Hello, dear readers. Allow me to introduce myself. If you are a multi-soap viewer like me, you may know me as a General Hospital Two Scooper. But fear not. While GH has been my Soap Central stomping grounds for a long time, The Young and the Restless is my first soap. Back in 1973, when I was an extremely young and restless twelve-year-old, my friend Sandy had a slumber party. It was summer because her birthday was in June.
We stayed up too late, giggled too much, and woke up to a feast for breakfast. Sandy's mom was from West Virginia and believed in big country breakfasts with biscuits and gravy, ham, eggs, and hash browns -- just piles of deliciousness. She said, "Girls, get your plates and come sit in the living room with me, but you have to be quiet because my stories are on."
Her stories were The Young and the Restless, and oh, boy, did it make my little tween heart pound inside my chest! That haunting piano music. A hunk with feathered hair named Snapper. (The original one, pre-Hoff.) A wealthy dame named Katherine in an opulent mansion. A very glamorous woman I wish I looked like named Lorie, played by the gorgeous Jamie Lynn Bauer.
I had never seen anything like it before! I grew up on crazy TV like Mr. Ed, and I Dream of Jeannie, but this was an entirely different type of fantasy. Should a little Baptist girl have been watching that trashy show at age twelve? Maybe not. It would have been considered sinful if I had gotten busted. Still, I was willing to risk eternal damnation to watch all that exquisite sin. In truth, it was Elton John who eventually got me kicked out of Baptist Sunday school for singing "The Bitch is Back" at youth group.
I am telling you this little piece of my Y&R viewing history, so you will know I know this show. I love this show. I watched Jill and Katherine fight over Phillip. I watched David Kimble get plastic surgery and have the word KILLER carved into his forehead. I watched Cricket and Danny fall in love. I watched Michael Baldwin stalk Christine before he became a good guy. I watched and wept when Cassie died. I watched in shock when Mariah came to town to haunt Sharon. I watched Daniel and Lily fall in love. I watched Jack and Phyllis fall in and out of love and watched Jack beat his drug addiction with her help. I watched Victor marry and divorce Nikki like 20 times. I watched Drucilla and Neil fall in love. I cried when John Abbott died and was totally okay when his ghost used to visit Jack.
I have not watched every episode that has ever aired, but I am a very longtime viewer of this show. Depending on who wrote it and how my favorites were faring in life, I have loved and hated it.
I have allegiances, and I am not ashamed of any of them. I am always Team Jack. (Hey, Peter Bergman, I love you.) If it's Jack against Victor or anyone else, I'm always rooting for Jack. Right now, I am worried for him because I absolutely do not trust Diane. Maybe she is really reformed. Perhaps she's changed. I believe in redemption, but color me skeptical -- I don't trust her redemption just yet. I think it's a long con.
Later, when I am right, I will remind you that I called it. This is an excellent time to say I am also Team Phyllis. Yeah, yeah, I know, she's a lot. But she has a BS detector that is spot-on 99% of the time, and my money is on her being right about Diane.
Maybe I am wrong this time. Diane did seem shaken when Jeremy Stark showed up in town when she thought she had safely sent him back to jail. What do you think his plan is to take Jack and Diane down?
Jeremy seems intent on recruiting Phyllis to help him with his scheme; for now, she is resisting. Still, I fear she will give in to her worst impulses and let her hatred of Diane cause her to make a terrible decision to team up with Jeremy.
Phyllis doesn't feel she has much to lose. Neither of her kids is speaking to her, and both have fired her. Her trip to visit Heather backfired. Instead of Phyllis' adventure helping Heather, Daniel, and Lucy reconcile, Heather flew to Genoa City to dump him. On a positive note, Daniel (played by the soulful Michael Graziadei) had the chance to try to reconnect with his daughter (played by the lovely Lily Brooks O'Briant) and apologize for his failings as a father. These scenes between the two were beautiful and made me root for Lucy to move to Genoa City so I could see more.
Now that Daniel is free of Heather, he and Lily can have a fling or fall in love or any other version of that. I always loved them together when they were teens, and it's definitely the right time to reunite them. Lily and Daniel seem lost, so I wish they could help one another find their way back to solid ground.
