The Young and the Restless spoilers: Billy tries to take over Lily’s job permanently?

A lot can happen in a week on The Young and the Restless.  In the episode airing on December 18, Billy (Jason Thompson) quit his job at Jabot and by the episode airing on December 20, he steps into his role as the temporary co-CEO of Chancellor-Winters.

As the Abbott heir informed Mamie (Veronica Redd) and Nate (Sean Dominic), Jill (Jess Walton) placed him in the position to fill in for Lily (Christel Khalil), who is out of town helping Mattie with a crisis at her school.

The news seems to rattle Mamie and Nate a bit, as Mamie sees the move as a power play made by her archnemesis Jill, and Nate and Billy aren’t exactly besties. Plus, Nate’s a bit nervous about working at Chancellor-Winters again knowing he’s on thin ice, and now he technically has to report to a man who doesn’t like him.

Now at first glance at Billy’s return to Chancellor-Winters, he appears to be exuding more confidence, bordering on hubris, than what he displayed at Jabot. With a top job in the corporate world and Jill’s backing, he’s on top of the world. However, it’s all temporary. When Lily returns to Genoa City she’s going to be stepping back into the role of co-CEO alongside her brother. Or is she?

Viewers know that a war is brewing between Mamie and Jill and the setting is at Chancellor-Winters. They both want each other out of the company and waving the banners of their families as they stake their claims.

Since Nate is officially back at Chancellor-Winters, Mamie wants to push Jill out of the business and let her great-nephews and great-niece run things. Unfortunately for Mamie, the moment Nate was brought on board, Jill hired Chance (Conner Floyd) and Billy to be her allies.

With that being said, we can imagine a situation where Billy gets too comfortable in Lily’s job and tries his best to persuade his mom to make the personnel change permanent. He could play into Jill’s paranoia about Mamie and convince her that it makes sense to keep him as co-CEO to balance the power dynamic, as Devon (Bryton James) is also co-CEO, already representing the Winters side of the equation.

For those ready to dismiss the idea, allow us to point out that while Jill loves both Lily and Devon, she herself has alluded to feeling like an outsider and vulnerable at the business because she had no "family" to support her prior to Billy and Chance’s arrival. Jill even went so far as to emphasize that while Lily’s children view her as their grandmother in many ways, she is not in fact related to them.

If Billy is able to sway his mom into keeping him as co-CEO when Lily returns, then you better believe a volatile ripple effect lies on the horizon. Mamie wouldn’t take kindly to her great-niece being treated this way, and Devon would likely be upset with the move as well.

Jill may try to smooth things over by emphasizing she just wants to make things fair for her family and offer Lily a COO position, but we don’t think Jill’s potential efforts to make peace will go over well.

On another note, such an action could be what helps bring Devon closer to Tucker (Trevor St. John). For all his faults, Tucker has emphasized the importance of securing Chancellor-Winters for the future of Devon and baby Dominic. It’s possible that Tucker’s words ring in Devon’s ear if Lily is pushed out of her job and the son finally goes to his biological father for advice.

We aren’t 100% sure what will happen next at Chancellor-Winters, but we’re pretty confident that smooth sailing is not in the near future.

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