . .
. . . so basically, exactly like Kent Parson. Jack and Kent are my favourite set of character parallels in anything. Kent is still going to kegsters YEARS after things ended between him and Jack, still bringing up the idea that Samwell is beneath Jack, still talking about him in interviews with tears in his eyes. Kent has everything Jack was "supposed to." Kent is Jack if he never found--and helped make--the environment where he could be properly nurtured instead of made to suppress his emotions. And that version of Jack is obsessed with the situationship he had when he was 18 years old. It is such an effective way to reinforce the themes of the story and I love how even he can be changed by Bitty and his pies (he's still bad at self-reflection, but he finally acknowledges that it's time to move on and that maybe it's not Jack he wants, but the things that Jack has found in his absence). It's been years and I still love these characters so much, I love this world and this team and everything Samwell stands for. It's 1 AM and I'm crying in the club (my bed) over how good this comic is (as per usual)
