As The Young and the Restless’ Phyllis (Michelle Stafford) lies in a hospital bed in a coma, Daniel (Michael Graziadei) and Summer (Allison Lanier) desperately have been waiting nearby, hoping their mother wakes up.
Then in the episode airing on November 19, Chance pays Daniel a visit in the hospital and informs him that the charges against him for Heather’s murder have been dropped. While initially relieved to hear the news, Daniel’s mood quickly changes after he guesses Sharon (Sharon Case) was the real culprit behind the crime and Chance’s face seems to confirm the statement, although Chance audibly told Daniel he couldn’t give him any information at the time.
After Chance leaves and Daniel gets a chance to catch up with Summer on the latest developments, Daniel makes a beeline for Sharon’s house, where Nick (Joshua Morrow), Michael (Christian LeBlanc) and Sharon are meeting to discuss her possible defense for a trial.
In The Young and the Restless episode airing on November 20, Daniel doesn't mince words walking into Sharon’s home, blasting her for what she did to Heather and what she did to his family. He pours it on, and then Nick intervenes, saying Sharon stepped forward to admit what she did. Daniel angrily retorts he doesn’t care she confessed as it’s not enough, because he wants to know why she did what she did in the first place.
Before Sharon responds, Michael cautions her not to. However, she agrees that Daniel is right and deserves to have some answers. Sharon tells Daniel how apologetic she is and how she has so many regrets. Unfortunately, her words do nothing but further rile Daniel up, prompting Nick to physically restrain him. Daniel angrily takes some more digs at Sharon before Michael and Nick tell him that’s enough. Nick says to Daniel that he’ll talk with him about Sharon’s confession somewhere else, and that somewhere else turns out to be right outside of Phyllis’ hospital room, as Nick escorts him there.
At the hospital, Nick sits with Daniel and Summer, and right away, he confirms Sharon confessed to the murder and he’s not there to make excuses for her. Daniel isn’t amused by the attempts to placate him, and demands to hear from Nick why Sharon did such a horrible thing. Nick replies that he doesn’t believe Sharon knew what she was doing and essentially blames her bipolar medication.
Understandably so, Daniel calls Nick out for saying he wasn’t going to excuse Sharon’s behavior, then doing just that. Daniel yells at Nick for trying to save Sharon from this and for attempting to lay the groundwork for her to plead insanity.
Nick just can’t believe that Sharon in her right mind would do all of this, which leads Daniel to throw in Nick’s face some of Sharon’s past deeds including murdering Cameron Kirsten (Linden Ashby) and leaving Phyllis unconscious at the bottom of a stairwell years ago. Daniel is adamant Sharon knew what she was doing, and Summer chimes in to agree.
Once more, Nick refers to Sharon’s bipolar disorder as a cause for some of the incidents Daniel mentioned, and this does nothing but infuriate Daniel even further, sick of hearing Nick trying to explain away Sharon’s actions. Daniel claims this all goes back to Sharon’s resentment about Cassie (Camryn Grimes).
Having heard enough, Daniel promises Nick that Sharon is going to pay for all she’s done. He’s committed to seeing Sharon do hard time in prison and won’t settle for her being sent to a psychiatric ward.
With all that being said, and moving past the fact that Nick was incredibly dense and annoying in his inability to read the room as far as Daniel’s emotions are concerned, there’s a good chance that Sharon didn’t murder Heather. We’re still waiting on confirmation, but that distinction likely belongs to Ian Ward (Ray Wise) and Jordan (Colleen Zenk), who are actively conspiring against Sharon. So should that be the case and Daniel learns this information, will it make him soften towards Sharon? We don’t think so.
Even if she didn’t kill Heather, she certainly covered up the crime and then tried to frame Daniel. He’ll likely want some sweet justice, and perhaps revenge, for her actions, and he may recruit his mother to do it when she wakes up.
We can envision Daniel and Phyllis suing Sharon for all of the torment she’s put their family through if she doesn’t face real time in prison. A lawsuit could lead to the duo taking Cassidy First from Sharon, and we kind of like the sound of that. Not for nothing, Daniel and Phyllis are unemployed tech gurus, so getting their hands on the tech company could be rather interesting. It would be nice to see the Summers family have a business to call their own like most of the other major players in Genoa City.
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 .
