Villains may be integral to a good slasher movie, but they’re also the bread and butter of soap operas like The Young and the Restless. Awesome news for fans of the CBS drama: two of the most memorable villains are now in Genoa City again.
Aunt Jordan (Colleen Zenk) and Ian Ward (Ray Wise) came home in the episode that aired on Nov. 14, 2024. Josh Griffith, the head writer on Y&R, explained in an interview with Deadline that this is an “intriguing alliance” and the characters “will be a double dose of danger.”
One X user wrote, “I legit screamed at my desk here at work.” A fan also wrote, “Excited to see where the storyline goes now” and “Glad they are back. Great villains.”
Other fans posted on X about this joyful news. One X user wrote, “Christmas came early for Young and Restless fans!”
What makes Ian and Aunt Jordan so horrible? Ian admittedly has a darker backstory than Jordan and was in charge of a cult called the New World Commune. He mistreated Nikki Newman (Melody Thomas Scott) and she even wondered if he was the dad of her son Dylan (Steve Burton). But, although no one would cheer about that gruesome part of his character arc, the rest of Ian’s time on the soap opera showed him to be a run-of-the-mill (and entertaining) villain. He had no issues with lying or trying to get money from people, and The Young and the Restless viewers were able to enjoy his antics from 2014 to 2016.
So, what are Jordan and Ian doing now? The staple villains are in Genoa City to get even. Jordan is no longer in prison, which is one big surprise. In the Nov. 14 episode, the characters chatted in a hotel room about how everything was working out well. Everyone will have to (sadly) wait to find out more about this storyline. Jordan and Ian are enemies of the Newman family, so fans can assume this is who they might want to get back at.
Back in 2015, when Ian left jail, Wise told TV Insider of his character, “He can’t move on with his life because he still has scores to settle.” That still seems to be true for Ian. That year, Wise also said that he loved acting on The Young and the Restless, which is likely why he was happy to reprise this part now. The actor, famous for starring in a variety of movies and playing the creepy Leland Palmer on Twin Peaks, told TV Insider, “I don’t know why any actor wouldn’t jump at the chance” to be on a soap opera. He called Ian “a great character with great lines to say.”
Zenk also had a satisfying time playing Jordan, and she’s made sure the character feels human as well as wicked. She told Soap Opera Digest, “You don’t know how far you can actually push a character like this before it tips into either comedy or parody or a clownish kind of criminal.”
Although it’s a nerve-racking time in Genoa City right now, with fans wondering about the future of Abby Newman (Melissa Ordway), no one can settle down or relax until they discover what Jordan and Ian are about to do. And then everyone is going to want to chat about them even more.