I’ll admit right off the top, I’ve been a fan of The Young and the Restless bringing Colleen Zenk on as Jordan. The Jordan saga that kicked off in November 2023 shot a burst of energy and freshness into the soap that I've enjoyed. Without Jordan tormenting people as the Wicked Witch of Genoa City, we wouldn’t have gotten the incredible scenes from Melody Thomas Scott as Nikki spiraling out of control with her failing sobriety, and we wouldn’t have seen The Great Victor Newman (Eric Braeden) spar with someone who fearlessly wanted to bury him and his family.
Jordan was also a joy to watch given what she meant to the storyline for Claire (Hayley Erin), Victoria (Amelia Heinle) and Cole (J. Eddie Peck). She was the nucleus for the soap rewriting history and giving a long-lost daughter to Victoria, thawing the infamous ice princess in the process. Who doesn’t love a softer side of Vicki, which was also tapped into with her reuniting with arguably her most suitable mate ever (sorry fans of #Villy, but #Vole is less dramatic and toxic)?
Sadly, the Jordan train came to a screeching halt in The Young and the Restless episode airing on January 24, as she died. Claire made her poisonous tea but Jordan voluntarily gulped it down, refusing to return to prison. And after quite the lengthy and vengeful goodbye, she apparently died right there in the Newman tack house. The Newmans were left wondering what to do with her body and how her death will ultimately impact Claire moving forward.
As a viewer, I have to say, I’m rather disappointed in Jordan’s swan dive off the show. This is a woman who has unleashed unparalleled chaos on Genoa City’s most powerful family. Her rap sheet includes kidnapping Victoria’s child, raising the child to hate the Newmans, almost murdering the first and second-generation Newmans with poison, ruining Nikki’s sobriety, kidnapping Harrison (Redding Munsell) and Claire (repeatedly) and working with Ian (Ray Wise) to cause more harm.
Given Jordan had a tendency to get arrested and then escape between these various incidents, I had a hunch that Jordan was likely not to survive this go-around. At some point, the Newmans were going to get sick and tired of taking their chances with police custody when it came to her. So really, her death was almost inevitable. But did she have to die in such an anti-climatic manner?
I get it, for irony's sake, Jordan dying of a poisonous tea makes sense because she first tried to kill Victor and his family using the same tactic. However, I wanted a lot more fireworks and bang to come with her demise.
I imagined she would be caught in a showdown with either Nikki or Victoria, and one of the ladies would have murdered her in self-defense. To that note, before it even got to that point, I was hoping Jordan would do or say something explosive out of villainous desperation. For example, I thought she would have inadvertently killed Cole as a devastating blow to Victoria and Claire. Or heck, it would have been quite the mic-drop moment if Jordan announced that Claire isn’t actually a Newman at all and she tampered with the paternity test. Parting news like that would have sent Genoa CIty into a tailspin.
At the end of the day though, there’s no sense in harping too much on the “shoulda, coulda, woulda.” With Jordan now gone, I wonder if we can get back to the mystery behind Ashley’s (Eileen Davidson) dissociative identity disorder.
New episodes of The Young and the Restless air on weekdays on CBS. If you miss an episode, you can catch up on Paramount Plus.
