It wasn’t exactly hard to predict that The Young and the Restless’ Summer (Allison Lanier) would not be happy about Kyle (Michael Mealor) moving on with Claire (Hayley Erin).
Aside from the fact that Claire is her cousin, Summer is never happy to see her on-again-off-again ex move on with any woman. Heck, it was less than a year ago when Summer was having a meltdown about Kyle and Audra (Zuleyka Silver) hooking up.
Now we’ll admit, we held out a little hope that Summer would display some maturity and growth about a Kyle and Claire pairing as she realized that Claire was no longer a threat to her maternal bond with Harrison (Redding Munsell), and Summer was madly in love with Chance (Conner Floyd). However, that hope went flying out of the window once Summer and Kyle seemed to connect as friends as she was coping with all the Daniel (Michael Graziadei) and Phyllis (Michelle Stafford) chaos. The metaphorical window was later shut when Summer broke things off with Chance.
That brings us to The Young and the Restless episode airing on December 4. Summer walked into Society to catch Kyle and Claire in quite the cozy moment. Her fake smile couldn’t hide the fact that she was bothered seeing her ex and cousin exchanging loving looks at each other, and both Kyle and Claire acknowledged that Summer probably wasn’t thrilled about them exploring things romantically.
Then, in the episode airing on December 6, Claire calls Kyle to meet her at Crimson Lights to officially tell him that she’s resigning as Harrison’s nanny so she can take the job working with Nikki (Melody Thomas Scott). Unfortunately, as Claire waits, Summer walks in and takes the opportunity to try and push Claire’s buttons.
First, Summer plays up the fact that Harrison loves it when his parents are together. Claire plays it cool by deflecting that she has some good news, and Summer guesses correctly that Claire is going to go work with their grandmother. Summer notes that Harrison will probably be upset, but Claire quickly responds that she plans to still be around in Harrison’s life.
Summer counters that there’s a big difference between being Harrison’s nanny and the woman his dad is dating. Again, Claire doesn’t negatively respond to Summer’s subtle dig.
As the awkward tension builds, Kyle walks up to the Newman ladies. Before Claire can share her news with him about going to work at Chancellor, Summer purposefully spills the beans. However, if Summer wanted to cause friction between Kyle and Claire, she becomes disappointed as Kyle shows unwavering support and holds Claire’s hand.
Once Summer leaves, Kyle and Claire discuss Summer’s obvious jealousy but seem undeterred about stopping their blossoming romance. As they kiss, they are spotted by none other than Jordan (Colleen Zenk) peeking outside from a window. She’s horrified to see her great-niece making out with the Jabot co-CEO.
With all that being said, we can’t help but think Jordan’s reaction could mean she’ll set her sights on breaking up Kyle and Claire. Not for nothing, we predicted that Jordan would attempt to destroy Claire's new life, so tanking the relationship is a good start for her. And since Jordan is supposed to be in prison (seriously, is there anywhere besides Victor’s [Eric Braeden] wine cellar that can hold this woman), she can’t be caught meddling in #Kylaire’s affairs. So the easiest thing to do is to frame someone else and make them look like the culprit.
We can imagine a scenario where a series of mishaps occur for Kyle and Claire that go so far left, that the duo won’t be able to chalk it up to chance or coincidence. While Jordan would be responsible for the dirty deeds, she may leave a trail of breadcrumbs that lead back to Summer. If Kyle and Claire initially follow the trail, they could wind up blaming Summer for their misfortunes, and Kyle in particular may dress her down as being bratty and immature.
Should our suspicions prove correct, we have to wonder how far Jordan is willing to go in framing Summer for things, and how the truth would eventually get out?
While we can’t be absolutely sure that Jordan will in fact start framing Summer for sabotaging Kyle and Claire, we can be more certain that the couple will face some interesting times in the near future as both a jealous Summer and a crazed Jordan are on the loose 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.
