Admittedly, we feel bad for The Young and the Restless’ Claire (Hayley Erin). After spending almost her entire life being manipulated and tormented by Jordan (Colleen Zenk), now that she’s rightfully found her place among the Newman family and is settling into Genoa City, she’s left to contend with first love woes and The Great Victor Newman (Eric Braeden).
In terms of her love life, she may have heard stories and seen movies detailing what a whirlwind romance is like, but now Claire is experiencing that firsthand with Kyle (Michael Mealor). The two are content with making their relationship work, and they officially exchanged the big “L” word in The Young and the Restless episode that airs on April 22. Additionally, after talking things over with Nikki (Melody Thomas Scott) and Victoria (Amelia Heinle), Claire has decided to accept Kyle’s offer to get a place together.
Of course, Claire’s romance has slowly helped her see the other side of her grandfather. Victor is vehemently opposed to #Kylaire, given Kyle is Jack’s (Peter Bergman), and regardless of Claire’s pleas that Victor give his seal of approval, he refuses. In fact, Victor has predicted nothing but heartbreak in Claire’s future and has enlisted Audra’s (Zuleyka Silver) help to ensure Claire dumps the Abbott heir. If Claire ever wanted to know what it was like to be her mom and have Victor constantly interfere in her personal life, Claire is slowly finding out.
With all that being said, again, Claire and Kyle are preparing to move in with one another, and we foresee this transition being anything but smooth. When The Mustache learns of the news, he’s likely to hit the roof. He won’t be the only one hitting shingles either, as Summer (Allison Lanier) won’t be happy to hear about this development and may go full “Phyllis” to try and stop this from happening since she still loves Kyle. Plus, Audra may up her plan of attack, because if she wants a company from Victor, she’ll have to deliver on her end of their bargain.
However, we think there’s a good chance that the biggest hindrance to Claire and Kyle taking this next big step may actually be Victoria. During that previously mentioned discussion between Nikki, Victoria and Claire, Victoria cautioned her daughter about provoking Victor with this move. Victoria thought it would only enrage Victor, so she wanted the young lovebirds to play it safe and continue to give Victor time.
Again, knowing firsthand how problematic (and sometimes painful) a romance can be when Victor opposes it and interferes, Victoria may ironically want to spare her daughter some of that grief by sabotaging Claire and Kyle’s big move-in.
Victoria doesn’t want the couple to break up, and has even once assured to protect their relationship from detractors the best she could. However, Victoria could assume her own interference is necessary to protect Claire and prevent Victor from lashing out. Not for nothing, Victor is also a bit older, so Victoria could become nervous that his stressing over #Kylaire shacking up could create a health issue for her father.
For now, Victoria playing the role of saboteur is just a theory, but one we think could be interesting to see play out, considering how she hated her parents manipulating her romances. Plus, we have to think that the sweet Claire we’ve come to know may disappear if she learns her mother plotted against her.
New episodes of The Young and the Restless air weekdays on CBS. Episodes become available to stream on Paramount Plus the next day.
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