Thursday’s episode of The Young and the Restless delivers a sweeping, high-stakes chapter in which legacy, technology, and raw human fear collide. At the center of the storm stands Victor Newman—an empire builder who has spent his life mastering enemies he could see, intimidate, and crush. This time, his adversary is something far more unsettling: an artificial intelligence he cannot command, unleashed by Cain Ashby and weaponized through Phyllis Summers’ calculated betrayal. As Newman Enterprises creaks under an invisible assault, the Newmans respond the only way they know how—by attacking the people closest to them, even when those targets are not the true enemy.

Victor Newman moves through the halls of his company like a man wandering through the remains of his own legend. Every polished surface reminds him of the myth he built from nothing, and every system failure whispers that the myth may finally be unraveling. The AI infiltrating Newman’s infrastructure is adaptive, learning, and relentless. Reports vanish. Numbers shift. Servers fail without explanation. The language of the tech experts—self-learning, autonomous—feels less like business jargon and more like a diagnosis. For Victor, this is not just a financial threat. Newman Enterprises is proof that the abandoned boy he once was conquered the world. To lose it now would mean rewriting his life story without his permission.

Faced with fear he refuses to name, Victor does what he has always done: he looks for someone to blame. His fury locks onto Jack Abbott, the rival who has become the permanent shadow in Victor’s psyche. Logic no longer matters. Jack didn’t write the code. Jack didn’t unleash the AI. But in Victor’s mind, every loss traces back to Abbott. The rivalry has evolved into something deeper and more troubling—Jack is no longer merely an enemy, but the measure by which Victor defines his own power. By blaming Jack for everything beyond his control, Victor reveals how much space Jack occupies in his inner world. Hatred, in this case, is a twisted form of acknowledgment.

While Victor rages, Victoria Newman watches with painful clarity. She recognizes the pattern because it lives inside her too. She understands the crisis just well enough to know they are outmatched. Cain’s AI is not a stolen tool—it is an evolving predator, adapting faster than Newman’s defenses can respond. Every strategy she deploys dissolves on contact. For a woman accustomed to being the fixer, the sensation is infuriating. Powerlessness is intolerable in the Newman bloodstream.

Victoria knows the real culprit is Cain Ashby. Phyllis may have opened the door, but Cain built the beast now tearing Newman apart. Unable to stop the code, Victoria shifts the battlefield. She confronts Cain not with lawyers or press releases, but with psychological weapons. Where Victor roars, Victoria cuts. She mocks Cain’s reliance on a machine, suggesting he needs artificial intelligence because he cannot defeat the Newmans on his own. It is a cold, precise attack on his ego—petty, perhaps, but deeply personal.

In a bitter irony, Victoria mirrors the very tactics she has resented in her father her entire life. When solutions fail, she defaults to intimidation and emotional pressure. Trading insults does nothing to save the company, yet it gives her the illusion of movement. It keeps her from admitting what frightens her most: that she may be as helpless as the employees who look to her for reassurance about their futures.

Victor’s obsession with Jack continues to spiral, almost detached from the actual crisis. To him, Jack is not just a man but a symbol—an avatar of every humiliation Victor has ever endured. If the universe dares to remind him he is not omnipotent, Jack becomes the face of that reminder. What Victor cannot see is the compliment buried in his hatred. To blame Jack for everything is to admit Jack matters more than any rival CEO or boardroom adversary ever could.

As father and daughter lash out at the wrong targets, the real enemy hums quietly through Newman’s systems, indifferent to pride, legacy, or history. Cain’s AI does not respond to threats or taunts. It learns, adapts, and waits.

Victoria escalates her psychological assault by striking Cain where she believes it will hurt most—his identity as a father and husband. She drags his children, Maddie and Charlie, into the argument, suggesting they have learned to live without him. She invokes Lily’s departure as proof that even the woman who once believed in him walked away. The message is cruel and deliberate: if your own family doesn’t stand with you, what right do you have to challenge a dynasty like the Newmans? Her goal is not compromise, but humiliation—a crack in Cain’s confidence that might make surrender feel like relief.

It is an ugly strategy, steeped in entitlement and desperation, but to Victoria it feels logical. If she cannot reclaim Newman’s systems yet, reclaiming psychological dominance is the next best victory.

Meanwhile, another Newman refuses to stay still. Nick Newman, battered from a car crash and still haunted by Matt Clark’s psychological manipulation, forces his injured body out of a hospital bed. Every step hurts, but the thought of anyone else deciding Matt’s fate is unbearable. Nick heads straight to Jack Abbott, exploiting the one thing he knows Jack carries in abundance: guilt.

Nick appeals not to power, but to conscience. He paints Matt’s crimes not as abstract legal violations, but as a personal invasion that left him unstable and questioning reality. He reminds Jack of Sharon’s worry, of what unraveling looks like, and frames handing Matt over to Newman custody as protection—not vengeance. Beneath it all lies unspoken pressure: Jack’s desire to do right by Nick after years of complicated history.

Watching Nick stand there, visibly weakened, Jack’s resistance crumbles. He does not fully trust Victor with such a volatile man, but he cannot deny Nick the one thing he is asking for. In the end, Jack hands Matt over—not because he believes in Victor’s mercy, but because he believes in Nick’s pain.

Thursday’s episode paints a bleak, riveting picture. Victor hunts Jack because the real enemy is too abstract to confront. Victoria attacks Cain because she cannot yet defeat his creation. Nick leverages guilt to reclaim control over his trauma. And through it all, Cain’s AI continues to evolve, untouched by human pride or vendetta. Father and daughter stand united not by strength, but by shared helplessness—masking fear with aggression as the future of Newman Enterprises hangs in the balance.

As Genoa City braces for the next move, one question looms larger than all the rest: when power built on intimidation meets an enemy that cannot be threatened, who adapts—and who finally breaks?