Tara Locke’s Return: The Twist The Young and the Restless Needs Right Now

Tara Locke, played by Elizabeth Leiner, left the Young and the Restless canvas nearly three years ago after the businesswoman was busted for committing fraud — against her own company. The charges couldn’t have been that serve in a genre where crooks come and go from prison with ease, right? Soap Hub thinks that now is the perfect time to bring Tara back to the canvas.

Not Without My Son

Harrison (Redding Munsell) has all but forgotten about his late dad Ashland (Richard Burgi; Robert Newman) and has accepted birth pop Kyle (Michael Mealor) as his father. The tyke was about three years old when he lost the man whom he believed was his pop pretty much overnight.

We can buy that if we have to, but it makes no sense that Harrison never seems to ask about his mother, Tara. He knows she’s alive and he’s old enough to understand the concept of his mom needing to have a “time out” — or however it’s been explained to him where Tara is.

We’re not sure why Tara hasn’t gotten sprung from whatever sentence she was given for her business shenanigans and hightailed back to Genoa City. Summer, played by Allison Lanier, is to be commended for accepting Harrison as her own — and also for being the voice of reason when it comes to Claire (Hayley Erin). But why is it that everyone except Summer knows for certain Claire no longer a threat?

Summer is not Harrison’s birth mother. Sooner or later, a lawyer for Kyle will point that out and use it to Kyle’s advantage. Summer needs an ally. Who better than Harrison’s birth mother to team up with to go up against Kyle. Of course, Summer enlisting Tara could easily backfire on her. She’d want to make sure that Tara would hand over Harrison to her, but there’s nothing to stop Tara from taking custody of her son and leaving Genoa City.

No matter how the story would play out, Tara would bring conflict to Genoa City. Leiner brings a calm, patrician stance to her role of Kyle’s former love. She’s just what the show needs to make the ongoing Summer/Kyle/Harrison/Claire story even more complex!