Brace Yourselves, Young & Restless! SORAS Is Headed for Genoa City in a Big Way
At some point, The Young and the Restless has to notice, right? Its canvas is missing half of what its title promises. The only “young” characters getting regular play on the show are Kyle and Summer, and they are already parents with corner offices and more than one marriage under their belts. So why are there so few kids being featured?
One theory, which we’ve discussed before and hope not to have to again, is that the late, great Bill Bell’s jewel of a soap has lost its way over the years. (More on that subject here.) Another is that Young & Restless is just biding its time before unleashing SORAS (soap-opera rapid-aging syndrome) on its kids and bringing them back as teenagers and twentysomethings.
To put it mildly, they are needed. We know that when shows take time away from beloved vets to give it to newbies, the general tendency is to groan. We do it, too. But if the next generation is never allowed to take root, how will we ever get new beloved vets?
The stage is already set for some great drama, too. Moses could return to Genoa City for the summer after being dumped by Faith for kissing another co-ed. A little older but none the wiser, he could become the JV playboy that the show has needed for so long. (Think: Ryan McNeil — the early years.) While he does his damnedest to work his way back into Faith’s good graces, the baby-faced cad could make time on the side with a SORAS’d Katie Newman and enjoy the way he gets fawned over by a smitten Lucy (who’s too young for him to take seriously, but he likes the flattery, anyway!).
Nate, knowing firsthand where Moses’ behavior will lead him, tries to steer the Casanova in the right direction. Lily, appalled by her brother’s insensitivity, will have to grapple with the fact that he is turning out to be just like her unfaithful ex-boyfriend, Daniel.
Mattie and Charlie merely shrug that they tried to warn Mom that Moses was turning into a callous jerk. And Moses, not content to chase after Faith while fooling around with Katie and leading on Lucy, could set his sights on the ultimate score: red-hot older woman Sally. (Good luck with that, kid.)
Meanwhile, Young & Restless could take advantage of the cute love triangle that it set up over a year ago, when it hinted that both Johnny and Connor liked Lucy. Imagine their frustration if suddenly the only guy she could so much as talk about was sophisticated collegian Charlie. And imagine Connor’s aggravation if puberty hit Johnny first, at last making Lucy notice that she wouldn’t mind holding his hand rather than just high-fiving him. It would be sweet. It would be messy. And it would give their parents something to talk about besides mergers and acquisitions!
Finally, Reed could come back to meet his new half sister, Claire. Having learned from his (many!) mistakes, he could bond anew with Mattie as they commiserate about the fact that all life seems to be is one upset after another. Though they are still drawn to one another, they decide that it’s safer for them to remain friends. Nobody wants to go through the drama that they did before. Reed ventures that maybe it would be different this time, maybe the last time was just the wrong time. “Or maybe we were just always wrong for each other,” Mattie counters. So they agree to be one another’s wingmen as they dip a toe into the Genoa City dating pool. Only Reed, still hoping Mattie will change her mind, finds a way to shoot down every guy who catches Mattie’s eye.
“If I didn’t know any better,” she teases, “I might think that you were trying to make me believe you were my only option.”
“If you didn’t know any better,” he teases back, “would you say that it was working?”
Just as Mattie is about to throw caution to the wind and take another chance on Reed, Charlie would make a confession to his twin sister: If she isn’t going to go for it, could he? ‘Cause if Reed is bi, Charlie has a crush on him the size of Wisconsin!
