Despite The Young and the Restless’ Phyllis (Michelle Stafford) still being knee-deep in trouble considering she killed Jeremy Stark (James Hyde), faked her death and set up Diane (Susan Walters) for murder, she is still focused on being a mother.
With Summer (Allison Lanier) now separated from Kyle (Michael Mealor) in large part due to Phyllis’ failed scheming with Jeremy, the mom of two may be determined to fix what she had a hand in breaking.
During the week of July 3, Daniel (Michael Graziadei) informed Summer that he reached out to their mom to relay the message that Kyle asked for a separation from Summer because of the mess caused by Phyllis. Then during the week of July 10, Michael (Christian LeBlanc) will reveal to both Daniel and Summer that Phyllis is ready to come out of hiding.
While that seemingly means she’s ready to deal with her legal issues, given Daniel’s call about Summer’s marriage prompted Phyllis to return to Genoa City with a sense of urgency, it’s not hard to believe she’ll scheme to repair things in her daughter’s romantic life.
There’s just one huge problem — Audra (Zuleyka Silver). The cunning Newman Media executive has set her sights on Kyle, and he’s become completely enamored with her, even sending her gifts after the pair hooked up.
Although news of Kyle and Audra’s affair hasn’t made its rounds around the Genoa City gossip channels yet, we can’t imagine it will be long before the development breaks. Once it does, Summer will probably reel from the sense of betrayal and Phyllis is likely to feel guilty and immediately start working on a plan to get in between Kyle and Audra, sending him back into her daughter’s arms.
Now there are a few ways in which we can envision Phyllis sabotaging her son-in-law’s new romance. First, we can see Phyllis teaming up with Adam (Mark Grossman) to gain intel on Audra and then using it to take her down.
While Phyllis and Adam are by no means besties, Adam currently has a vendetta against Audra and Newman Media, so he’d probably be more than willing to collaborate if it means his rival is negatively impacted.
Another possible option Phyllis may take is orchestrating Kyle to catch Audra in some type of lie.
Kyle’s whole point for leaving Summer is he felt she can no longer be trusted. If Phyllis can prove that the new woman in the Abbott heir’s life is somehow less believable than Summer, Phyllis may feel that would sway Kyle back to her daughter.
A third option for Phyllis has less to do with her being outright manipulative and more to do with her profusely apologizing to Kyle for the trouble she caused and begging for forgiveness on Summer’s behalf.
Since heartfelt apologies and honesty aren’t always on brand for Phyllis, this scenario may not be as likely.
Either way, should our hunch prove correct about Phyllis trying to fix her daughter’s marriage, like most of her plots, we don’t see it turning out the way she hopes. Not to mention, Summer may find herself moving on from the marriage and starting something new with Chance (Conner Floyd).
New episodes of The Young and the Restless air live on weekdays on CBS. Episodes become available to stream on Paramount Plus.
