Jaws dropped when, at the end of the November 14 episode of The Young and the Restless, we learned first of all that Aunt Jordan had caused Phyllis and Sharon’s

accident and second of all that the madwoman had done so on behalf of Ian Ward (played by Twin Peaks vet Ray Wise).

WTH? Our heads are still spinning, because if these two whack jobs are on the loose, it stands to reason that they were behind Heather’s murder and Sharon’s gaslighting. The question is, why?

A Legacy of Evil

Ian’s reign of terror dates back all the way to 1980, when Nikki joined his New World Commune after escaping from a prostitution ring as a teenager. But we didn’t actually meet Ian until three decades later, when Nikki admitted that she’d gotten pregnant way back when as part of the narcissist’s plot to secure his legacy with an heir. Soon enough, she had tracked down long-lost Dylan McAvoy and convinced him not to try to contact his biological father.

More: Champers all around? Young & Restless cast has reason to celebrate Unfortunately, by then, the Genoa City Police detective had left a trail of bread crumbs that led Ian right to him. In no time, the baddie was blackmailing Nikki for $5M to crawl back into the hole from which he’d crept and getting slapped by her, punched by her son, Nick… You know, a ne’er-do-well’s traditional welcome to town!

The Plot Just Kept Getting More Twisted

After Nikki’s long-ago lover Paul Williams was shot in the line of duty, it was discovered that he had sired Dylan while also a member of the New World Commune. But Ian wasn’t done making trouble, not by a long shot. He sued Nikki for emotional distress, claiming that she’d lied that he’d been the only man with whom she was being intimate when Dylan was conceived.

In his spare time, Ian messed with anyone and everyone else that he could. In particular, he toyed with Mariah, whom he’d bought from a drug-addicted doctor after she was born along with twin Cassie to Sharon. At one point, Ian even got Mariah so loopy that he got her to sign papers saying that they were married!

But Wait, There’s More

A year after all of Ian’s plots were foiled, he sought revenge against Nikki and her protector, husband Victor, by demolishing Newman Enterprises with Phyllis as his unwitting pawn. When that plan went south as well, the mastermind kidnapped Nikki and Phyllis before finally being brought to justice.