Y&R Exclusive: EP Josh Griffith On A New Man For Lily, A Billy Love Triangle And More

The Heart Of The Matter: Exes Lily (Christel Khalil) and Billy (Jason Thompson) will have busy love lives on Y&R.

It’s getting colder outside, but Young and Restless has been cranking up the heat on the citizens of Genoa City with the reintroduction of baddies Ian and Jordan and a score of twists and turns coming up. Soap Opera Digest checked in with Executive Producer/Head Writer Josh Griffith about the next stage of the Victor/Jack war, the plans to bring on Nate’s half brother and some new romances to look out for as the show closes out 2024.

 

As the Jack/Victor rivalry takes center stage, Griffith is thrilled that the restored Newman Ranch is once again serving as the backdrop to all things Newman. “It always felt like they were in a rental,” he concedes of Victor and Nikki’s living situation after the original ranch burned down in 2012. “No matter what we tried to do, no matter where we tried to put them, it always felt transient. It didn’t feel like home. And as all the stories [we had in progress] were going to come together as we approved the 13,000th episode and we had several things happening and we knew that we were going to have a wedding and I knew that a lot of the stories were going to explode over the course of that week, I thought, ‘Well, the [current] Newman Ranch just didn’t have the grandeur for all of those payoffs. And I talked about it with the network [CBS] and with Sony. Danielle [Unger, the CBS executive who oversees Y&R] has been saying, ‘Could we ever get the ranch back?’ And Sony finally said, ‘You know what? This is the time. It seems like the perfect time to just do it. It’ll be a great surprise that Victor gives Nikki, it’s the perfect venue for the wedding, and it’s going to have all of the grandeur and beauty and power that will allow all these stories to explode.’ And everything fell into place.”

It was an emotional day when the set was unveiled to Eric Braeden (Victor) and Melody Thomas Scott (Nikki). “I was overwhelmed,” Griffith says of bearing witness to their reaction. “We kept [our plans to reintroduce the ranch] under wraps; we didn’t tell them until, I think, Emmy night [in June]. That’s when we revealed to them that we were rebuilding the ranch as the historic ranch, and they were excited, but I think they were also skeptical, because we’ve gone through several versions of the ranch that they’ve not been that happy with. So the day that we unveiled it and I walked them onto the set, they hadn’t seen it; we’d kept them away from it [while it was being built]. I knew they would be happy, but when they walked onto the set and Melody just instantly started going to every part of the set going, ‘Oh, my God, this was here before, that was here before,’ and Eric just went over to his chair and stood behind it and I saw tears in his eyes… I went, ‘Okay, this worked!’ ”

With his ranch back, his marriage thriving and him seemingly having come out on top in Genoa City’s latest cutthroat game of corporate musical chairs, Victor is sitting pretty both literally and figuratively. But, hints Griffith, “Let’s not count Jack out.” In the longstanding battle between Jack and Victor, he points out, “It’s always one chess move and then another chess move. Victor may think he’s gotten the last move but he hasn’t captured the king. Jack still has a few cards up his sleeve.”

A Win’s A Win? Victor (Eric Braeden, with Melody Thomas Scott as Nikki) may be celebrating prematurely.

Room For One More

Another family poised for a big shake-up is the Hastings/Winters clan, with Nate having recently made the discovery that he has a sibling, a half brother that is the product of his late father, Nathan Hastings, Sr.’s, relationship with Amy Lewis. “I’ve been trying to find a way to expand the Winters/Hastings arena, that family, and we were just discussing, ‘Wouldn’t it be interesting if we found out that Nate has a half brother?’ ” shares Griffith. “We looked into [the history] and in our research, we remembered Amy,” who had been on the canvas alongside Nate’s dad in the 1980s. “We said, ‘She left at a time when she could have been pregnant after her affair with Nathan.’ It kind of looked like a perfect route to follow, which would lead up to this sibling.”

Look for that character’s introduction in the not-too-distant future. “It’s going to be a very interesting dynamic to bring in this man who has no idea that Nathan was his father and that Nate is his brother,” says Griffith. When Digest jokingly asked Griffith if he could confirm that the brother would be handsome, he dropped this intriguing hint: “I can guarantee you that the brother is very handsome — and there’s a double handsome whammy twist coming your way.”

Oh, Brother: Amy’s (Valarie Pettiford) news will have a big impact on Nate’s (Sean Dominic) future.

Love Is On The Air

Y&R has seen a lot of romantic pairs split this year and some new romances get underway. Asked which duos he thinks are the ones to watch moving forward, Griffith says, “I think we’re definitely going to need to keep our eye on Claire and Kyle. I think that’s a Romeo and Juliet story just waiting to happen because we’ve got two warring families [in their background]. And I think the audience is going to be intrigued by a Billy/Sally/Phyllis triangle. And I think that Lily is going to find true love.”

Sums up Griffith, “It’s going to be an exciting winter. I think that from now until the end of 2024, fans can look forward to a roller coaster of suspense, romance, family, explosions and twists and turns like they haven’t seen.”

The Next Generation: Their families’ feud will create wrinkles in Kyle (Michael Mealor) and Claire’s (Hayley Erin) courtship.