Preview: The Young and the Restless may have its best week of the year because of big returns and big surprises

As I said not too long ago, The Young and the Restless has really been hitting its stride lately. Between the Jordan (Colleen Zenk) saga, Nikki’s (Melody Thomas Scott) battle with sobriety and the various personalities of Ashley (Eileen Davidson) as she struggled with dissociative identity disorder, the soap offered plenty of must-watch moments. 

And now it looks like longtime fans are going to be in for a major treat this summer as the feud between Jack (Peter Bergman) and Victor (Eric Braeden) is back on and about to explode thanks to The Mustache’s unparalleled ability to hold a grudge.

Outside of the umpteenth battle between Jack and Victor, based on a preview clip for The Young and the Restless episodes airing during the week of June 17, it appears two exciting things are about to happen that I’ve been impatiently waiting to see. First, Faith (Reylynn Caster) returns to Genoa City and wants her parents to discuss their love story, which we hope is a foreshadowing of the much-anticipated rekindling of #Shick, Sharon (Sharon Case) and Nick (Joshua Morrow). 

Second, Claire (Hayley Erin) is finally about to meet her siblings, sans Reed (Tristan Lake Leabu), and I’m left wondering if they’ll embrace her or reject her for her previous misdeeds. Check out the promo video for the soap and see for yourself. 

I’m excited about the possibility of Nick and Sharon finally getting their romantic journey back on track. When she broke up with Chance (Conner Floyd) months ago and came to the realization that Nick is effectively the love of her life, I thought they would have jumpstarted things then. However, shortly after her epiphany, she was relatively absent from the soap canvas, only popping up sparingly. With Faith requesting to hear how her parents fell in love, I’m hopeful that will give either Nick or Sharon the courage to take a step in the right direction. 

Over with Claire, she’s about to meet Johnny (Paxton Mishkind) and Katie (Sienna Mercuri) for the first time, and this meeting has been long overdue. Victoria (Amelia Heinle) found out months ago that Claire is her daughter, and yet, Johnny and Katie haven’t met her. 

I understand the two kids have been away at a boarding school, but you would think Victoria would have had them return home for at least a weekend to meet the sister they never knew they had. And heck, where is Reed? He’d likely have the most friction with Claire considering her arrival means he’s no longer Victoria’s eldest child, and he has a better grasp of the danger his family was in thanks to Claire. 

Now making a a pretty big pivot, let’s talk about Tucker McCall (Trevor St. John). He doesn’t have anything to do with Nick, Sharon or Claire necessarily, but the week of June 17 also looks to be a big one for him. Not only is he on the cusp of losing Glissade to Victor thanks to Audra (Zuleyka Silver), but it looks like the stress of that combined with all the Ashley chaos will cause him to have some kind of medical emergency, also shown in the above clip. 

So I have to ask myself if Tucker is faking an emergency to stall for time to win back the board members ready to sell his company. That’s certainly in his wheelhouse of tricks. However, I selfishly hope he is having an emergency, as he needs a character reset in Genoa City. Currently, everyone views him as the Big Bad Wolf in town, and I think an emergency will cause some people’s hearts to soften, mainly Devon (Bryton James) and Audra. 

Having said all of that, I’m looking forward to seeing the next few episodes of The Young and the Restless. Did I mention that Lily (Christel Khalil) and Daniel (Michael Graziadei) are also set to have a face-to-face? 

New episodes of The Young and the Restless air weekdays on CBS. Episodes become available to stream on Paramount Plus the next day.