Why Did The Young and the Restless Kill Rey Rosales?

It’s been nearly six months since Rey Rosales died in a tragic car accident on The Young and the Restless after having a heart attack at the wheel. While we were sorry to see Jordi Vilasuso and Rey go, we thought the death opened up a mountain of storyline possibilities — that never happened.

Rey’s The Young and the Restless Death Seems Pointless

After Sharon Collins Rosales (Sharon Case) and viewers learned that Rey actually had a heart attack that caused his car accident, the reason that Rey had a heart attack at such a young age could have been a story with ripple effects for years. What if Chelsea Lawson’s (Melissa Claire Egan) little poisoning game last year, when she was trying to set up Adam Newman by killing Rey, had resulted in a heart condition that caused his cardiac arrest?

With Chelsea clearly falling for Rey soon before his death, we had great triangle potential between Rey, Chelsea, and Sharon but since Rey died we didn’t get it. And we didn’t even get any dramatic story in which Chelsea learned she was to blame for the death of the man she had fallen in love with. Instead, Chelsea got a podcast with Billy Abbott (Jason Thompson) and decided she would fall for him instead.

And What About Sharon?

Then, we have Rey’s widow Sharon. When Sharon learned that Rey had suddenly died, Sharon Case gave an Emmy-worth grief performance that ripped our hearts out but since then she has literally done nothing but pour coffee at Crimson Lights and dole out advice.

We thought maybe Rey’s death would open up the possibility of reuniting Sharon with Nick Newman (Joshua Morrow), but that looks like it’s not in the cards as Nick has oddly fallen for Sally Spectra (Courtney Hope) and not given life with Sharon another thought. With Sharon doing nothing but serving coffee and cake clearly, Nick is not anywhere in her mind either.

So, why did Y&R choose to kill a major character married to one of its most popular longtime heroines if there wasn’t going to be any story fallout at all? This is just one more example of this show forgetting it’s a soap and it’s one too many.

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.