Daytime Performers of the Week: ‘Y&R’s Sharon Case and Michelle Stafford as Sharon Tells Phyllis ‘You Are the Poison!’

Get All the Genoa City Gossip

For exclusive news and updates, subscribe to our The Young and the Restless Newsletter:

If they had their druthers, Sharon Newman (Sharon Case) and Phyllis Summers (Michelle Stafford) would never spend any time together at all. The dramatic tension between the two Young and the Restless characters is just too potent.

In the past, they’ve traded barbs with one another in situations where one or both could easily walk away. Now, that’s not possible as the two women are being held captive by a mystery man (or woman) who knows about their past animosity in detail. Viewers were treated to a series of episodes last week in which the two women were acting like they were trying out for a female version of The Odd Couple wrapped in a WWE showdown and mixed with an episode of Law & Order!

No stranger to being kidnapped, Sharon woke up in a dirty room with broken down furniture. Case has always brought a grounded realism to her character, so she had her character naturally try to process whether or not what was going on around her was even real. Perhaps she’d been drugged again or the old drugs (from her most recent kidnapping trauma) were still in her system? Both were plausible.

“Maybe this isn’t real?” Sharon hoped.

Case had Sharon run a gamut of emotions as she processed what was going on. She begged, got angry, and grew frustrated. Still, she wasn’t 100 percent convinced that this could be happening to her again. However, Sharon realized her dilemma was all too real when she spied Phyllis lying on the ground.

“Oh, hell, no,” Phyllis groused upon realizing she was in a room with Sharon, trapped. And it was on.

Forget about fighting against their captor, Phyllis and Sharon went on the attack with each other. Each woman accused the other of orchestrating their kidnapping. It was a real treat watching these two powerhouse actresses, whose characters have tons of history — little of it good — going at it.

“Of course, I would have to get trapped in a room with you of all people because nothing in my life can be easy or normal for more than two weeks!” an angry Sharon exclaimed.

The two have seldom, if ever, found common ground, but they quickly realized that if they wanted to get out of this mess alive, they’d have to team up against their adversary. Case played Sharon not believing that Phyllis would put the common good ahead of her animosity. Stafford’s eyes betrayed her fear and anger over being held hostage.

JPI

At no point did either actress let viewers forget that their characters were fearful for their lives, but Case and Stafford were able to bring moments of humor to their performances. Sharon tried a few different methods with her unseen captors, but Phyllis took a different route. She acted annoyed, pointing out she has a life — a new job and kids.

“Oh, they’ll for sure open the door now,” Sharon drolly noted.

After Phyllis failed to open the door lock with a pin, Sharon quipped, “Did you break it?”

“Did you just stand there doing nothing?” Phyllis sarcastically shot back.

The recent history between Sharon and Phyllis is raw. A drugged Sharon mistakenly believed she killed Heather (Vail Bloom). Phyllis went on the attack and refused to give Sharon the benefit of any doubt. They learned from some books in the room that they were likely at Havenhurst Psychiatric Clinic.

“There’s nothing shameful about getting treatment when you need help,” Sharon blasted Phyllis by saying. “What’s shameful is inflicting your nastiness on everyone around you!”

If Sharon and Phyllis’s captor(s) put them in a room together to watch them attack each other, then that plan was working.

Related

‘Y&R' Stars Valarie Pettiford & Jermaine Rivers Shine Playing Damian Kane’s Paternity

What made these scenes so compelling is that Sharon and Phyllis would snark at each other in one moment but then quickly go back to being allies. They can’t stand each other and yet, they know they need each other to survive. Two things can be true at the same time.

“If the goal is for us to kill each other, you’re making it easy,” a half-serious Phyllis cracked.

“How long do they expect us to be here?” Sharon said upon realizing there was unexpired canned food in the room. Sharon wasn’t horrified about being kept from her family and friends, but rather being trapped with Phyllis. It was a subtle distinction but Case has always been a talented actress when it comes to putting a spin on a line while also making it seem perfectly natural.

Things got ugly with the two women in between moments of solidarity. Phyllis passionately blasted Sharon for her role in covering up Heather’s death and framing Daniel (Michael Graziadei) for it.

Then, it was Sharon’s turn to turn the tables and hold a mirror up to Phyllis, noting that she didn’t have the upper hand for once. “This time you’re helpless and like the bully you are, you have to take it out on me,” Sharon pointed out. She went on to explain there’s a big difference between Sharon at her worst and Phyllis at hers.

“You don’t have PCP in your system,” Sharon, who’d been drugged during the time she’d committed outlandish acts, noted. “No, this is who you really are. Just an endless stream of hate and rage. It’s what gets you up in the morning and when you faked your own death and put your children through hell that was you, too.”

Sharon admitted to doing things while medicated, but in Phyllis’s case, she blasted, “You are the poison!”

As the week continued, there were more moments of levity including when Sharon and Phyllis woke up on the sofa together having practically cuddled through the night. In an effort to outwit their captors, Phyllis suggested that they dig into why they don’t really like each other? (Beyond, of course, their competition for Nick’s love.)

If and when Sharon and Phyllis are freed from this room, we have no doubt that they’ll always be rivals and they’ll never be friends. But just as the show’s legendary feud between the late, great Katherine Chancellor (Jeanne Cooper) and Jill Foster Abbott (Jess Walton) took on new levels over the years, we suspect that Sharon and Phyllis will never go back to the way they were. They simply won’t be able to after talking things out the way they’ve been doing.

Hmmm… Perhaps that’s the goal of them being imprisoned together?