Rating the Replacement: How Robert Newman Stacks Up As Y&R’s Ashland

Robert Newman took over the role of Ashland Locke from Richard Burgi on The Young and the Restless on February 9, 2022, and he hit the ground running from the very first scene. Newman’s performance made us take notice, and he’s brought some new nuances to the Locke Ness Monster.

Robert Newman As Ashland Locke

No stranger to daytime, Newman, who previously portrayed Joshua Lewis on the now-defunct serial Guiding Light, has played Ashland as a far cry from the character of Joshua. He’s shown a sterner, business-minded side of himself as Victoria Newman Locke’s (Amelia Heinle) husband in Genoa City. His performance leaves us no doubt that there’s still lots of scheming happening, despite his regular declarations of love for his wife.

While he’s desperate for Victoria to believe him about Victor Newman’s (Eric Braeden) accusation that he faked his cancer diagnosis, we can’t say that we believe him. We’re especially skeptical of Ashland’s claims after Nate Hastings (Sean Dominic) found no evidence of chemotherapy or cancer in his records.

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While we certainly believe Robert Newman’s portrayal that Ashland isn’t quite on the up and up, we do have a bit of a problem seeing the great love that is supposedly between him and Victoria. Of course, if the whole thing has been a scheme from the beginning, then there really isn’t a great love between them, so that would make sense too.

All in all, we’ve appreciated what Newman brings to this role, and we felt like his transition to it was quite seamless, especially considering how quickly it all happened. Kudos on a job well done. Now we just have to hope that if Ashland truly did fake his cancer, there’s some redemption on the horizon for the character (who’s a lying liar, but whatever) because we’d love to continue seeing Robert Newman on Y&R for a long while.

The Young and the Restless (YR) airs weekdays on CBS. Check your local listings for airtimes. For more about what’s coming up in Genoa City, check out all the latest that’s been posted on Y&R spoilers, and for an in-depth look at the show’s history, click here.