Young & Restless Just Sent Paul Packing In the Cruelest (to Fans) Way Possible

Let’s be clear: We didn’t honestly expect to see Doug Davidson’s Paul return to The Young and the Restless. The show made it wildly clear a long time ago that they were done with both the actor and the character. Every now and then, we’d get our hopes up — hey, we’re only human — but in our hearts, we pretty much knew it was over.

What we didn’t expect was that Paul and Christine, for years one of the show’s most beloved of Genoa City couples, would come to an end in a way that was pretty disrespectful to the fans who’d followed their romance for years.

Yet in the episode which aired on Wednesday, October 25, one final blow was delivered as Christine told ex-husband Danny about her recent visit with Paul. We heard about the couple’s in-depth conversation. “We talked and we talked,” she shared, ” and we tried to figure out if there was any hope for us, or for our marriage.” She revealed that they’d even tried to recapture their lost love by taking a trip — both literal and metaphorical — down Memory Lane.

Ultimately, we found out that the marriage was really, most sincerely over. “We just don’t work together anymore,” she told Danny. “We both saw it so clearly. It wasn’t about us growing apart, it was about Paul pulling away. He’s just not in love with me anymore.”

Heartbreaking. Devastating. And in more ways than many of us would like to admit, relatable. All of which makes it even more upsetting that the end of Paul and Christine’s marriage took place off screen, becoming just the latest in a series of big plot moments we were told about rather than being allowed to witness.

Heaven knows every time a character trades one CEO position for another — which has become a weekly occurrence on Young & Restless — endless screen time is devoted to the business move. Yet Ashley and Tucker’s marriage falling apart almost immediately after they tied the knot? Kyle and Summer’s first wedding? Mariah and Tessa bonding with the mother of the child they intended to adopt? All of these big, relatable, real-life moments became things we were told about as opposed to being a part of.

One of the things that we’ve always loved about soap operas is that the characters become part of our lives. We get to experience their highs and lows, their triumphs and tragedies. Over time, we come to know the characters better than many of us know some of our relatives. When it comes to couples like Christine and Paul, we watched them meet and fall in love. We saw them deal with challenges, some of which they rose above, others of which proved more difficult.

So to have their ties severed off screen, the relationship in which we were so invested severed with a few lines of dialogue about events we didn’t get to witness, seems particularly cruel.

Yes, in order for Lauralee Bell’s Christine to remain on screen and move on, the Paul issue had to be resolved. But if Davidson’s Paul is truly never coming back, why not kill the character and play Christine’s grief at not only the loss of her husband, but the lack of closure his death left her to deal with? We could have grieved alongside her.

Perhaps we’re meant to think that Christine will move on — maybe with Danny — only to have Paul swoop back in and realize his mistake. But given that Davidson and Paul weren’t brought back for huge milestones, this seems incredibly unlikely. So what we’re left with is an unsatisfying end for a legacy couple and questions as to why things had to play out this way.