The Young and the Restless: is Damian really dead?

Just like that, another character from The Young and the Restless was allegedly murdered. In the episode airing on July 14, Damian (Jermaine Rivers) was not only poisoned, but he was also stabbed.

When the episode picks up on July 15, Cane (Billy Flynn) insists to Phyllis (Michelle Stafford) that Damian is dead and there is no sense in trying to get him medical attention. Additionally, Cane takes Chance (Conner Floyd) to see the dead body and asks the Genoa City cop to lead a murder investigation in France to determine who the murderer is (again, not sure how Chance has jurisdiction to do anything official in Europe, but we digress). Furthermore, Cane’s assistant, Carter (Vincent Stalba), and another one of Cane’s staffers move Damian’s body with a sheet over it.

Placing the metaphorical nail in this Damian coffin is the fact that Rivers himself took to X (formerly Twitter) to confirm the character was indeed gone.

Even with all of that being said, we still believe there’s a chance that Damian isn’t dead and will be back at some point. First, there’s something about the way in which this murder went down that doesn’t sit right with us.

It started out as a one-on-one conversation between Damian and Cane over a bottle of liquor. Damian outpaced Cane in drinking from his glass and immediately fell ill due to a poison. Cane claimed to be fine initially, but began feeling ill right before Damian got worse and was eventually stabbed by some mystery person. Then, again in the episode on July 15, after Cane walks away to grab Chance and bring him to the scene of the crime, the bottle containing the poison disappears, along with the murder weapon.

Also, Cane is insistent that Chance not bring local authorities to help with the investigation and doesn’t want the coroner called, but would rather like Damian’s body stashed in a freezer on the property.

Our theory here is that Cane orchestrated this whole ordeal with Carter’s help in a big scheme to win back Lily (Christel Khalil). Cane desperately wants to reunite with his ex, and Damian stood in the way of that. Since we don’t believe he’s a cold-blooded murderer, we think it’s possible he faked Damian’s death with Carter’s help, and will actually wind up hiding Damian somewhere, keeping him prisoner.

Let’s also not forget that Cane drank the poisoned drink suspiciously slow, as if he knew it was deadly and knew how much to digest to give the appearance of him being sick. Therefore, also making him a "victim" in this scenario.

On another note, going back to Rivers’ statement. If you watch the clip, you’ll notice he says, “Yeah, that's what it is, at least for now." To us, that sounds like he’s leaving room for the possibility that he’s not done portraying Damian, but rather just done for the time being.

Lastly, from a storyline perspective, Damian dying prematurely stunts the storylines with Nate (Sean Dominic) and Lily, in our opinion. It would be nice to see Damian’s relationship with his newly-found brother continue to develop and his romance with Lily continue to blossom.

So will Damian make a soapy return from the dead soon? Heck, we certainly hope so.

New episodes of The Young and the Restless air weekdays on CBS. Episodes become available to stream on Paramount Plus the next day.