Talk about fires burning everywhere. This summer on The Young and the Restless, viewers are seeing plenty of hot drama brewing and explosive situations.
Even though Chancellor-Winters is splitting, the war between Devon (Bryton James) and Billy (Jason Thompson) only stands to get worse now that Lily (Christel Khalil) has chosen to stay at Chancellor and work with Billy. Then there’s the renewed feud between Victor (Eric Braeden) and Jack (Peter Bergman), which is on track to engulf all of Genoa City, per usual. And of course, a custody battle between Summer (Allison Lanier) and Kyle (Michael Mealor) is on the horizon as they can’t seem to agree when it comes to Harrison (Redding Munsell) these days.
Now despite Phyllis (Michelle Stafford), Nick (Joshua Morrow) and Daniel (Michael Graziadei) all warning Summer that taking Kyle to court over Harrison is a horrible idea, she continues to push things in that direction. She has put Kyle on blast for his choice to move out of the Abbott mansion, has chastised him about his choice to work with Audra (Zuleyka Silver) over at Glissade and Summer continues to make Claire (Hayley Erin) a point of contention.
Kyle in turn has told Summer that she’s overstepping and reemphasized a notion that show fans have been discussing for a while now — Summer is not Harrison’s birth mother. His birth mother is actually Tara (Elizabeth Leiner), who is locked away in prison but never terminated her parental rights. The Glissade co-CEO’s emphasis that shat Summer isn’t his son’s birth mother wounded her, but also left her determined that she’ll not be denied an active role and say in Harrison’s life.
With all that being said, both Nick and Daniel again have tried to stress to Summer that in a court battle, no judge is likely to strip custody away from Kyle given he’s a good father and the only biological parent between the two. Although she wasn’t receptive to hearing the tough love at the time, we think on some level she knows they’re right. So if she takes Kyle to court, she’ll need an ace up her sleeve in order to win, and this is where things could get interesting. We have a hunch Summer is about to go all "Phyllis" and hatch a disastrous plan of manipulation in order to get what she wants. Could that plan include Tara?
On the surface, it makes no sense that Summer would go to Tara for help considering the women don’t like each other and Summer is stepping into Tara’s maternal shoes while she serves a sentence in prison, much to Tara's chagrin. However, the two could make a pact.
We can imagine a scenario in which Summer visits Tara in prison, promising to help her get a shorter prison sentence if Tara signs a statement that it’s her desire that Summer be allowed to retain shared custody of her son. Summer would also likely want Tara to promise to stay away from Harrison whenever she is released.
Unfortunately, even if Tara agrees to this, we can’t see her keeping up with her end of the bargain. Tara isn’t exactly truth personified, so she could get released and make a custody play of her own for Harrison, which could leave Summer out in the cold in terms of parental rights and leave Kyle furious because of Summer’s actions.
Now let’s say Summer doesn’t contact Tara at all, but instead goes into a court battle with guns blazing and brings up all of Kyle’s missteps in life. Bringing up his wild past, noting that Harrison got kidnapped while in his care and mentions Kyle hiring Claire, a woman who kidnapped and helped poison her own family. That could leave Kyle fuming and bringing up Summer’s own past misdeeds, like aiding and abetting Phyllis when she faked her death and blackmailing him into marriage in exchange for her donating her liver to his then-love interest Lola (Sasha Calle).
The two have a long history and could tear one another apart in court. Should that happen, that could result in Kyle being admonished by a judge, but ultimately lead to him retaining custody while Summer is left with no legally mandated visitation or anything.
And in a worse-case scenario, Summer and Kyle’s fierce courtroom antics could lead the way for Tara to return to stake a claim for her son. She may be in prison now, but it’s the soaps, so it’s not hard to imagine her getting out and wanting custody of her son after Kyle and Summer obliterate one another in a custody battle.
All in all, we think Summer will soon regret pushing this custody issue too far. She better hope Phyllis doesn’t say, "I told you so" when things go left.
New episodes of The Young and the Restless air weekdays on CBS. Episodes become available to stream on Paramount Plus the next day.
