Both The Young and the Restless and General Hospital celebrated milestone anniversaries in 2023, with Y&R turning 50 and GH turning 60. Both soaps chose to dig into their history to mark the occasions, but only one soap did it in a way that could have lasting storyline consequences for years to come.
The Young and the Restless Brings Back Old Faves
While Y&R surely had some clunker stories in 2023, including the incessant “What is Tucker’s plan? Does Tucker have a plan? How do we unplan Tucker’s plan?” plot and the Phyllis (Michelle Stafford) fake death mess. However, the show also made us feel at home again with the parade of old favorites who seem to be sticking around.
The year 2023 brought back Nina (Tricia Cast), Danny (Michael Damian), Mamie (Veronica Redd), and Daniel (Michael Graziadei), among others. Watching Danny and “Cricket” (Lauralee Bell) find each other again, watching Mamie spar with Jill, and seeing Daniel and Lily renew their teenage love have all been breath-of-fresh air stories, but other comebacks and digs into the past have come with some incredible soap opera.
Y&R Uses Its Vets
Sharon (Sharon Case) finally got out of the coffee shop earlier this year, but it was all too brief. Her former lover and stalker, Cameron Kirsten, was released from jail, and headed straight to GC to torture her some more after all these years. Linden Ashby put in a tour-de-force performance as the crazed Cameron and we were all on the edge of our seats when he kidnapped Sharon and Nick’s (Joshua Morrow) teenage daughter, Faith (Reylynn Caster).
Sharon was willing to die for her child and almost did as she watched Chance use his cop skills to diffuse the dynamite Cameron had strapped to her chest. In the end, Sharon stabbed Cameron to death in a chilling moment we will never forget.
Sadly, Sharon returned to the coffee shop soon after and her new project turning the company Cameron left her into something good is mainly taking place off-screen.
The Good Stuff Didn’t End
Fans were on the edge of their seats again in November when we finally learned what Genoa City newcomer Claire Grace (Hayley Erin) was up to. Nikki’s (Melody Thomas Scott) perfect new executive assistant clearly had an agenda. When she lured Nikki to her aunt’s lake house in Oregon, the terror began in the form of soap legend Colleen Zenk playing Claire’s Aunt Jordan.
Claire and Jordan drugged Nikki and then hooked the recovering alcoholic up to an IV of vodka before luring “the rest of” Nikki’s family to the house. Victor (Eric Braeden), Nick, and Victoria (Amelia Heinle) showed up together thinking Nikki had a seizure. Oddly enough, they also lured Cole Howard there, a character we hadn’t seen in two decades, still played by J. Eddie Peck.
That’s when we learned that Aunt Jordan was really Eve Howard’s sister. Longtime fans remember Eve as the crazed secretary Victor once had an affair with. For a while, fans thought her son Cole might have been Victor’s, which put a crimp in his romance with Victoria.
It turned out that Cole and Victoria were not brother and sister, so they wed and had a premature baby who died that they named Eve. As Jordan explained to some poisoned Newmans, she kidnapped that baby and raised her as Claire Grace.
As 2023 comes to a close, Victoria is becoming attached to Claire and Jordan is still out there torturing Nikki, who can’t stop swigging vodka. We have a feeling that the best is yet to come.
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