Diane, Sally, Audra, and All that Jazz (Club): The Young and the Restless Two Scoops for the week of September 22-26, 2025

The Young and the Restless put aside some of its corporate shenanigans last week long enough to give us a good old-fashioned showdown between an overprotective mother and her son’s former fling. In other words, they gave us a soap opera!

And in this corner…

Was Audra truly going to go over to the bar and apologize to Kyle for her machinations in France and for conspiring with Victor to bring Kyle down? We’ll never know because Kyle, who had had one too many drinks, came over to Audra and Sally and attempted to tell the former off.

Sally attempted to play referee, but there was no stopping the plays once they were in action. Kyle and Audra were about to turn hate sex into an Olympic sport the way they were hurling cruel remarks back and forth at each other.

If the jazz club likely didn’t have a rule against its patrons mud-wrestling right in the middle of the room, Kyle and Audra probably would have ended up doing it. As it was, they were verbally slinging mud at each other. Kyle pointed out to Audra that Nate kicked her to the curb. Audra threw in Kyle’s face that he was a nepo baby and was in the process of losing Claire to Holden. Part of us had three words to say: "Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!" There does seem to be a lot of sexual tension between these two, right?

Fortunately, or unfortunately, if you’re a fan of fighting, Jack and Diane, Kyle’s parents, entered and got their son out of harm’s way. Diane stuck around to give Audra a piece of her mind, but the former Vibrante founder didn’t take Diane’s attacks lying down.

Unfortunately, anyone who wants to after Diane is always going to have one tool in his or her arsenal; Diane faked her death and abandoned her son for years. It wasn’t really her choice, technically. A regime opted to write Diane out, killing her, which a subsequent regime overturned by saying that she’d faked her death.

Diane’s worked overtime to make up for the years she stayed away from Kyle by keeping a close eye on him. Later, Diane regretted getting down and dirty with Audra, but she admitted she enjoyed doing so at the same time.

We’d love to see more of these types of scenes. The endless business alliances, ending and starting up again, often have us running to grab our scorecards so we can keep track of who is partnering with whom. Billy's in bed with Cane? Wait, he's not. Michael's acting as a double-agent, right? Maybe not.

Mothers not getting along with the former (or current) girlfriends of their sons is a soap opera staple. Remember Mary Williams not caring much for Lauren Fenmore when she was with her son, Paul? She preferred that nice girl, Lynne, who was Paul's secretary! Jill Foster Abbott had disdain for upstart Nina Webster even before she bedded her son, Phillip. Watching Diane square off against Kyle’s ex, Audra, was the highlight of the week!

You know what froze over on The Young and the Restless

Characters trying to get along can be pretty dramatic, too. A lot happened in the business world in Genoa City this week. Get out those previously mentioned scorecards, folks! Billy told Jack he wanted to mend fences with the Abbott clan, and together, they could go up against Cane. Diane was cautious about this, given Billy’s volatile nature.

Cane not only cut ties with Billy, but he also got rid of Michael. The lawyer had planned to infiltrate Cane’s inner circle and report back to Victor. This would have hampered Cane’s plan to illegally use AI software to take over all the businesses in Genoa City, but it also may have prompted Victor to welcome Michael back into the fold as a surrogate member of the Newman clan.

Was Cane really not using any of his advanced technology to keep tabs on the people he may consider chess pieces in Genoa City? He had plenty of secret cameras in Nice, France, when he was keeping an eye on his guests. Did he not know that Michael booked it over to Victor at Newman Enterprises after one of their meetings?

Maybe he did. After a conversation with Michael, Cane decided to send him packing. So, on top of telling Billy to get lost, Cane’s also told Michael to take a hike. This leaves him with Amanda and Phyllis.

The biggest shock came when Jack went over to see Victor and Nikki (isn’t it great to see the new Newman Ranch instead of that home Victor and Nikki lived in after Sharon burned their old place down?). Oh, sure, the door’s on the other side, but that doesn’t matter much.

Anyway, Jack came over and suggested a truce with Victor so that they could take Cane down together. Victor’s not opposed to the idea, and in the category of “great minds think alike,” both Jack and Victor realized the key to beating Cane is to go after him emotionally. Jill Foster Abbott is the person they need to reach out to. Cane pretended to be the “real Phillip,” who was switched at birth, only that was all exposed when Phillip (Thom Beirdz) came back from the dead and revealed he was gay and living his best life in Australia. He'd faked his death so he could live the life he wanted to. Cane carried around vials of blood in a mini-cooler in case he had to do an emergency blood test.

We still wish Phillip had been referenced after Chance’s death since Chance was his son. We also wish that Chance hadn’t been killed…but we digress. Still, if you’re going to kill someone, well, the impact of the death should be emotionally milked for every single penny it is worth.

Maybe we’ll get lucky and Nina will come back to Genoa City for Cricket and Danny’s wedding in November. Then, she can rip into Cane and blast him for hiring an unbalanced soul like Carter, who went above and beyond his duties as Cane’s faithful servant.

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Traci’s return is shining a new light on Cane. The controlling billionaire can’t be all bad if Traci likes you, right? It was great hearing that Traci is working with a great therapist in New York who is helping her get her life together. Maybe she could recommend her therapist to Claire, who seems to be having trouble getting her life together.

Wedding (Lauralee) Bells

It was great fun getting to vote on which gown Cricket (love that we’re calling her that again!) will wear on her wedding day. Viewers not only got to narrow it down from three to two choices, but from two to the winning choice. Isn’t social media great? In the olden days, the gowns would have had to have been offered far in advance so that people could have mailed in their choices to the Y&R studios and then have that mail tabulated.

We’re wondering if we could vote on who will attend the wedding? In addition to Nina, we’d like to see Gina, Danny’s sister, Scotty, Cricket’s nephew, and, yes, even Phyllis! The fiery red head is definitely going to add some drama to the big day! Is she still in love with Danny? (Was she ever? Or was it just an obsession?) Probably not, but why should that stop her from ruining Christine’s big day?

Don't go West, young woman

Claire hit the nail on the head when she told her mother, Victoria, that she wasn’t sure that she even wanted to work it out with Kyle. That’s certainly what her behavior is indicating. Claire has pushed Kyle away, accusing him of wanting to distract her from their real problems by offering to take her to France.

This is, of course, the wrong thing. How it’s the wrong thing, well, we’re not really sure. But it’s the wrong thing. Careful, Kyle. Don’t do anything too crazy, like, oh, we don't know, buying Claire an expensive purse! That was the beginning of the end of your relationship with Sasha, remember?

The fact that Claire was even considering going to Los Angeles with Holden should tell her and everyone that she needs to stop seeing Kyle and Holden, and she needs to go into intense therapy. Sure, on some level, Kyle may have been using the trip to Paris as an adhesive bandage, but did Claire consider the optics of even entertaining going out of town with Holden, a man whom Kyle has made his feelings about crystal clear?

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