I have been a fan of this show for just about half my life now. Many of the characters who hooked me all those years ago still populate the town today, and despite the occasional storyline stinker, I continue to be intrigued and entertained by their antics.
Over the years, each character has drawn either my caring or my contempt, depending upon how they behaved in a particular storyline. But, despite whatever rumored drama and trauma might exist behind the scenes on our favorite show, most of the actors and actresses that make up the cast of The Young and the Restless continue to bring their A-game to the small screen.
Like many other fans, I, of course, have my favorites. And, probably, also like many other fans, my opinion of Genoa Citians has been known to flip without warning from hot to cold.
Currently, one of the names on my hot list is Adam Newman. When I read that the long-absent Adam Newman would finally be painted onto the Genoa City canvas, I was excited at the possibilities. While I anxiously awaited his arrival, I entertained myself with rosy-colored fantasies of a rough start, as the reigning heirs to the Newman throne adjusted to the interloper in their midst. But, I expected they would all eventually form a happy little family circle of love. Boy, did I have a painfully rude awakening coming!
After a very brief honeymoon period during which it appeared father and son were forming a tentative bond, it quickly became apparent there would be no welcome home parties thrown in Adam's honor. The prickly Adam started off on the wrong foot, almost instantly antagonizing his siblings and them him. It wasn't long before dear old dad had yanked the welcome mat out from under his son's feet, as well, though I won't claim Adam didn't do his part to deserve being booted out of the family.
I won't bother listing the long litany of crimes filling the suitcases piled haphazardly on Adam's doorstep. We know them all, from large to small. As villains go, probably only Sheila Carter was worse, willing at one time to murder her own mother to keep her crimes hidden from view.
I don't usually have even a sliver of sympathy for the town villains. So if someone had told me I would grow to adore this particular villain, I would have sworn on a towering stack of Bibles that they were a liar. I would not have faulted Adam much for anything he did directly to Victor, but what he did to Ashley was indefensible. When it comes to stealing Faith to cover his tracks, while it was wrong, it's much more forgivable. Because let's face it: switching, stealing, or hiding parentage (sometimes until adulthood, i.e., Lily and Adam), is typical soap opera fare that has been done in many forms for years. Anyway, at one point, so dastardly the deeds committed by Adam, had he been tarred, feathered and run out of town on a rail, I likely still would have been crying out for an even more painful punishment.
I can't even pinpoint now exactly when that hate-filled sentiment changed. It wasn't anything specific, like saving Noah from the fire or Faith from being crushed by falling beams. I think Adam won me over when, even after he believed Sharon to be dead, he still ran to and fro, carrying that burning torch for her. I admit he did lose me momentarily when his jealousy overrode his love, and he tossed that memory card into the pond. After all, Sharon gave up a lot out of love for him, yet he would have let her rot in prison for a crime he knew she hadn't committed.
But that's all water under the bridge now. Sharon has forgiven him, so who am I to hold a grudge? As a fan of Adam's, I'm excited about this latest twist in his tortured tale. I know he's the most hated man in America, or at least in the part of the world inhabited by soap fans who can't stomach him, but I welcome the peeling back of yet another layer of this multi-faceted and talented actor. My e-mail and many message boards convince me that while Adam certainly has his detractors, as an Adam-admirer, I don't exactly stand all by my lonesome.
I want to know what made Adam the way he is, and my fingers are crossed that the scribes will pen us an intriguing tale to explain him. The scenes at Hope's grave and at the farm have been riveting and left me panting for oh so much more. When Hope finally appeared to her son, he clutched her like he was drowning and she was his life raft. I was so moved, I came close to bursting into sappy tears. Only the mental reminder that this is a make-believe world kept me from crying a darn river.
Adam has certainly made a mess of things, but he's convinced me he knows it and wishes it was different. For some fans, however, the damage has been done, and it's likely Adam will never be redeemed in their eyes, even if he committed himself to a monk's austere cell and did penance for the rest of his days. But that wouldn't be a bit entertaining to this fan, so I've allowed the actor's immense talent to convince me to forgive, forget, and move on to whatever he's going to plop onto my plate next.
