Young and the Restless gave us several horrible storylines this year. We’re going to talk about Cane Ashby (Billy Flynn) and Victor Newman (Eric Braeden) and some untimely deaths and some more shoddy storylines. We’re going to get into the worst of 2025 before we head into 2026, hoping for better.
Young and the Restless: The Mystery of Aristotle Dumas
Let’s get right to it. The very first terrible storyline of 2025 was Aristotle Dumas and the return of Cane Ashby (Billy Flynn) with a recast. Now, I’ll say this, I like Billy Flynn. He’s a great actor and he’s nice eye candy, but the head writer is awful. And Josh Griffith isn’t doing this recast justice. The writing is inconsistent; it’s all over the place. He doesn’t seem to know where he’s going, and that’s probably because Josh Griffith has his head up his butt.
First, there was the way-too-drawn-out buildup to the reveal of the mysterious Aristotle Dumas. Then it turned out he was Lily Winters (Christel Khalil)’s ex-husband, father of her twins. And then there was Cane trapping Genoa City’s power players at his chateau in France, which we never saw, by the way, I’m sure for budgetary reasons. Since Cane came back to Genoa City, we’ve seen Josh Griffith’s writing for him get so much worse. It is so inconsistent. He zigs, he zags, he’s left, he’s right. It’s just insane.
Cane Can’t Make Up his Mind on Young and the Restless
Initially, Cane wanted to take over all the companies in Genoa City, and Amanda Sinclair (Mishael Morgan) was his primary co-conspirator, and then out of nowhere, with no word, she just evaporated. We haven’t seen her back. Then Cane was going to work with Billy Abbott (Jason Thompson), but then Cane abruptly kicked Billy to the curb. Then he decided to work with Phyllis Summers (Michelle Stafford) to take over Genoa City. It’s just this bipolar behavior.
Then, Cane decided to play nice so that Lily might take him back. So, Phyllis stole his AI and gave it to Victor. One day Cane’s pursuing Lily, the next day he’s in the sheets with Phyllis. I feel bad for Billy Flynn. He can’t be happy that this character he came on board to play is so badly written and that fans aren’t embracing him. It’s not about him as an actor; it’s about the bad writing. It’s a total waste of his talent and one bad plot after another.
Untimely Deaths in France: Damian Kane and Chance Chancellor’s Pointless Exits on Y&R
That leads us to the second bad plot of 2025, and it’s about two deaths in France. First is Damian Kane (Jermaine Rivers). Why even introduce him? Give him this whole backstory of being Nate Hastings (Sean Dominic)’s brother just to kill him. They had Nathan Owens introduced as Damian and then Jermaine Rivers as the real Damian. He was a love interest for Lily, and Y&R had Damian chasing Lily, her playing hard to get.
They had a good romance going, and they finally started to heat up and make things official in France. And then Y&R abruptly killed him off. It would have been a lot better to keep Damian around as competition for Cane. Plus, they brought in an excellent actress, Valarie Pettiford, as Damian’s mom and had her dying of cancer, but then they kept her alive and killed her son. It was pointlessly weird writing.
This leads to the second death in France which was terrible as a plotline, and that was Conner Floyd’s exit as Chance Chancellor (Conner Floyd). The writing for his character was so bad, and he wasn’t getting a lot of screen time. So Conner Floyd took a job over on Days of Our Lives, which is the bargain basement of all the soap operas. I mean it’s fun, don’t get me wrong.
I watch it every day, but it is low-budget and bare-bones compared to Young and the Restless, which is a flagship soap. But that’s how bad the writing is. Chance had no decent storylines. He was not used well at all. So, as actor Conner Floyd left, they decided, “hey, why not kill off a legacy offspring,” which is a bad idea, and they didn’t have to do it that way. Even worse, we didn’t even get Chance’s funeral on screen. It was so disrespectful.
Y&R’s Mishandling of Mariah Copeland and Tessa Porter’s Storyline
Next on the worst plots list is Mariah Copeland (Camryn Grimes) and her issues. Young and the Restless is messing up the only gay couple they have on the soap. If it bothers you that there’s a gay couple on the soap, I don’t know what to say. Every soap has gay couples now. They were a functional, happy couple. And I think it’s fine to give them issues and roadblocks because soaps mess up happy soap couples.
