Young And Restless: The Best And Worst Of 2024

The “how” and “why” of Heather’s (Vail Bloom) murder remains hazy, but the amount of Genoa City royalty the story roped in does not. Sharon’s (Sharon Case) medication was off, which caused her to revisit her daughter’s 2005 death and decide — with some goading from a hallucinated Cameron Kirsten — to punish Daniel for his part in Cassie’s accident. Sharon went to Daniel’s apartment to poison him but was surprised by Heather, who ended up dead after Sharon blacked out. Sharon quickly set about framing Daniel for his partner's death. She planted evidence, Chance arrested Daniel, Christine returned home to defend him, Phyllis blew a gasket and blamed Sharon for the crime, Nick jumped to Sharon’s defense, Michael got involved, Sharon’s kids got upset, Victor and Nikki stuck their two cents in, Phyllis wound up in the hospital, Sharon confessed all to Nick, Michael agreed to defend Sharon, Phyllis admitted to Lauren she couldn’t remember the accident, and it was all a big round-robin of A-listers sharing juicy scenes that carried real jeopardy for people we care about. The icing on this psychotic cake? Sharon was actually being gaslit by nutbag Jordan Howard and former cult leader Ian Ward, two established villains from Y&R’s past whose grudges against the Newman family prompted them to tamper with her meds and kick off this murderous trip down memory lane.

One day Tucker (Trevor St. John) was drinking brown liquid in hotels and threatening our faves, and the next he was just ... gone. The lead-up to Tucker’s disappearance involved a limp triangle with Ashley and Audra (Zuleyka Silver) that involved anything but love as he thirsted for power over Jabot and Glissade. He lost both battles — and both women. Tucker’s whole story was more smarmy than entertaining, and his treatment of people he was supposed to care about was shameful. His son Devon made an epic speech last spring about how relationships were just a means to an end for him: Tucker was always trying to steal a company or get a woman to fall in love with him, and he could never take no for an answer. Rarely has a guy had a finger in so many pots with so many front-burner characters and then just vanished. Tucker’s last scenes involved faking a heart attack overseas in a failed effort to delay the Glissade board’s vote to oust him, and then… nothing. An arc we anticipated ending with a bang (translation: a juicy whodunnit) instead ended with a whimper.

If anyone in Genoa City deserves love, it’s Traci (Beth Maitland), the heart of the Abbott family. Her new fella, Alan (Christopher Cousins), started out as Ashley’s friend and psychiatrist and s-l-o-w-l-y caught Traci’s eye, which is a smart way to kick off any soap couple. They became better acquainted when Traci accompanied Ashley to Paris for her sister’s DID treatment. Being in the City of Love away from the usual Abbott turbulence gave Traci the chance to see Alan with clear eyes, and her routine check-ins re: Ashley’s progress morphed into Traci also checking in on him. To his credit, Alan didn’t push. The shrink gently probed until Traci shared pieces of her complicated romantic history (Danny Romalotti, Brad Carlton, Steve Connolly) and her biggest loss, daughter Colleen. Alan had a troubled history as well: His twin brother Martin had impersonated him and accosted Ashley, causing part of her break with reality. Ashley’s health took a turn for the better with Alan’s help, as did Traci’s long-bruised heart after their tentative first kiss last summer. A few trips back to Genoa City prompted Traci to invite Alan to move into the Abbott mansion with her, an idea sanctioned by big brother Jack. We look forward to seeing Traci and Alan’s sweet connection — and, hopefully, their screen time — grow.

Connor’s OCD resulted in endless conversations between Adam (Mark Grossman, l.) and Chelsea (Melissa Claire Egan, r.) about their son’s troubles, climaxing in a sex romp in a Baltimore hotel room after they got drunk to deal with their stress. It remains unclear how that helped Connor, who disappeared from view after a few therapy sessions. It certainly didn’t help Adam and Chelsea’s relationships with Sally (Courtney Hope) and Billy (Jason Thompson), who picked up signals that something had happened between their exes immediately upon their return to Genoa City. Adam and Chelsea dismissed their partners’ feelings and lied about their encounter, to the point where Sally actually screamed at Adam to stop gaslighting her. Chelsea 'fessed up first, causing Billy to break the news to Sally that Adam had betrayed her. Adam finally admitted the truth, and with both relationships up in smoke, Billy and Sally turned to each other for consolation sex — but they clearly don’t trust each other since Sally recently asked Billy if he slept with her to get revenge on their former partners. Chelsea, meanwhile, has made it clear to Adam that they are never (ever, ever) getting back together. For such a big story, we expected more fireworks in the fallout.

