Dream a little dream

The Abbott family got a little bigger, the gap between Sharon and Rey got a little smaller, and -- tough as it may be to imagine -- Nick's run for City Council got a little more ridiculous as The Young and the Restless dove head-first into November Sweeps with a standalone stunt that was the highlight of the week. Read on, and we'll give you Two Scoops of the good, Two Scoops of the bad, and Two Scoops of the everything in between!

Hey Genoa City lovers. My name is Thomas Newman -- yes, that's really my name -- and I'm filling in this week for Christine. I guess with the last name of Newman I was destined to be a fan of The Young and the Restless. I've loved the show for as long as I can remember, and I am thrilled to have a chance to share the highs and spooky lows of the week gone by on The Young and the Restless.

Although it didn't air until Thursday, let's start with the stand-alone episode in which we got to slip into bed with some of the town's most troubled souls...if only to see what they were dreaming about. Of course, Phyllis imagined herself large and in charge, having taken over Newman Enterprises. Phyllis stormed in la Miranda Priestly in what started as a full-on Devil Wears Prada parody, right down to Sharon in a mousy Anne Hathaway wig.

But, of course, this being Y&R, Phyllis couldn't possibly have the upper hand over the Newmans, even in her own dream! That said, the Newmans were hysterical and perhaps more honestly written than ever before. ("We're Newmans," cackled Nikki. "We don't help people!")

Abby dreamed herself into a sitcom (complete with laugh track) in which nobody took her seriously, while Kyle's nightmare involved (who else?) Theo. The entire episode was a blast, although the Sharon/Rey sequence fell a little flat when compared to the others. It felt as if someone said, "Hey, we learned some cool monochromatic tricks when we did that Traci/Cane story, and we still have some of the period costumes...let's figure out a way to use them!"

The special episode kicked off November Sweeps (which actually began on Halloween) and, honestly, was the best this show has been in a while. Here's hoping it's a sign of what we can expect during the rest of November!

Back in the land of reality -- which, frankly, was a lot less interesting than the dream episode -- we finally got the point of the plot in which Jack and Traci dove once more into Dina's past. In the least shocking "shocking twist" in recent memory; it took the coauthors about twelve minutes to figure out that Theo is, in fact, Dina's illegitimate grandson. Despite just about everyone in the family (including Ashley, who chimed in from off-camera) suggesting that they should check this story out before welcoming Theo into the mansion, Jack rolled out the red carpet and said, in essence, "Congratulations! You're rich!"

For those who are a little slow on the pick-up, this makes Kyle and Theo cousins. It also explains (sort of) why the show was suddenly using Theo to cause issues between Kyle and Lola. Why the show made Theo so incredibly unlikable if they wanted to tie him to a legacy character is baffling, but maybe this wasn't the original intent. If there's a plus side here, it's that the show seems to be making Theo more likeable. Tyler Johnson has great presence and, given the chance, could probably become a fan favorite. But we're going to have to see a lot less of Theo's d-bag side for that to be possible.

Apparently, Adam really just doesn't want to be friends with Phyllis...like, to the point that he wrote her a check for $10 million to basically go away. No matter how much I annoy people, I can't get them to write me a check to go away. And trust me, I've tried. Hard. But now that Adam's back in Genoa City, he's all about Chelsea.

Sorry, I meant Connor. He's all about Chelsea. Dang, I slipped again! Maybe that's because while Adam claims that he's there to be the best darn father possible, it's pretty obvious that he wants nothing more than to slip a ring back onto Chelsea's finger and send Connor off to the kitchen with a maid who will feed him cookies and raise him until he's old enough for a storyline of his own.

Unfortunately for Adam, Chelsea doesn't need him. After all, she's got Nick and all that wonderful money the late Calvin left her. Except Nick's decided that he wants to run for City Council, and the money she gave Kevin to launder has been seized by the Feds. Worse, wouldn't you know it, she found out about the MIA money literally 60 seconds after a slimy dude named Simon Black (because, of course his last name is Black...subtle!) slithered into town, demanding she hand Calvin's cash over.

