For a few months now on The Young and the Restless, Jack (Peter Bergman) and Diane (Susan Walters) have been on the receiving end of Kyle’s (Michael Mealor) wrath. After Diane fired him from Jabot and Jack more or less cosigned the decision, Kyle’s been furious with his parents, vowing to make them regret what he sees as an act of betrayal. Of course, Kyle’s blustering is easy for him to do as he has Victor’s (Eric Braeden) backing at Glissade.
While Jack and Diane know Kyle is the co-CEO of Glissade, alongside Audra (Zuleyka Silver), up until now, they’ve only lightly entertained the idea that Victor could be Glissade’s secret investor. Well in The Young and the Restless episode airing on August 21, Jack and Diane begin to more strongly suspect Victor owns Glissade and purposefully hired Kyle to exploit the Abbott family tension. Viewers know that’s exactly the case as Victor is still furious with Jack after Nikki’s (Melody Thomas Scott) bender at the Athletic Club, and is more determined than ever to take down Jack and Jabot.
Believing their son is entangled with Victor, Jack and Diane vow to help Kyle, not wanting his downward spiral to occur with The Mustache involved. Unfortunately, Kyle won't make rescuing him easy as he’s still very standoffish with Jack and Diane, even wanting to move out of the Abbott Mansion. The Jabot co-CEOs are at a loss for what to do until they bump into Kyle and Claire (Hayley Erin) having dinner at Society.
When Jack and Diane walk into the restaurant, Kyle is abrasive and quite short with them. Claire, however, is incredibly congenial, bragging on and on about Harrison’s (Redding Munsell) recent artwork. After receiving frostbite from Kyle’s cold shoulder, Jack and Kyle grab a table of their own at the restaurant, and Jack is hit with the brilliant idea to use Claire to get through to Kyle.
Given the episode ended shortly after this revelation, we’re left wondering how Jack may utilize Claire. For starters, Victor loves his granddaughter, but he’s not shared any parts of his takeover plans with her. So if Jack was hoping to tap her for details, Claire’s well of information is pretty dry. With that in mind, we’re left to suspect that Jack may approach Claire about putting a good word in with Kyle for him.
Jack and Diane may catch Claire in a moment when she’s around the Abbott Mansion and stress how much they miss Kyle and wish they could repair their fractured relationships. They may even lay it on thick how they just love family, exploiting Claire’s weak spot for the concept. When Claire is nice and vulnerable to powers of persuasion, Jack and Diane may ask Claire for tips on how to mend things with Kyle and plead with Claire to speak with Kyle on their behalf.
Now considering that in the aforementioned episode, Kyle asks for Claire’s input on house hunting, we think Claire could also become the reason Kyle doesn’t leave the Abbott mansion.
When she looks through pictures of the houses on Kyle’s shortlist, she notes the houses look similar to his family home. She takes things a step further and suggests the reason the houses look like the Abbott Mansion is because deep down, he doesn’t want to move.
If Diane were to have a conversation with Claire later about her dinner with Kyle at Society and inquire if Claire and Kyle are dating, we’re pretty positive the question would rattle Claire. In fact, the newest Newman may be quick to assert that she and Kyle are friends and that she was just helping Kyle house hunt. The news may catch Diane off-guard, but given we’re talking about Diane here, it’s easy to imagine her regrouping and trying to see if Claire agrees with Kyle moving out. When Claire says she likes the Abbott Mansion, we suspect Diane will push Claire to get Kyle to see moving out is not what’s best for him or Harrison.
Should this occur, we have to ask: would Claire do Jack and Diane’s bidding? If so, would Kyle even listen? While we can’t be sure of the answer to either question, we can say with certainty that Claire is pretty loyal to Kyle, so she’ll only do something if she feels it’s in his best interest.
New episodes of The Young and the Restless air weekdays on CBS. Episodes become available to stream on Paramount Plus the next day.
