A running theme on The Young and the Restless these days is the never-ending drama when it comes to family business. Looking at the Newman clan, they’ve had more upheaval in the leadership at Newman Enterprises and its subsidiaries lately than we’d care to count (although if we were, we’d point out that Newman Media alone will have had three CEOs by the end of this summer).
Even as Victor (Eric Braeden) continues to shuffle the executive deck at his company, Jabot has also undergone some leadership changes of its own recently. Ashley (Eileen Davidson) has taken her patents and is preparing to launch Simply Ashley, Kyle (Michael Mealor) has left and sought employment under the Newman umbrella and Diane (Susan Walters) has been promoted to a senior top spot.
It’s that promotion, combined with some other questionable choices his siblings have been making as of late, that has had Billy (Jason Thompson) thinking about becoming the sole CEO of his father’s company.
In the episode airing on September 5, Billy has a conversation with Lily (Christel Khalil) at Crimson Lights about his concerns about the direction of the Abbott legacy. He makes it crystal clear that he doesn’t fully trust Diane or her intentions when it comes to Jabot. Furthermore, he insists that Jack (Peter Bergman) doesn’t think straight when it comes to his new wife, and the older Abbott is pretty much susceptible to Diane’s forms of manipulation.
Additionally, Billy doesn’t trust Tucker (Trevor St. John) and questions if he can even trust Ashley at this point given her husband’s influence and her past scheming.
When Lily gauges his vision of how to solve what he views as a problem, Billy states, "Sometimes I feel like I’m the only Abbott with legitimate intentions to protect the family company, no matter what."
The Chancellor-Winters boss cautions her ex about trying to push Jack out of Jabot as his co-CEO. Billy claims he doesn’t want to "go to war with Jack," which reassures her. Before they two part ways, Lily encourages Billy to think about what his father would handle the situation. Those sage words of wisdom seem to spark an idea for Billy.
With all that said, what will the youngest Abbott sibling do next?
Well, we tend to think his next move is to actually prove to Jack that his instincts about Diane are right. Anything Billy tells his brother about his wife is bound to be ignored, so what better way to prove Diane is a detriment to Jabot than setting a trap for her to fail.
Considering Diane has proven that she is willing to go to questionable lows in her past, perhaps Billy comes up with a scenario that forces Diane to resort to her former ways and expose that behavior to Jack. The latter reunited with Diane under the premises that she’s a changed woman. Glimpses of her past may motivate Jack to rethink her position at Abbott.
Now we’d be remiss if we didn’t point out the possibility if Billy goes after Diane he may go after Tucker too as a way to keep Tucker and Ashley from going after Jabot if they sense weakness with Jack and Diane. With Adam (Mark Grossman) holding a big Tucker-sized secret, one he’s already teased to Billy, we can’t imagine it wouldn’t be that hard to heep the newly cemented McCalls at bay.
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