Now, I'm sure I wasn't the only one who at this point screamed, for the umpteenth time, "Chelsea is rich! Why is any of this an issue?" But based on the terrified look Chelsea had on her face as Friday's episode faded to black, I don't think she heard me.

Oh, and can we go back in time a minute and talk about Phyllis? Why doesn't she have a love interest? What is the point of having the amazing and gorgeous Michelle Stafford slinking around Genoa City if you're not going to let Phyllis have crazy, passionate, wild sex? Heck, why haven't she and Adam gotten it on? I know I'm not the only one who thought it was going to happen on several occasions!

You know how we've all been saying for ages now, "Hey, has anybody thought to ask where Colin is and what he's up to? Because this whole 'new will' thing sorta has his fingerprints all over it!" Well, Jill finally got suspicious upon realizing that the envelope in which the new will pages had been found had an emblem from a hotel in the Maldives. And, hey, that just happens to be on her bucket list, and she'd told Colin exactly that, and boy, wasn't that a big coincidence?

Unfortunately, Jill only came to this conclusion after Devon decided to basically hand his entire fortune over to Cane. He came to this conclusion after a chat with Lily and...well, let's talk about Lily's visit for a second, shall we?

Why was she there? Of course, we were thrilled to see Christel Khalil and her alter ego. Always a pleasure. But still...why was Lily there? It's not like Lily came to town and said something to Devon that could only be said in person as opposed to over the phone. And Lily then had a little chat with Cane that served no real purpose (although there was sort of a throwaway line that indicated Lily might have met someone new). So, again, what was the point of this visit?

As far as I can tell, the only reason Lily came to town was so that yet another person could react to the fact that Amanda looks, say it with me now, "exactly like Hilary!" Lily even put her own spin on things by dropping a glass of water upon spotting the doppelgnger. A glass which, I'll just point out, is still shattered on Devon's floor as far as I can tell. 'Cause at no point did anybody say, "Oh, my gosh, let me clean that up!" or "Careful, don't cut yourself on the broken glass!"

So, with that whole pesky will thing seemingly wrapped up (even though we know that's not true), Amanda was set to pack up her briefcase and get out of Dodge. But did anyone really think that was going to happen? Instead, she and her bangs are going to help Nate avoid losing his medical license for his part in the whole "Let's pretend Victor is dead for five minutes" scheme.

A couple things of note here. First, how awesome was it when Nate completely disregarded his attorney's advice to go off on Victor? "There are consequences when you decide to play God," Nate told TGVN. "We're not just chess pieces you can move around to suit your purposes. We're people with lives and relationships and careers that you obviously don't care about in the least!"

When Nate finished his little speech, I half expected Victor to squash him like a bug. But instead, he promised to help Nate and even take responsibility for his actions! Let's see if that actually comes to pass...

Meanwhile, let's flash back to when they first reintroduced Nate to the canvas. You'll recall that he would occasionally walk around half-dressed in front of Hilary, and it was very clear the show was preparing for a Devon/Hilary/Nate triangle. But then, Mishael Morgan left the show, Hilary died, Nate got recast, and that all seemed to have been a waste of time. But it sure feels as if we might be heading down that road again, except this time with Elena thrown into the mix for good measure.

As I mentioned earlier, Nick has officially decided to throw his hat into the City Council race. Now, why anyone in this town would vote for a Newman is beyond me. Then again, I don't understand how Newman Enterprises is even still a thing. You'd think the third or fourth time the company's CEO faked his death, the stock would have taken the kind of hit it never recovers from. Anyhoo, Nikki proved yet again that she might be the smartest member of the family by pointing out to Nick that the last thing he needed was his mom serving as his campaign manager. She stopped just short of suggesting that if he really wanted to win, he might consider running under another name.

Thanks for letting me pop in this week to talk about The Young and the Restless. Here's hoping we can get together again soon.Thomas

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