Credit: Howard Wise/JPI (5)
WTH is in the water in Genoa City these days? It seems like every other character on The Young and the Restless is suffering from one mental-health issue or another. Which may be true to life — these are trying times, heaven knows — but condensed into a one-hour soap opera, it feels like a lot.
On second thought, we take that back. It doesn’t feel like a lot, it is a lot.
Hot on the heels of Ashley’s hackneyed split-personality storyline, we have on one end of the canvas Sharon, who stopped taking her bipolar medication and started hallucinating everyone from late daughter Cassie to late tormentor Cameron. On the other end of the canvas, we have Connor suffering from OCD and his parents suffering from sudden-onset lack of poker face in the wake of their booze-fueled hookup.
In between, we have recovering alcoholic Nikki and recovering addict Jack. We have Claire dealing with PTSD from her twisted upbringing by reverting to a semi-childlike state. We have Summer and Kyle competing to see which of them can descend into total narcissism faster and more completely. (Although they still have a long way to go before they scale the heights of egomania that Billy has!)
We’d give Young & Restless credit for trying to educate the audience, only aside from PSA-worthy information about OCD, that isn’t what’s happening here. Mental illness is being used as a plot device, nothing more. It’s the equivalent of a Get Out of Jail Free card, a Now This Character Can Do Anything We Want card. Can anyone who sat through cartoon villain Aunt Jordan’s reign of terror really argue that this is a show that takes mental health seriously?
Maybe the powers that be find “crazy” as easy to write as musical CEOs. But man, what we wouldn’t give for another epic love story a la Nick and Sharon (and no, not just a retread of Nick and Sharon), a tumultuous romance like Neil and Dru’s, a scandalous affair like Devon and Hilary’s…
