After posturing for weeks on The Young and the Restless, Victor (Eric Braeden) finally makes his first move against Billy (Jason Thompson) in his quest to take over Abbott-Chancellor.
In The Young and the Restless episode airing on October 22, a news story circulates around Genoa City trashing Billy as the sole CEO of Abbott-Chancellor. When Phyllis (Michelle Stafford) catches wind of the story, she reluctantly shares snippets of it with him. The article calls Billy out for being over his head, alleges he bungled the Odyssey Seven deal and aptly points out that he has a hard time holding onto staff. To top it all off, the story claims Billy has "no true vision" for the company.
Billy looks incredibly frustrated by the words he hears, but not surprised. She correctly points out this is all Victor’s doing, which of course is correct, as The Mustache forced Adam’s (Mark Grossman) hand at Newman Media. While Billy doesn’t explicitly state his next move to fight the allegations in the story and strike back at Victor and Adam, Phyllis rallies around her boss and is ready to hit back.
It just seems as if Victor is underestimating Billy these days. The Newman patriarch is incredibly confident that he can bulldoze Billy and get what he wants, but we aren’t so sure.
Billy isn’t the same "habitual screwup" he may been in his younger years. These days he appears more focused and determined to succeed in business to make his mother proud, while also leaving a legacy for his children. Yes, he may be a bit egotistical at times, but he’s matured.
Additionally, everyone keeps waiting for Billy’s historical lack of impulse control to be his undoing. However, aside from his push to rename Chancellor to the newly cemented Abbott-Chancellor, we can’t say he’s been making impulsive decisions that are detrimental to the corporation’s success.
His firing Lily (Christel Khalil) was justified as she did want to stab him in the back, and Phyllis’ chaotic nature aside, Billy hiring her as his COO was a sound decision as she has the experience and tech expertise. Plus, not promoting Chance (Conner Floyd) was a respectable choice considering Chance’s limited work in the corporate world, and Chance’s heart is in policing not business.
With all that being said, we think this more measured Billy may surprise Victor in his reply to the hit-job article. Billy may take a page out of Victor’s playbook and do some digging into Victor. Now Victor is no saint, but he also is incredibly skilled in covering up his secret dirt. So Billy and Phyllis may have a hard time finding anything. However, he has two recent stains on his not-so-spotless record that the duo may be able to use to get Victor to back off.
First, there’s the fact that Victor is guilty of kidnapping. Viewers will recall, that there was a brief stint when Victor had Jordan (Colleen Zenk) locked away in his wine cellar as retribution for all the torture she inflicted on his family.
At the time, he felt his vigilante justice was best given her ability to keep escaping police custody. It wasn’t until Cole (J. Eddie Peck) and Michael (Christian LeBlanc) forced his hands that Victor turned Jordan in to the authorities.
Although Cole and Michael helped cover Victor’s tracks so there was no proof of his crimes, is it possible the three men missed something? Will Phyllis somehow be led to talk to Jordan to hear what Victor did? If Billy and Phyllis learn the sordid truth about Jordan and expose it, Victor would likely face backlash from his family for having Jordan in that close proximity to them and not telling them. Also, he’d likely face questions from the authorities.
The other potentially damaging secret for Victor has to do with Kyle (Michael Mealor) and Glissade. Victor is knowingly about to launch a new skincare product with Glissade that Kyle stole from Jabot. If Billy catches wind of this, he will probably be furious that his nephew stole from the Abbott family legacy to help Victor in his vendetta against Jack (Peter Bergman). Perhaps by doing some digging, Billy and Phyllis find some proof of what Kyle did and what Victor is doing, and they turn them both in for corporate theft. Such a brazen move would rattle Victor, but it may also infuriate Jack who still loves his son.
We may not be able to say with certainty what Billy’s next move is, but we have to believe he’ll strike back. However, if we know Victor like we think we do, any retaliation won’t be taken lightly and he’ll go to some pretty low depths to prove "victorious."
New episodes of The Young and the Restless air weekdays on CBS. Episodes become available to stream on Paramount Plus the next day.
