Credit: CBS screenshot

Young & Restless is not in a great place, folks, and this week highlighted the issues. It’s bogged down with mundane dialogue, uninspiring couples, and suffers from a decided lack of, well… soap opera. Our most compelling pot-stirrers are reformed, half the town walks around analysing each other like armchair therapists, and most of the storylines revolve around threatened corporate takeovers we couldn’t care less about after years of the same recycled theme. The main source of drama surrounds the “villain of the month”, and even those plots rarely end with a satisfying payoff. The cast remains fabulous, but the writers need to take a hard look at the melodrama playing out on Beyond the Gates and Bold & Beautiful and re-evaluate their approach.

He’s Baaack!

The writers have to find some way to make this right for Traci. How heartbreaking was it to watch her crying in the middle of the GCAC dining room, knowing the man she’s fallen head over heels for may be the psychopath who tortured Sharon and Phyllis?! I’d love to think Alan is alive and being held captive somewhere by Martin, but it seems certain that one of them died. Sidenote: So much for Jack honoring his promise to Traci to keep this between them… in the preview for next week, he’s asking Ashley if she thinks Alan is Martin. Oy.

Yes, not only is Alan/Martin back this coming week, but Ashley returns as well. Which means the scene is set for things to get hella messy, and fast, because Traci won’t be able to pretend with this guy for very long. As it blows wide open, I’m hoping a lot of questions will be answered, and that Sharon and Phyllis will get some satisfaction. For me, this is probably the sole storyline with any anticipation to it right now — it was downright chilling to watch the preview of Alan walking through the door and surprising Traci in their suite. Dun, dun, dun…

Victor’s Vendettas

After a long conversation with Nate about how little they trust Victor, Audra didn’t exactly run the other direction when he approached her in Crimson Lights to have a chat. We know from the preview that he has some plan in mind to use her to get to Kyle and the Abbotts. I just wish there wasn’t such a flimsy reason behind all of this. Being pissed because Jack saved Nikki’s life is bonkers. Anyway, Audra will undoubtedly get sucked into this revenge plot, which disappoints me because I want her to be smarter. But, hey, she’s unemployed and no one on this show is exempt from musical jobs. Victor probably has half a mind to pick Audra’s brain about Tucker McCall as well, given that he suspects he’s behind the Aristotle Dumas alias.

I’d be downright shocked if Victor was wrong — that’s simply not allowed — so Dumas probably is Tucker. In the moment Victor suggested as much to Michael, my enthusiasm for the story went into the basement. We spent over a year watching McCall half-heartedly tangle with various Genoa City personalities, posturing about this and that, but never really stirring the pot to any appreciable extent. Why would we want more of this? It’s bad enough that the writing has devolved once again into a mish-mash of vague corporate threats, but now the prospect of Dumas being someone new and intriguing also appears to have gone up in smoke.

More: Mishael Morgan returns

Dumas Gets What He Wants

If Dumas is Tucker, I can understand him wanting to take Chancellor back from the Newmans, but I don’t know why he’d want to go after Winters Inc. Devon is perfectly happy with the way things ended up, so it makes no sense to me that his father would be trying to interfere there. If Dumas is not Tucker and he does want Winters, well then it makes sense that he’d feed false information about Damian to Lily through Victor to cause a rift between her and Nate. This destabilizes the executive and could make the company vulnerable… and oh, how I wish I cared. This storyline has been far too convoluted from the start and only gets worse. This isn’t Suits, this isn’t Succession, it’s a soap opera.

Complaints Dept

This repetitive stuff with Billy/Adam/Chelsea/Sally is soul-sucking. They could be reading from previously-used scripts… These writers have Diane Freakin’ Jenkins decorating a house… Michael suddenly deciding he can no longer stand up to Victor is, in a word, terrible… Where’s Cole? Is he working for Newman in Siberia?! They’ve got Victor playing the role of Claire’s father in this Romeo and Juliet plot involving Kyle, and Nikki as her mentor instead of Victoria, who, by the way, is hanging back passively while her dad targets her daughter’s happiness. Not believable!

The opinions expressed are my own. Please share your thoughts on this week’s Young & Restless in the comments.