The Young and the Restless, Tuesday, October 13, 2026 (CBS). By the final second of the episode, the man Victor wants “gone” was inside Sharon’s cottage, and the only words he said were her name.
How Matt got in
The scene is almost silent, which is what makes it so unsettling. Sharon walks into the cottage and takes a call from Noah, delighted to find Faith on the line too. “I didn’t know I was going to get both of you. Hi, Noah. I thought it was just going to be your sister,” she says, then laughs: “Yes, I do have time to settle a sibling debate. Go.” While she is busy refereeing her kids, the camera cuts to the window behind her. Matt Clark is standing outside in the bushes, cut on the forehead from the car crash, staring in at her. She never turns around.
Later, after Sharon has gone upstairs, Matt slips through the door. The episode ends with Sharon coming back down, closing the front door, turning into her own living room and freezing. Matt is standing there, back to the camera, and he greets her with two words: “Hello, Sharon.” Her face says the rest. That is the cliffhanger.
What the Newmans said about him an hour earlier
The Matt scenes land harder because of the conversation at the ranch that runs through the episode. Nick arrives and his father immediately lectures him about not returning his mother’s calls, but the talk turns to Matt fast. Nick: “For now, I’m more worried about Matt Clark. It seems like he may not be out of our lives like we were hoping.” He floats two theories about the empty, crashed car on the road out of town: “You think it was a decoy so Matt and Patty could disappear, or one betrayed the other? Then they could be headed back to Genoa City.”
Victor, who had his own people escort Matt and Patty out of town, is done with the subject. “All I can tell you is I’m so sick and tired of hearing about that guy. I want him gone.” Nick wants certainty instead: “I can’t just sit back and do nothing. I am never going to feel comfortable until I know exactly what happened to him.”
Victor also asks the question fans have been asking all year: “Can someone who is really, truly evil ever change?” Nick’s answer: the change came from a blow to the head, not from any epiphany, and he doubts it will last. At least the ranch is safe, Victor says, because security will make sure Matt “can’t step foot on this property.” Nobody thought about the cottage.
At the end of the hour Nick promises his father he is not taking chances with his sobriety and adds: “I’m strong. I’m ready to take on any threat against myself or this family.” The very next shot is Matt saying hello to Sharon.
Why Sharon, and why now
Monday’s episode explained the choice. Alone in his motel room, Matt dialed Sharon and said nothing, then asked himself why he was still in town; his own answer was that Sharon believes in second chances. By the end of that episode he had talked himself out of the halo: “Hero time is over.”
The history is the reason this is terrifying rather than merely creepy. Matt Clark first came to Genoa City in 1994 as a vengeful teenager who lost Sharon to Nick. He raped Sharon, framed Nick for a shooting that put him in prison, returned years later with a new face as “Carter Mills,” drugged Tricia and tried to assault Sharon again, and finally staged his own death to frame Nick for murder. He resurfaced on Halloween 2025 as “Mitch Bacall,” played by Roger Howarth, insisting he is a changed man. Sharon has kept her distance but, as Matt noted on Monday, she has never shown him the hatred everyone else does.
What’s next
Soaps.com’s spoilers for Wednesday, October 14, say Sharon is forced to make a tough decision, Victor keeps tabs on Nick, and Adam grills Phyllis about her latest venture. Whether Sharon reaches for the phone or hears Matt out is the question the episode leaves hanging.
Your call: Does Sharon call the police the moment she can, or does the woman who believes in second chances listen first? And should Victor’s security have been watching the cottage all along?
Sources: Soaps.com recap, Tuesday Oct. 13, 2026 · Soaps.com recap, Monday Oct. 12, 2026 · Soaps.com: Who is Matt Clark? · Soaps.com spoilers Oct. 12–16, 2026. Quotes transcribed from the October 13 episode.