To put it mildly, Young & Restless’ Ashley is in dire straits, what with her psyche having broken Humpty Dumpty style into so many pieces that not even all the king’s horses and all the king’s men could put it together again. But help is on the way!
The Tuesday, April 30, episode of the CBS soap introduces soap vet Christopher Cousins as Alan Laurent, a shrink who made a French connection with Ashley during her time in Paris. Not to put any pressure on the doc, but it will be up to him and the patient to screw her head back on straight before her alters can execute their bonkers plan to murder Tucker and frame Audra, thereby ensuring that Ashley won’t be tempted to reunite with her shifty ex.
Cousins is, of course, a very familiar face to soap fans. In addition to short runs on Another World and As the World Turns in the late 1980s/early 1990s, he made himself comfortable on the frontburner of One Life to Live as Cain Rogan, the con man who truly loved Tina Lord (during Karen Witter’s turn in the oft-recast role).
The actor also has a mile-long list of primetime credits. He is perhaps most widely remembered as Ted Beneke on Breaking Bad, but he’s also recurred on Glee, The Vampire Diaries, UnREAL, Bosch, Chicago Fire, Law & Order…
Need we go on? Because we could. Cousins is as prolific as he is talented.
While we doubt that Ashley and Alan’s relationship will veer from doctor/patient, if it did, it wouldn’t be the first time that she got involved with her therapist. After she suffered a breakdown in the ’80s, she not only became romantically entangled with her shrink, Steven Lassiter, she married him. They might still be together today, too, if he hadn’t been shot to death by another of his patients. (That’s Steven below.)
