A 'nightmare' For the Newmans: Why The Young and the Restless resurrected Matt Clark

The Young and the Restless fans were shocked last month when Sharon turned around and got a look at Mitch Bacall. She uttered the name "Matt Clark," and we realized this man was not Mitch Bacall at all. Instead, he was a long-ago character nobody has thought about in years, except Y&R producer and head writer Josh Griffith.

A blast from the presumed dead past

Matt is now known as Mitch and is married to Sienna on The Young and the Restless | Image: JPI

One good reason Sharon (Sharon Case) was so stunned when she saw this man she knew as Matt Clark (Roger Howarth) was that he was supposed to be dead, but we all know how dead sometimes works on soaps. We saw Matt die in 2001, and he seemed really, most sincerely dead, but alas, he was not.

So, why did Griffith choose to recollect a character who had caused so much trouble in Nick's (Joshua Morrow) and Sharon's lives from the time they were teenagers? According to Soap Opera Digest, Griffith said he wanted to center Nick and Sharon in a suspense story, so he looked deep into their past and found this character who had once tormented the pair.

Griffith chose to introduce this story in Los Angeles and eventually bring the characters back to Genoa City. He wrote Noah (Lucas Adams) back onto the canvas as a way to get Nick and Sharon to Los Angeles, but needed a reason for Matt to run Noah off the road, so he created the character of Sienna (Tamara Bacall). She was introduced as Mitch's wife, with whom Noah was having an affair.

What comes next on The Young and the Restless?

Sharon reads to Noah on The Young and the Restless | Image: JPI

With the story set up, Matt now had a good motive for wanting Noah dead, except he's not dead.

"The core of his agenda is the feeling that the son of his most hated couple, Nick and Sharon, has taken from him someone that he — in his way — felt that he loved," Griffith told Soap Opera Digest. "And so they all have to pay for that. He has been betrayed, and so they will suffer...What he didn’t bank on was Noah surviving the accident. Because by Noah surviving the accident, he knew at that point he probably was about to lose Sienna forever, and that just enraged him."

While Matt didn't count on Noah still being alive, Sharon and Nick don't count on Matt following them home.

"[The]second act is definitely they return [to Genoa City], and Matt and all his trouble follow," Griffith continued. "It becomes a nightmare, not just for Nick and Sharon, but to the whole Newman family."

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