Sensational Young and the Restless Scene: A Super-Soft Side of Victor Newman

Last week the revolving door of Victor’s jailhouse visitors included a familiar face there: his son Adam. The aftermath of this encounter between the most complicated parent and child duo on “The Young and the Restless” gave us this week’s winner for Sensational Scene.

Adam arrived at the prison to taunt the most intimidating patriarch in Genoa City. He wore a self-satisfied smirk as he threw salt in Victor’s (Eric Braeden) psychic wounds resulting from being turned in by his daughter and thrown behind bars. “I’m going to see to it that you serve every year of your ten-year sentence,” Victor’s youngest son promised.

Not one ever to show a crack in his rock-hard exterior, Victor leaned forward across the dingy prison visiting room table and assured Adam (Justin Hartley) that he’ll pay for turning on his him. Adam scurried out.

Only then did Victor back down from his and Adam’s continuous game of Alpha male oneupmanship. He rose out of his chair slowly, appearing nonplussed, and skulked to a corner of the room. He suddenly erupted with rage and punched the wall.

After Dr. Meredith (Alicia Coppola) bandaged his hand, Victor pensively stalked the small recreation room where he looked lost in thought. He leaned gently on one of the walls, and actor Eric Braeden broke our hearts when he began quietly crying.

As if we weren’t torn up enough, we then saw a flashback to a scene in which Victor, with Nick (Joshua Morrow) by his side, tore into his absentee father for abandoning his family and for how Victor eventually landed in an orphanage. His father looked upset and forlorn but simply warned his son to never come back. Victor and Nick left, and outside his father’s room too, Victor wept.

Braeden, then and now, made these scenes unforgettable and seared them into our hearts. His stellar acting reminded us that Victor’s insistence that family is everything to him has may really be true. Surely the truth is more complicated than that, but family–having it, protecting it, and finding succor in it–is paramount to Victor.

Nick’s presence in the flashback scene brought that home as well–the Newmans have always stood by each other, and this latest chaos amongst them saddens us. Such is life. We cannot avoid change, only embrace it and find the best in it. And we know Victor–and his family–will ultimately do the same.

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