As much as I love the Lily and Daniel scenes, I hate the Lily and Devon scenes. The Newmans (Victor, Victoria, and Adam) battle over a company. Tucker and Ashley are feuding over a company. Lily, Jill, and Devon are battling over a company. And it's not just the central players. Now Abby, Nate, Audra, and Elena's lives are also wrapped around the corporate drama.
I know that's core to The Young and the Restless. Jack and Victor have been at odds, trying to one-up each other, for decades. The Y&R team probably looks at the Kings of Daytime, Eric Braeden and Peter Bergman, and knows they could retire any day. The powers that be are trying to set up new rivalries to keep the show going for decades. But I think it's made the show a little snooze-worthy lately, with too many boring boardroom conversations that sound like I am at work on a Zoom meeting, and not enough drama.
But then -- Sally Spectra is just the remedy, in my opinion. Courtney Hope has been bringing it daily, putting her heart on the line in this "Who's the Daddy" storyline. I genuinely loved the stand-alone episode where she envisioned her life if Adam was the father of her baby and then rewound to do it again with Nick as the dad. That was a creative and beautifully written episode. There is an old movie with Gwyneth Paltrow called Sliding Doors, which has a similar theme. Someday, when you can't find anything to stream, check it out. It shows her life in two versions -- in one, she catches the train, and in the other one, she misses the train -- and how differently her life unfolds by that tiny difference.
Half of you will instantly hate me, but I'm rooting for Adam. But then again, I still like Adam and Chelsea. But then again, Billy and Chelsea are growing on me. No, no, I am going back to my original opinion. I hope Sally chooses to raise her baby with the baby's father, Adam, and they become a happy little family. Not that I have anything against Nick. He's great. But I don't think he loves Sally. That matters to me. Plus, since Sharon swore that she and Nick were totally over each other for good, the soapiest bet would be that they will get back together.
Readers, I want to drop another opinion -- I have never liked Ashley. Ever. I especially don't like her right now because she bought out Tucker's company just to toy with him, which made me call her (rhymes with witch). Perhaps she has her reasons to dislike him. I understand that. But she's also mad at Jack and feels uncomfortable in her home. Some of that rage against her brother and Diane spilled into this decision. Maybe she intends to make Tucker jump through hoops and then take him back. Time will tell, but right now, it just seems mean.
The previews for next week showed Nate and Victoria kissing and someone walking toward the door. Is it all going to blow up next week? I hope so.
As I mentioned earlier, I'm a General Hospital fan, and I will tell you that the Y&R writers could get some hot tips from watching the past two weeks of GH. It has been a nonstop thrill ride, day after day. I hope that Y&R is heading in that direction and that all this boardroom discussion will soon turn into hot soapy blow-ups. I am a little concerned, considering that Y&R just fired all five of its breakdown writers.
The Jill/Lily/Devon thing is the most troublesome. Team Devon. Give him his company back and move on.
I liked the scene where Jack offered Billy the opportunity to be his co-CEO to fill Adam's vacant role. Jack will give him another chance despite all of Billy's past errors. I started to say second chance, but it's more like twelfth.
Speaking of Chance, the person, not the generic noun, he believed Jeremy's claims that Jack and Diane framed him, which, of course, they did. Jeremy warned Diane and Jack to come to the GCPD if they interacted with Jeremy rather than attempt to deal with him themselves. Their mouths said yes, but their eyes said maybe.
What will happen tomorrow, dear readers? Will Sally fantasize about what it would have been like if her baby had been fathered by her old B&B boyfriends Liam, Thomas, and Wyatt back in L.A.? Will Neil and Drucilla haunt their kids and make them behave? (I wish.) Will Devon bail out his daddy from under Ashley's thumb? Will Victor give Victoria's job to Adam and make her revive Brash & Sassy?
Will we ever be able to decide if Audra is loyal to anyone but Audra? Will Billy have to keep drinking two hot chocolates when Chelsea wanders off with Adam? Will Connor be excited about having a new sibling, or pouty and sullen? Will Kyle buy enough roses and light enough candles to get Summer to trust him again? Will Jill have a Zoom meeting about how much she hates having Zoom meetings with bickering siblings?
Only tomorrow knows, dear readers, and I will tune in tomorrow as long as there are tomorrows.
Tamilu
What are your thoughts on The Young and the Restless? What did you think of this week's Two Scoops? We want to hear from you -- and there are many ways you can share your thoughts.
