A moment The Young and the Restless viewers have been waiting for finally happens in the episode airing on April 10. “Alan” (Christopher Cousins) reveals himself to indeed be the villainous Laurent twin, Martin.
The episode picks up with Traci (Beth Maitland) confronting Martin downstairs of the Athletic Club, with Jack (Peter Bergman), Ashley (Eileen Davidson) and Chance (Conner Floyd) standing by. Martin is adamant that he’s Alan, but Ashley demands he stop lying. Martin responds that Ashley is to blame for Traci doubting him and accuses her of being jealous of Traci’s happiness with him.
Ashley blasts him for continuing his charade and notes she knows he’s the same Martin who attacked her in Paris. She angrily trembles at the thought of what may have happened if Tucker (Trevor St. John) hadn’t shown up in Paris that night. He again denies the accusations, and Chance insists Martin accompany him to the station to answer some questions.
Before the detective hauls him off though, the conversation pivots to the allegations of kidnapping against Martin, for what he did to Sharon (Sharon Case) and Phyllis (Michelle Stafford). A frustrated Jack leaps at Martin, telling him he’ll have to answer for all the evil he’s done.
At the police station, Sharon and Phyllis show up after getting updates about the investigation into Martin. As he sits in an interrogation room, the women enter and taunt him about the truth being discovered, while demanding to know why he kidnapped and tortured them. He continues to pretend to be Alan, but becomes slightly agitated by the continued assertion that he’s Martin.
Attempting to get a confession out of the deranged criminal, Phyllis and Sharon pretend to hate each other again, trying to prove their forced time in captivity was a failed experiment on his part. However, Martin becomes a little more agitated and gets the sense they aren’t being honest, as he feels the person behind their ordeal was genius enough to orchestrate a real truce for the duo.
Chance walks in the room and notes that the authorities have enough evidence to use against Martin, and it’s only a matter of time before fingerprints and DNA testing come back to prove his identity. With the walls closing in on him, Martin finally snaps. He admonishes Alan’s ability to be a therapist and labels him the “weak one.” Martin celebrates his own genius for being responsible for why Ashley had a breakthrough with her dissociative identity disorder and why Phyllis and Sharon are in a much better place after all these years.
A few beats later, Chance slaps the cuffs on Martin. Phyllis and Sharon eventually meet up with Traci to let her know the ordeal is over. However, can this storyline truly be over without shedding light on two big mysteries left?
For starters, how in the world did Martin survive the fall that night in Paris and not Alan? On the night of the incident, the two were wearing different clothes, yet Martin was somehow misidentified as his brother, and has been pretending to be Alan, falling in love with Traci for months. Again, how does that just happen?
Heck, we have to even consider the possibility that Alan could be alive and that Martin stashed him away somewhere, and he needs help. Although one of the Laurent men was declared dead at the scene of the crime, it wouldn’t be the first time soap paramedics got it wrong. Both Ian (Ray Ward) and Diane (Susan Walters) were declared dead by authorities, only to awaken later.
The other big mystery has to do with Ashley. In Paris, after Alan and Martin fell off the balcony, “Alan” told her that she needed further assistance in combating her dissociative identity disorder, as the root of it probably originated with some traumatic event of her childhood. A quick Google search will tell you that the disorder does usually stem from childhood trauma. So, even if it was Martin who told Ashley this, he was likely correct in his assessment.
So here’s the thing, that trauma still hasn’t been revealed on The Young and the Restless. Viewers have no idea what happened to Ashley as a child and don’t appear any closer ot figuring that out. It would have been nice to get the answer before Martin was hauled off in cuffs, especially because we can’t rule out that Ashley unknowingly already revealed what it was to Martin in a therapy session. Following this line of thinking, is it possible that Ashley could wind up going to Martin when he’s locked away so she can finally get to the bottom of things?
We aren’t sure what Martin’s future holds, but since he wasn’t killed, we have to think he can return to Genoa City at any point and time.
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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