It’s been a rough several weeks for The Young and the Restless’ Lily (Christel Khalil), although it can be argued that her professional upheaval is her own doing.
After her plans to oust Billy (Jason Thompson) at Abbott-Chancellor failed, he understandably fired her because he could no longer trust her to have his back. Then Lily partnered up with Victor (Eric Braeden) in an attempt to steal Abbott-Chancellor from Jill (Jess Walton) and Billy, only to discover the hard way that Victor was lying to her and never intended to install her in the role of CEO once he acquired the company.
And yet, still determined to get the job she feels she has earned, Lily turned her attention to Jill. Lily called her and expressed her concerns about Billy running the business into the ground and not seriously looking at Victor as a threat. Lily smugly believed tattling would persuade Jill to fire her son and install her as Abbott-Chancellor’s sole CEO, but Jill hasn’t agreed to do such a thing.
Yes, Jill is furious with Billy for firing Lily, letting Chance (Conner Floyd) quit and hiring Phyllis (Michelle Stafford) as his COO. However, Jill wants to give Billy a chance to turn things around, but also wants Lily back on staff.
So where does this leave Lily? Well currently, she’s stubbornly unemployed. But in The Young and the Restless episode airing on November 5, Billy meets with Lily after his mother pushes him to get her back. He makes the pitch that she should return to Abbott-Chancellor as his co-CEO, and she’s less than gracious about his offer. She knows he’s only making the offer because Jill told him to and questions how they could work together when there’s no trust between them.
Billy counters that they can get past their trust issues by both agreeing to put the company first. He also acknowledges her valuable contributions to the success of the business and notes he knows she really wants to return. Furthermore, he’s confident that working alongside him is Lily’s best shot at getting back into the Abbott-Chancellor fold. The icing on the cake is he suggests that Phyllis has been fired.
Of course, right on cue, Phyllis rudely interrupts Lily and Billy in only a way Phyllis can, and Lily storms off before she agrees to return to work. Alone, Billy is furious with Phyllis and encourages her to just focus on Daniel (Michael Graziadei) and her family, while he focuses on his family company.
With all that being said, we have to consider that Lily will eventually come around and see working with Billy at Jill’s direction is her best shot at being CEO of Abbott-Chancellor. Sure, she’ll have to share power with Billy, but at the moment, this is the best offer she has in terms of the company.
Nikki (Melody Thomas Scott) is only offering Lily a COO position if Victor can acquire the business. Now we mentioned the possibility of Lily seeking out Tucker to form an alliance to hostility snatch his mother’s legacy from Jill, Billy and Victor; however, that’s just a theory with no clue yet that Lily is thinking about enacting such a plot.
Now if Lily does wind up agreeing to work with Billy again, we think she won’t do so without him and Jill agreeing to one big condition first. Considering how undervalued she felt when Jill gave Billy all of her authority at the company when Jill was recovering from her heart issues, Lily may demand Jill and Billy give her equal authority at Abbott-Chancellor. She may ask to be put on a level playing field with Billy, so he can’t override her with decisions and throw his weight around when the two of them disagree.
This of course is a big ask of Lily, one that Billy may greatly be offended by considering this is his family business. Jill may be willing to cave into Lily’s demand, wanting Lily and Billy to stop all their fighting and get back to keeping her company a thriving success. However, Jill may equally assume Lily has a lot of nerve considering it was only a few weeks ago when Lily was ready to sell her out to Victor.
We’ll have to keep watching how this story unfolds as Lily is either about to get what she wants or severely overplay her hand.
New episodes of The Young and the Restless air weekdays on CBS. Episodes become available to stream on Paramount Plus the next day.
