Nobody Expected to Feel Sorry for Devon Winters Until Lily Winters Faked Her Own Kidnapping on The Young and the Restless

LILY WINTERS FAKED A KIDNAPPING AND PUT HER OWN FAMILY THROUGH HELL AND NOW DEVON AND NATE ARE THE ONES LEFT PICKING UP THE PIECES

TL;DR: There are a lot of ways to get attention in Genoa City. You could stage a corporate takeover. You could show up at someone’s wedding and object. You could even fake your own death. But faking your own kidnapping and putting your family through that kind of terror? That’s a new level, even for The Young and the Restless. And yet here we are, watching Lily Winters do exactly that while Devon and Nate were left wondering if she was alive.

Lily, What Exactly Was the Plan Here?

Let’s be generous for a moment and try to understand what Lily Winters thought she was accomplishing on The Young and the Restless. What is she actually getting out of this that makes it a good decision? Power? Leverage? Sympathy? From where fans are sitting, the answer is nothing — nothing that justifies putting her family through this. Faking a kidnapping is not a power move — it’s a panic move. And for a woman who has always prided herself on being the levelheaded one in every room, this storyline has done Lily Winters no favors. Fans who have rooted for her through genuinely painful chapters of her life are sitting at home right now wondering who this person is.

Are you still in Lily’s corner or has this gone too far? Tell our editor Amber at [email protected]!

Devon and Nate Did Not Sign Up for This

Here’s what makes this particularly hard to watch. Let’s be honest — Devon Winters is not always the easiest person to root for. Y&R fans know Devon can be stubborn, self-righteous, and a pain in the neck when the mood strikes him. But even the most frustrated Devon skeptic has to feel for him right now. Devon has already been through more loss and trauma than most Genoa City residents combined — and that includes living through the real terror of his son Dominicbeing kidnapped.

Devon knows firsthand what it feels like to have someone he loves taken from him. That fear is not abstract for him. It is deeply personal. For Lily to fake a kidnapping, knowing that history exists, is either breathtakingly tone deaf or a deliberate decision to avoid the reality of what she was putting her brother through. Either way, it is indefensible. And Nate Hastings, who has been working overtime to rebuild his relationships with this family, deserved better than to have Lily manufacture a crisis that put everyone through the wringer for nothing. These two men love Lily. That love should not be a plot device.

Should Fans Sympathize With Lily at All?

This is the question the writers are clearly hoping fans will wrestle with — and it’s a fair one. Lily Winters is not a villain. She has a history, she has pain, and there is probably a version of this story where her motivations make sense. But sympathy has to be earned, and right now it’s hard to extend much of it when Devon and Nate are the ones left picking up the pieces of something Lily created entirely on her own. If Y&R wants fans to feel for Lily, they need to give us more than a ridiculous scheme and a half-baked explanation. And they definitely need to address the fact that Lily apparently forgot — or chose to ignore — what a real kidnapping did to Devon and his son.

Lily Deserves Better Writing and So Do Devon and Nate

At the end of the day, Lily Winters is a legacy character who deserves better writing than this — and so do Devon and Nate. This storyline had potential, but a fake kidnapping that traumatizes the people who love her most is a hard sell — especially when one of those people has already lived through the real thing.

So we’re asking you — are you still in Lily’s corner, or has this gone too far?

Are you Team Lily or Team Done With This? Sound off and share this with every Y&R fan you know!

WATCH THIS: Speaking of schemes…

@soapoperamag HOW does a man like Matt Clark… just disappear after being released? Someone either helped him vanish or took him out. Either way, Nick is spiraling and I don't blame him. This man gave him FENTANYL. And now he's just… gone? Something's very wrong. #YR ♬ original sound – Soap Opera Magazine