Exclusive Y&R Preview: Leading Ladies Dish About The Standalone Couples Episode
On Wednesday, May 21, Young and Restless will be airing another of its special standalone episodes. This particular installment focuses on three of its couples — Nikki and Victor, Diane and Jack, and Lauren and Michael. Soap Opera Digest chatted with half of each pairing — Melody Thomas Scott (Nikki), Susan Walters (Diane), and Tracey E. Bregman (Lauren) — to get the inside scoop on the romantic and dramatic hour.
Team Effort
Scott has already appeared in one of these standalone episodes, the May 2024 show, where Jack went to extremes to get Nikki back on the wagon. “As an actor, you always feel the pressure when you are given a lot of material,” she confides. “Luckily, in this episode, it wasn’t just Eric [Braeden, Victor] and me carrying the entire episode, and there are other characters to help carry the weight. Also, while I had a lot of scenes, they weren’t nearly as intense as the episode with Jack and Nikki in the hotel room.”
With a much smaller cast than a regular episode, Bregman jokes, “There’s not a lot of people in the studio, that’s for sure. There’s three couples, and so we just had a third of the script. It was a lot of dialogue, but it was so beautifully done, and I really hope the audience enjoys it. We loved doing it.”
Walters also enjoyed being a part of the unique show and exploring Diane and Jack’s relationship alongside the other two couples. “I loved it,” she enthuses. “I thought it was a really nice idea, and a lot of our viewers are obviously closer in age to me than they might be to the younger crowd, so it’s nice. One of my favorite things about being on daytime is that the parents and grandparents have such rich lives, and they’re not just a sounding board or an accessory to the younger stories.”
Nikki & Victor
Powers of Persuasion: Can Nikki convince Victor (Eric Braeden) to give up his vendetta?
As Victor plans a birthday surprise for his beloved wife, Nikki takes the evening in a different direction by addressing her spouse’s renewed animosity towards the Abbotts and how it could potentially hurt their granddaughter. “Nikki has had a front row seat over the years to the Victor versus Jack feud,” Scott explains, “so she knows better than anyone else that it never ends well. This time, it is particularly concerning for her because it involves Claire. Nikki is quite protective of Claire as she sees her as still quite vulnerable. She doesn’t want Claire’s relationship with Kyle to suffer because of this intense rivalry between Victor and the Abbotts.”
Feeling responsible for reviving the family feud, Nikki is desperate to change Victor’s mind and hopes that on this particular occasion, she might be able to get through to her notoriously stubborn husband. “Nikki knows that once Victor sets his mind to something, it’s almost impossible to change his mind,” the actress allows. “However, Nikki feels guilty that Victor’s feud with Jack has reignited because of her drinking, so she may take advantage of his good mood and the romantic setting to try to appeal to Victor on Claire’s behalf.”
Diane & Jack
The Outsider: Diane still doesn’t feel like a member of Jack’s (Peter Begman) family.
Jack responded very well to Diane’s redesign of the Abbott mansion, but his wife was shaken by Billy’s visceral dislike of her changes to the family home. “What happened was, it kind of just showed her that she’s still not part of this North Star family that she’s been wanting to be part of for so long,” Walters observes. “You always feel a little on the outside, and that’s just the way it is. You’re not one of the sisters in the family, you’re the ‘wife of,’ that sort of thing.”
Having not grown up with the kind of bond that the Abbott family members enjoy, Diane wants nothing more than to become part of that unit. And despite Jack’s reassurances, she still has her doubts. “It’s like you want to be accepted,” Walters muses, “but then you are also sad because you really know you never can be, totally, and you don’t have those sibling relationships. And obviously, Diane didn’t have that relationship with her father because she had a line to Jack where she says, ‘I even named Kyle after my dad, hoping that I can rewrite my history.’ So I think sometimes things trigger you where you really don’t have it, and you won’t. But she does want to be accepted.” Can Jack convince her she is?
A Dangerous Job: Lauren is terrified she’ll lose Michael (Christian LeBlanc) forever.
Lauren & Michael
Michael attempts to smooth things over with Lauren by treating her to a romantic evening, but she’s still upset about him working for Victor — especially since it occasionally puts his life in danger. “She feels like it’s life and death,” Bregman insists. “That if anything’s going to happen, it’s going to happen to Michael, and she’s really, really concerned for his physical safety.”
Over the years, Michael has put his life on the line for Victor, but being by his side when Ian attempted to kill the Newman patriarch proved the last straw for his wife. “He stayed with Victor, and to Lauren’s mind, he didn’t choose her,” the actress explains. “He didn’t choose them. And the fact that he would stay in a situation where he potentially could have been killed instead of coming to safety and coming back to her, that just made her so concerned that this could happen again. At any point.
“And he’s hearing her,” Bregman adds, “but for some reason, he’s just not wanting to leave Victor. She realizes that the relationship with Victor is paternal, and is a replacement for his father, who walked out on him twice. She understands that, and she understands that it’s a very complicated relationship, but she still is standing firm. She wants him out.”
Conversation
All comments are subject to our Community Guidelines. Soap Opera Digest does not endorse the opinions and views shared by our readers in our comment sections. Our comments section is a place where readers can engage in healthy, productive, lively, and respectful discussions. Offensive language, hate speech, personal attacks, and/or defamatory statements are not permitted. Advertising or spam is also prohibited.