What I definitely do not want to see is another portion of Jack and Adam joining forces against Victor. Jack allegedly despises Adam for the way Adam treated Ashley, among other things. But apparently he's not above using him to one-up Victor. How many times have we watched them go down that particular path? Enough so that I don't especially want to see it again. I don't know about anyone else, but I want to see something new and different. Otherwise, it's like watching a movie you already know the ending to. Jack's a big boy. For a change, let him wage his own battle against Victor without dragging someone else into it.
We've all seen so much of the worst of Adam. So I'm more than ready to see some of his better traits, the ones he hopefully inherited from Mommy. I don't know about any other fan or foe of Adam's, but whatever direction he takes next, I hope it's not too good. After all, we already have one Newman son who fills that role.
Which brings me to the next person on my hot list. Nick, a man whose name has also been penciled in and erased multiple times. A good and pleasant guy, loves his family, and is mostly liked by all, men and women alike. Not boring, but perhaps a little bit lukewarm and somewhat predictable.
As I've mentioned before, I long for more screen time between the brothers. Until Adam came to town, there just wasn't much substance to Nick. A great dad, especially as Genoa City parents go. He can be a decent husband, but he does have a wandering eye, and is not exactly averse to getting sweaty in the satin sheets, whether he's legally linked to someone else at the time or not. Not that there is anything wrong with enjoying the earthier pleasures of life, as long as it's in addition to, not making up most of who the man is. I'm convinced Nick is capable of more than that, and I hope the scribes plan to show us some of that.
When Nick's been paired with Adam, even more possibilities present themselves. The two play well against each other. Together, they are a vision of tall, dark, and handsome yumminess. But there's something else too. Nick has always been somewhat of a hothead, usually in defense of those he loves, but he's basically a good guy. Of all the Newmans, I'd like to think that given time and some decent shared storyline fodder, he could be the first to apply some heat to begin to thaw the rock-solid glacier that separates Adam from the rest of the Newman clan.
I thought the scenes between Sharon, Nick, and Faith were well done, and Nick shined in them. Instead of his usual angry, snarky response to anything relating to Adam, Nick really seemed to be trying to understand what Sharon was saying about his brother. Even later, when Phyllis sarcastically criticized Sharon for staying with Adam, instead of silently staring at her with that scared, little boy expression, for a change, he actually stood his ground and even spoke up in Sharon's defense. I could have hugged him.
Over the years, Kevin has meandered over to my like list and remained there in spite of the ridiculous storylines the scribes have subjected him to. When the scribes put pint-sized Kevin in the closet, my heart became the property of Kevin's, and I finally forgave him for both his pursuit of underage Lily and for trying to cook Colleen. Though I often get exasperated with Kevin, I can't help but applaud his big heart. Despite his past, Kevin has proven to be one of the good guys for the way he stuck by Jana, sacrificed himself to save a kidnapped Kay, and now by trying to protect Chloe from harm.
Having said that, however, I am not pleased with Kevin's big lie. I wanted to reach through my screen and shake him sensible when he meekly gave in without so much as a shove back, to Angelo's threats. Sometimes people in this town are a little too quick to sacrifice themselves before at least trying to figure a way out. Kevin has some powerful people in his corner who owe him big time for his past loyalty to them. Katherine and Victor would have taken on the cartoonish Angelo and loved every minute of knocking him down several pegs.
I suppose victimhood is just a part of Kevin's character, thanks to his treatment at the hard, calloused hands of Terrible Tom. But I can't completely absolve Kevin from some responsibility in this. He's not that cowering little kid in the closet anymore, and he should at least try and fight back a little, instead of just lying down and making himself a doormat for Angelo and his ditzy daughter to wipe their muddy shoes on.
Like other fans, I'm counting the days until this mob-inspired mess comes to an end. The silver chipmunk silliness was bad enough. But this one-man mob nonsense is just as bad. I'm curious. Perhaps I'm being too critical. So is there anyone, anywhere, out there who is actually enjoying this storyline?
Far from being over, the water in the plot pot is only just beginning to bubble toward a boil in the battle for Beauty of Nature. While Jack indulged himself in a histrionic, hissy fit after being bested by the woman he momentarily loved, Victor was letting no grass grow beneath his boot heels in his quest to regain the sparkling jewel stolen from the Newman crown.