It had been over 30 years since Nikki (Melody Thomas Scott) fell from a horse and turned to painkillers and alcohol for her back injury. She’d suffered many falls off the wagon since first getting sober, but Jordan force-feeding her vodka in 2023 sent Nikki on a dramatic bender that led to her secretly begging Jack (Peter Bergman) to be her AA sponsor this year. The story came to a head in a hotel room, where Jack decided the only way to stop Nikki’s tailspin was to hit bottom with her. He gulped down vodka and called his old drug dealer to get pills delivered, a story point rooted in Jack’s own history with substance abuse. Jack collapsed and Nikki called 911, which jolted her out of her spiral and back to AA. Victor was outraged, denouncing Jack’s actions as a threat to his wife’s life — and he set out to pay Jack back for that “debauchery.” Victor hired Jack’s son at Glissade, enlarging the rift between Kyle and his parents. He then hired Diane and forced her to fire Kyle, which backfired when it turned out Jack and Diane had faked their breakup to prove that Victor’s only interest in Kyle was to hurt Jack. As the year ends, Jack owns Glissade (rebranded Jabot Classic) and Victor is warning his granddaughter Claire to stay away from Kyle — a surefire guarantee that they will grow even closer and escalate the Victor/Jack war in 2025. The epic Jack/Victor rivalry is Y&R gold, and we're happy to see it take center stage.

We’ll take mergers and acquisitions for the second year in a row, Alex! Even the players involved couldn’t keep track of the machinations this year at Newman Enterprises, Jabot, Marchetti, Omegasphere, Chancellor-Winters, er Abbott-Chancellor, no wait it's just Chancellor now — and are Cyaxares and ChancComm still around? Chancellor in particular saw head-spinning turmoil as Jill put Billy in charge; he fired Lily (Christel Khalil) but was ordered to rehire her by his mother which didn’t matter because Victor succeeded in a hostile takeover and put Nikki in charge after double-crossing Lily who finally agreed to go work with Devon (Bryton James) at Winters after he spun it off from Chancellor (got that?). Glissade was another one that changed hands from Tucker to Audra to Victor to Kyle to Diane and then was bought by Jack and rebranded Jabot Classic. To be fair, the Jabot/Glissade battle provoked juicy drama between Victor and Jack, and sparked a fake breakup between Jack and Diane that upended the Abbott family and gave The Mustache a momentary upper hand — but that conflict played out in the Newman and Abbott homes, not the office. The executive round-robin is only interesting when it impacts story, and newsflash: Meetings aren’t interesting. When every Genoa City business has an office but none of the execs have a bedroom, it’s time to rethink the meaning of “merger.”

We’re used to characters coming back from the dead, but a soap opera set returning?! 2024 was the year Y&R wisely undid the 2012 mistake of having an unhinged Sharon burn down the Newman ranch. (Sharon unhinged? Some things never change.…) Y&Rs 13,000th episode was the behind-the-scenes catalyst for what happened on air: Victor (Eric Braeden) rebuilding the beloved OG home as a surprise for his wife, Nikki. He blindfolded her and guided her to the big reveal to the strains of Y&R’s theme song as flashbacks reminded viewers of the fire’s devastation. Nikki beamed as she surveyed the opulent furniture, vases and flowers, finding comfort in their familiarity. Devon and Abby's wedding christened the space, with guests marveling at how closely the space replicated the Newman’s former home. The vows came off without a hitch, but the real heart of the ranch's resurrection was Nikki’s reaction to Victor’s grand gesture. She lovingly pronounced her new home the perfect blend of past and present, and was soon back to playing her beloved piano. That was music to Victor’s ears — pun intended — as well as to viewers'.

A character going crazy is a tried-and-true soap device, but it must be used sparingly to be effective. Ashley’s (Eileen Davidson) problems began as a mystery — was Tucker gaslighting  her or not? — and slowly morphed into her seeing things that didn’t happen. She was diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder, highlighted by three different versions of Ashley’s personality talking to each other in a bare room and followed by months of treatment off screen (and no explanation for why her alters didn't manifest during any of her many previous psychological crises, but we digress). Cut to fellow A-lister Sharon — a trained therapist — suffering a similar spiral after she purposely went off her meds and started seeing dead people. First it was Cameron (who she killed in 2023), then Heather (who she thought she killed in 2024), neither ghost prompting Sharon to tell the truth or seek help. Like Ashley, she unraveled in plain view for months but Nick and her kids were all "She's fine!" until Sharon confessed to murdering Heather (a crime viewers know she didn’t commit). Throw in Connor’s OCD and the months of Adam and Chelsea texting, video chatting and talking to their son and his doctors, culminating in an episode about how Connor had a breakthrough and ate soup. Any one of those stories would have been powerful, but three was overkill. A good rule of thumb going forward? One psychiatrist per year.