The Young and the Restless is turning up the drama with an intense new storyline that throws longtime rivals Sharon Newman (Sharon Case)
and Phyllis Summers (Michelle Stafford) into an unexpected and dangerous situation. At the conclusion of the Monday,
February 24 episode, fans saw the two women kidnapped together—an unprecedented moment for their characters.
Their predicament will take center stage in a special episode airing on Tuesday,
February 25, and both actresses are sharing what it was like to film such an unusual and suspenseful plot.
Sharon and Phyllis in Unfamiliar Territory
Sharon and Phyllis have spent years at odds, but nothing could have prepared them for being held captive together. For Sharon Case, who had recently wrapped up a dramatic murder storyline involving Heather Stevens (Vail Bloom), the news of yet another high-stakes plot twist came as a surprise.
“Before we left for Christmas break, someone mentioned that Michelle Stafford had said we’d be coming back to a story where we get kidnapped together,” Case recalled. “I thought, ‘Wait, what? I was just kidnapped. Maybe they misunderstood.’”
Stafford had a similar reaction. “That’s exactly what I said when I heard about it—‘Again? Sharon just went through this,’” she laughed.
Despite the redundancy of the situation for Sharon, her past experiences with abductions will actually work in her favor this time. “This is probably my third or fourth time being kidnapped, so at this point, Sharon knows the drill,” Case joked. “She’s like, ‘I’ve done this before, follow my lead. I know what to do in an abduction.’”
High Tensions Between the Longtime Rivals
The timing of this ordeal adds another layer of drama to the already strained relationship between Sharon and Phyllis. Their feud had reached its peak after Sharon mistakenly believed she had killed Heather—thanks to manipulations from Ian Ward (Ray Wise) and Jordan Howard (Colleen Zenk)—and allowed Phyllis’s son, Daniel Romalotti (Michael Graziadei), to take the fall.
“There was nowhere else for their conflict to go,” Stafford explained. “Phyllis wasn’t just going to let it go and say, ‘Oh, it’s fine that you hid the evidence.’ And Sharon wasn’t going to be okay with never being forgiven. It was at a breaking point, so something had to give. This story takes them to a place where they’re forced to deal with it.”
A Unique Experience for the Actresses
Although Case and Stafford have worked together for years, this storyline was different because it required them to spend extended time filming one-on-one.
“We were doing all these scenes together, just the two of us,” Stafford said. “I told Josh [Griffith, executive producer/head writer], ‘It feels like we’re filming our own little movie over here.’ I think viewers will find it really engaging because it’s unlike anything that’s been done before on the show.”
Despite the intensity of the scenes, the two actresses found that their working dynamic made the process feel natural. “We slipped into it so easily,” Case said. “Maybe it’s because we’ve been doing this for so long, but we didn’t even need to talk about it. We just instinctively knew what to do.”
That didn’t mean filming was without its challenges. Case, known for her dislike of early morning shoots, admitted that starting the day with high-intensity emotions wasn’t easy.
“I was really grumpy,” she confessed. “Not because it was early, but because we had to dive right into heavy emotions, crying, and screaming at 8 a.m.”
Stafford agreed, adding, “No one’s going to feel sorry for us, but imagine waking up and someone saying, ‘Now cry your heart out.’ It’s not easy.”
Filming the Special Episode
This kidnapping episode is unique because it exclusively focuses on Sharon and Phyllis—something The Young and the Restless has only done once before, with a 2024 episode featuring Jack Abbott (Peter Bergman) and Nikki Newman (Melody Thomas Scott).
“I didn’t realize at first that it was just the two of us in the entire episode,” Stafford admitted. “I was reading the script thinking, ‘Wow, this is a lot of dialogue,’ and then it hit me—‘Oh, we’re the only ones in this.’”
To make filming more manageable, production spread it out over three days. “Shooting it all in one day would have been impossible,” Case noted. “Afterward, I told Owen [Renfroe, the director], ‘Okay, now I know we can do this. I won’t panic next time.’”
What’s Next for Sharon and Phyllis?
Throughout the episode, the women will struggle to figure out who took them and why. “They’re trying to make sense of what’s happening,” Stafford teased. “I kept thinking, if you were drugged and woke up in a strange place, your mind would go to the worst possible scenarios—you’d believe you were about to be tortured or killed. We played it as if this could be the end for them.”
However, their interactions will shift as they try to decide whether to work together or fend for themselves. “There are moments where they think, ‘Maybe we need to team up,’ but other times, it’s every woman for herself,” Case said. “It makes for a really compelling journey because their emotions keep changing.”
Case even came up with a name for this chapter in their story. “I call this one ‘Asylum,’” she said. “The first part was ‘Murder,’ when Sharon thought she killed Heather. Now we’re in ‘Asylum.’ And it’s not over yet—it takes some unexpected turns. This will really propel their characters forward in a new way.”
With an intense storyline, emotional performances, and a fresh take on an old rivalry, the Sharon-Phyllis kidnapping episode promises to be a must-watch for The Young and the Restless fans. “When Josh writes like this, it’s a treat,” Case said. “People have to tune in for this one—it’s going to be a wild ride.”
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