At first I thought Jack should have put aside his ire and made nice with Genevieve to get one long finger, if not his whole meaty hand, into the Beauty of Nature pie. But I think I like the direction the scribes seem to be heading much more than my idea. How delicious it would be to watch Victor scheme to haul Genevieve and Beauty of Nature back beneath the Newman umbrella, only to have it snatched away by Jack, whose presumably next highest bid would make him owner of the company if Genevieve's bid was nullified. Could you imagine the constipated wrath on Victor's face at having to turn over the company to his enemy, the enemy he took great pleasure in visiting to poke a sharp stick into Jack's unfeeling legs?
Oh, Victor. How dastardly can you be? Not having read the spoilers, I wasn't expecting the twist in the tale that involved Victor bringing Chelsea and Anita like a cancer into his own daughter's life. That man really ought to think about seeing a professional about all that pent-up hatred he has in his cruel, aging soul. He lied without a qualm to Nikki about his involvement with the pair of grifters.
I have a long list of questions about this one. For instance, just how deep does Victor's deception actually go? How much of the plan was Anita's, and how much Victor's? Did he hatch the plan from start to finish, or did he come in somewhere in the middle? Did he tell Chelsea to drug Billy and have her way with him in hopes she'd conceive? Whose idea was it to plant the drugs and set Billy up to go to jail? Did Victor just want Billy out of the way until Victoria moved on, or did he plan to have him locked away forever?
Speaking of Victoria, my goodness, the thought of a baby certainly turns this woman to mush, doesn't it? She's gone completely overboard with this need to have a baby. Victoria has even been reduced to serving the con artists tea and waiting on them hand and foot. I thought they were supposed to be living in the garage apartment. But they come in and out of the house like their quarters are upstairs instead of outside.
When it comes to Chelsea and Anita, I feel like the scribes are leading me down the primrose path just so they can smack me in the face with some thorny vines when I get to the end of the road. Because somehow I doubt Chelsea is going to just turn over her son to Billy and Victoria when the time comes. Clearly, she's fallen for Billy and probably has hopes that Mommy, Daddy, and baby will make one happy little family of three, and I don't mean with Victoria in the Mommy role. Of course, now that I know Victor's dirty paw prints have been all over this plot, it could turn out that Billy isn't actually even the father.
I wouldn't mind being wrong about Chelsea on this one, though, because Victoria has certainly had enough heartbreak in the children category. She suffered a miscarriage with her first daughter. After practically giving her life to bring Reed into the world, thanks to Victor's interference, J.T. was awarded full custody. She got pregnant again, only to miscarry a second time -- again with a little help from her loving father. Next, she's slapped with the news that she can't have any more children of her own. Still reeling from that reality, Billy buys her a baby and even after legally adopting her, she has that child snatched right out of her arms as well. Enough is enough. Either give this woman a child of her own to love or move her on to something else.
I know that Victor almost always ultimately wins, but just this once, I hope he is bested by Nikki. Obviously tired of Victor's airbrushed and whitewashed version of events, Nikki's on the hunt for the truth on her own. I loved her finding that earring and immediately going after Anita. When Victor returns from wooing Genevieve, he's likely going to find that the dew has already evaporated from the roses he undoubtedly bought Nikki for Valentine's Day. And not only might he be battling Jack for Beauty of Nature, he just might also find himself competing with his enemy for Nikki's heart as well.
By the way, Mrs. Scott, you are looking absolutely ravishing these days!
Lastly, it was fun for all in France, except Genevieve of course. Lily, who apparently doesn't have a bad side, photogenically, and rarely makes an error in fashionable attire, was a lovely bride. I couldn't help but feel for Sofia, however, who is the very picture of insecurity, even with cute little Moses as a very formidable weapon in her marriage arsenal. She all but hisses and claws bloody furrows in the air every time Neil and Harmony come within speaking range. How unpleasant to be in wedded matrimony with a man who clearly has naught but the lightest of feelings for you. Unfortunately, she knew what she was getting into before she took the first step. Hopefully, things will change for the better soon. Ha! Who am I kidding? This is a soap opera. Things are only likely to get worse!
Well, that's what I think. What follows is how a few of my fellow fans feel about Genoa City things. Step up on the soapbox, fans. It's your turn now. And in case I haven't said it in a while: I love reading your thoughts. So please feel free to send me feedback any time you'd like. You can click here to do so, or you can click any of the "email" links on this page.
