As Young & Restless struggles mightily to engage with viewers, an awe-inducingly unbelievable plot point in Friday’s episode illustrated

how far off track the soap has veered. For some, it was just another unremarkable line of dialogue, but for those long-time fans paying

attention, it was a statement so staggeringly revisionary that it verged on the insulting.

 

 

The story surrounding Cane’s return has been a stretch from the get-go, but we’ve gone along with it, albeit skeptically, in hopes that some real drama would materialize. Alas, aside from the nonsensical killing off of Nate’s new brother and the last Chancellor heir, there’s been none.

 

 

The storyline itself is based on the decidedly unrealistic premise that grifter Cane Ashby has all of Genoa City’s most powerful business types quaking in their collective boots over the threat of some vague “plan” and an AI program. The repetitive dialogue and total lack of movement in the plot has literally driven us to drink.

 

 

Now, and this isn’t even the unbelievable plot point in our headline, the writers have started dropping hints in dialogue suggesting that we’re to view Ashby as a “young Victor Newman,” and, presumably, the likely successor to the Newman’s title as the richest and most ruthless man in Genoa City. Let’s just say that “suggestion” probably isn’t going over well with anyone who has been watching the show for the past decade or more.The problem with Cane as the new Victor, of course, is that it requires fans to disregard the entire history of another core character, who has been largely sidelined to accommodate the writers’ vision for Ashby. The case for this couldn’t have been made clearer in the Friday, October 10 episode during a confrotation between said character and Cane.As you might have guessed by now, we’re referring to Adam. At Newman Media, when Cane alluded to bringing “Chadam” a story with a very different ending, Chelsea later asked Adam, “What do you think he’s up to?” Adam, whose very identity as a grown character was built on him being more ruthless, cunning and calculating than anyone in town, shrugged, “I have no idea. I’ll have to run this by my dad.” Wait, wuuut?!It was a “blink and you’ll miss it” moment, but it spoke volumes. Young & Restless appears to be, if not rewriting history, then asking viewers to completely disregard who Adam is and has always been at his core in order to push a narrative that NuCane is somehow more like Victor than his own son. Or daughter, for that matter. Victoria, who has also long been written as a natural predecessor for her father, has been off floating in the periphery of this story when she’d typically be taking out her pent-up feelings over the loss of Cole on the enemy.Bottom line: That scene left us with a big feeling of disbelief and disappointment, in part because the confrontation itself was drier than a chunk of styrofoam… yet another example of potential drama, that all but writes itself, being ignored. Imagine the much-needed energy of a clash between NuCane and the old Adam! Have your say in the comments below.