Forget simmering, tensions at The Young and the Restless’ Chancellor-Winters are boiling with fewer cooler heads to prevail and actually right the ship at the corporation.
Just when some viewers thought Devon (Bryton James) and Lily’s (Christel Khalil) conversation with Mamie (Veronica Redd) about her being the initial cause of all the infighting at the company would somehow calm the waters, Jill (Jess Walton) and Billy (Jason Thompson) pulled a stunt that officially made the mother/son duo the aggressors in this corporate feud.
Jill decided to give all her power at the company to Billy, without giving Devon and Lily a heads-up first. To add insult to injury, she let Billy be the one to inform Devon and Lily. Considering Devon and Billy have been like oil and water lately, letting Billy be the messenger was not the wisest decision on Jill’s part. However, Devon and Lilly probably wouldn’t have taken the news well regardless of who told them.
Feeling threatened and insulted, in The Young and the Restless episode airing on May 16, Devon and Lily call an impromptu board meeting without Billy. Jill is aggravated by the meeting knowing it’s being conducted behind her son's back, and she’s further annoyed when Devon shares the meeting is to limit Billy’s power.
Devon and Lily effectively want to strip Billy of equal voting at the company and want him to run all decisions by them. With this proposal, if the brother/sister pair doesn’t want to do something and Billy disagrees, his hands would be tied. (We aren’t sure how Lily would even think this is a good idea considering Billy is technically her boss now, but we digress.)
Thankfully for Jill, she doesn’t have to call her lawyers to fight such a proposal as Abby (Melissa Ordway) shockingly decides not to vote with Devon and Lily on the matter and instead backs Jill and Billy, her uncle. Abby doesn’t think it’s fair to attempt to strip Jill and Billy of power, and she also raises a great point. Jill brought Chancellor to the partnership with Devon, which is the bigger entity in the business world, and Devon and Lily have benefited from the partnership a great deal. How could Devon and Lily now be so disrespectful to Jill?
If this all wasn’t bad enough, in the same episode, Phyllis (Michelle Stafford) has a conversation with Daniel (Michael Graziadei) at Crimson Lights that leaves her more disenchanted with Chancellor-Winters than ever. She technically still works with the company and is crushed to see her son fighting for intellectual property he created in his lawsuit with the business.
After Daniel leaves, Tucker (Trevor St. John) sits down with Phyllis and the two actually opt not to trade insults, but instead talk. Tucker shares his hopes of reconnecting with Devon, but he doesn’t reveal Devon’s sentiments about Billy. Phyllis then blasts Devon for firing her son. She also lets it slip that Jill has given her power to Billy and that Billy is currently on a goodwill tour with different Chancellor-Winters offices.
Right on cue, Devon walks into the coffee shop and Tucker runs up to him and says now is the perfect time to make a move against Billy while he’s out of town. Devon wonders how his father knew this information and guesses that Phyllis told him. The Chancellor-Winters co-CEO makes a beeline to Phyllis and questions how she knew Billy was gone and why she would reveal that to someone outside of the company. Phyllis makes no apologies and then decides to quit. Devon thanks her for his resignation and leaves.
The Young and the Restless fans should prepare themselves for a war of epic proportions at Chancellor-Winters. Tucker is more dedicated than ever to reconnect with his son and feels getting Billy out of the company is the best way to do that.
Would Tucker tempt Billy with his old gambling demons to see Billy relapse in his gambling addiction, which could lead to Billy making poor business decisions? Sure. Tucker would gladly watch Billy wreck his life if it meant helping Devon, and Billy’s gambling addiction could aid the cause.
But on the flip side of this equation, we think Billy is going to do some scheming of his own. It’s not hard to imagine him partnering up with Phyllis to plot against Devon and Lily.
Phyllis is an expert hacker and can do her fair share of damage to the Winters clan by fudging with the numbers, leaking private company information to the press and even doing a classic frame job to make Devon and Lily look bad in an attempt to dilute their power.
When it’s all said and done, viewers may see the dust clear and Chancellor-Winters become the laughingstock of Genoa City, making the infighting at Newman Enterprises and Jabot over the years look like minor debates. Perhaps Mamie was right to want to separate Winters from Chancellor-Winters.
New episodes of The Young and the Restless air weekdays on CBS. Episodes become available to stream on Paramount Plus the next day.
