When Candi asked me to fill in on the first Young & Restless Soapbox of 2025, I made a resolution: to find the bright side of the soap that so regularly

disappoints me. Alas, I broke that resolution before it was even New Year’s Eve. (Is anyone surprised?) Keep scrolling for my thoughts on this short week of

episodes and a harrowing hint of what’s to come.

Small Talk? Try *Tiny*!

Watching Monday and Thursday’s episodes, I couldn’t help but think that there were a million opportunities for wit, for humor, for interactions that played the way that real people talk with one another. Instead, we got one fine actor after another doing their damnedest to make the best of cutesy dialogue that had been weighted down by tons of recap.

Ready, Set, Grow… or Not

We’re all used to the hypocrisy of soap characters, but wow, Young & Restless has Phyllis lay it on thick, doesn’t it, with the way she goes on about bestie Michael defending a “murderer” when she herself tried to kill Christine and Paul. And I guess Phyllis being nasty to “Cricket” is supposed to be snarky fun. The thing is, it isn’t, it just makes Phyllis come off like something worse than a sore loser: a sore loser who doesn’t know when to give it up already. (Decades and two kids later, has she matured at all?)

Portrait of a Narcissist

We know that Victor has an ego that’s bigger than the ranch, but would even he really have an 8×10 glossy of himself prominently displayed in his living room? (See below.) Wasn’t the office portrait enough? But at least we can all rest easy knowing that he’s found an extended family member (Cole) to run the publishing division of Newman. God forbid the man ever let his nonexistent HR department recruit an employee to whom he wasn’t at least tangentially related!

Worst Boss Ever?

Would Abby really have made Tessa — whose wife served as her surrogate — work on New Year’s Eve? For that matter, would a millionairess like Abby have been working on her first NYE with Devon as her newly minted hubby No. 3? #MakeItMakeSense Also, was the moment in which Tessa told her boss and Devon that she was feeling lightheaded the one in which she realized what terrible friends they are? Neither of ’em got up to follow her outside and make sure she was OK. “Don’t collapse on me,” Abby called after her. “We need you.” Such care. Such concern.

Later, Tessa was still feeling crummy and burping up a storm — give her a Tums already! — and still Abby and Devon didn’t budge when she excused herself to fall into Ian’s clutches. Around that same time on NYE, we were told that it was almost midnight, yet Society was at best half-full. Could that have been why Abby had to work? Just to make it look to passersby like the spot was hot? No, that doesn’t track. If that was the case, Tessa wouldn’t have told “Warren” that the eatery was booked solid.

Ol’ Blue Eyes

Speaking of “Warren”… we laugh a lot around here about Ian and Jordan’s silly disguises, but at last I’ve figured out why the former dresses like he does: He’s obviously channeling The Creeper from the Jeepers Creepers horror movies. And did anyone not chuckle when Ian pulled out what was basically a Monopoly Community Chest card to prove to Nick that he’s a chaplain? That’s some criminal-mastermind-level [bleep] right there!

Put Him In, Coach!

Not a scene goes by that doesn’t remind me just how good Christian Jules LeBlanc is. So can someone please tell me why Michael hasn’t been any closer to the frontburner than other characters’ storylines in years? (See also: Michael Graziadei, but at least Daniel’s plot moves. Not necessarily in the direction we’d like, but at least it’s something.) On a semi-related note, has Michael started raiding the wardrobe of Days of Our Lives’ outré Leo (played by Greg Rikaart, aka Young & Restless’ Kevin)?

I always like it when the show plays Michael and Diane together. (Hey, would ya look at that? I do like something!) Same with Jack and Lauren. But why isn’t there any threat to the friendships between these attractive, randy people? Shouldn’t we have the vague concern that a little tension in either marriage and a martini too many could lead to a kiss that would blow up all of their relationships? Maybe not. People seem to complain whenever I suggest anything upsetting the apple cart where Michael and Lauren are concerned.

Rest in Peace, Sharon?

Amid all the recapping and water-treading that Young & Restless did this week, it also held out some hope for actual twists to come. First of all, there’s Ian and Crazy Aunt Jordan™’s holier-than-Swiss-cheese plot to murder Sharon and frame Phyllis. Why the baddies would think that they wouldn’t automatically be prime suspects No. 1 and 2 is a head-scratcher; guess we’re expected to assume that they’re just. That. Nuts. And Ian does have that Monopoly card stating that he’s a chaplain now.

The interesting thing is that the show almost has to go through with killing or at least “killing” Sharon, or Ian’s plan to use Mariah’s grief to position himself anew as her father figure could never come to pass. And in theory, this story has to be going somewhere, right? (Is that just wishful thinking?) Personally, I don’t get why Ian would want to risk being sent back to prison to once again perturb these people, who weren’t even aware that he’d been released. But motivation is not the soap’s strong suit these days.

Out of the Minds of Babes

Also intriguing was Daniel, Danny and Christine’s conversation about Lucy, who was said to be majorly angry and unpredictable in the wake of Heather’s murder. “Anything can happen,” Grandpa noted, “and it’s not always a good thing.” For viewers, however, it could be, if the show takes advantage of the gem that it has in Lily Brooks O’Briant and turns her character into a JV version of granny Sheila. Finally, we’d have a pot-stirrer whose machinations make sense. The damage that she does would be forgivable, too, because at the end of the day, Lucy’s just a screwed-up kid.