That’s what they do. But it’s the way they’re doing it. Why not throw another woman in the mix? Why put Daniel Romalotti (Michael Graziadei) in there? It’s because there’s not enough single women to go around. That’s what I think. But Tessa Porter (Cait Fairbanks) is gay. She always has been. We haven’t seen her with another dude, and pairing her with a guy is problematic for a lot of fans for that reason.
A lot of fans like Daniel and Tessa together, but it was just wild that they took a happy gay couple and ripped them apart with Mariah’s mental health concerns and then paired Tessa with a man. Mariah is great, but she doesn’t get enough screen time. We have almost no episodes with Camryn Grimes anymore. They need to bring her back, or if she doesn’t want to work regularly, they could recast the role.
Maybe have her show up and Mariah finally fights for Tessa and their marriage. But for right now, it looks like she’s just out of the picture and Tessa feels like their marriage is over. But if this was real life, she’d be dating another woman, not a man. She was very clear she’s gay. Her friendship with Daniel, I get it, it’s understandable, but the rest, not so much. But if they’re not going to bring back Camryn Grimes more regularly, Tessa and Mariah may be doomed.
The Toxic Triangle: Kyle, Audra, and Victor’s Messy Plot
Our next bad plot of 2025 is Kyle Abbott (Michael Mealor) and Audra Charles (Zuleyka Silver). They went from a booty call couple to wanting to destroy each other. And then Kyle was dating Claire Grace Newman (Hayley Erin), who is herself, let’s not forget, a multiple attempted murderer. Audra made that icky deal with Victor to seduce Kyle. And I’m sorry, if you’re being paid to sleep with a man, that’s prostitution. So, Victor was basically pimping out Audra It was distasteful, but at the same time, it was soapy.
That’s not really my problem in terms of plot lines. What was so bad really was that it’s clear Kyle was still hot for Audra and enjoying the attention. Kyle climbed on top of Audra in a towel in the train car, and Kyle has still never come completely clean with Claire about how far things went between them. Now, Kyle and Claire are plotting to run Audra out of town, and that’s kind of made her into the victim of their aggression. In my opinion, Kyle’s no better than Audra.
And Claire’s been reinvented into little miss innocent who faced almost no consequences for trying to kill her whole family. I’m actually fine if Josh Griffith writes Audra and Kyle coupling up. That’s believable. I think that would be soapy and interesting. But trying to make Audra the villain when Claire is actually quite dangerous and Kyle is a horn dog nepo baby isn’t great writing to me.
Victor Newman’s Year of Villainy: Hateful, Spiteful, and Without Consequences on Young and the Restless
Our fifth and final terrible storyline of 2025 is pretty much everything that Victor’s done this year. Josh Griffith writes Victor as hateful and spiteful, worse than he’s been in a long time. And the mustache gets away with everything, no matter how vile. No consequences. Paying Audra to seduce Kyle and break Claire’s heart was terrible. Victor hates Kyle because he’s Jack Abbott (Peter Bergman)’s son. Victor’s current vendetta against Jack is over-the-top ridiculous.
Victor keeps on with debauchery and all that. Everybody in the family, including Nikki Newman (Melody Thomas Scott), knows that Jack saved Nikki and got her in rehab, and she credits Jack for it. I think Victor’s big problem is Jack risked his life to help Nikki when Victor didn’t try to help her. Claire shoved Nikki off the wagon with a vodka IV, and Victor refused to send Nikki to rehab, kept booze all over the house, and was drinking in front of her while she was struggling. He’s still drinking in front of her.
2025 has been a year of Victor being detestable and the other Newmans enabling it while hating it. I hope it turns out different and Nikki yanks a knot in Victor and leaves him unless he stops what he’s doing. I’m also low-key cheering for Phyllis to get the AI and turn around and use it on Victor. Honestly, I think two of the three CBS soaps have terrible head writers. Brad Bell at Bold, Josh Griffith at Young and the Restless. They could both learn a thing or two or nine from Beyond the Gates head writer Michelle Val Jean. It is a much better-written soap if you’re not watching it. I highly recommend.
