Viewers of The Young and the Restless have been wondering what's next for Jack Abbott, who has been unsuccessful in the romance department for what seems like ages, has experienced the loss of many of the family members that he's connected to, and seems pretty directionless at the moment. As one can imagine, the character's longtime portrayer, Peter Bergman, is also wondering what's ahead for his beloved alter ego.
"Jack's an island," Bergman states in an interview with Soap Opera Digest. "With the exit of Kyle [Michael Mealor] and Summer [Hunter King], there's no reason to even put up the Jabot set. While Jack has lots of connections in Genoa City, on a daily basis, he's more of an island now than in the entire time I've played him. It's going to be interesting to see where this goes."
The most obvious direction would be for Jack to find a new love match, but the actor isn't so sure that the writers have romance on the horizon for his character -- nor is he convinced that it would be the best story to tell right now.
"It doesn't really fall into, 'Jack meets woman, falls head over heels, and tries to make it work,'" he explains. "Instead, Jack is at a new chapter, where he's not going to play the romance games. He wants to say [to a woman], 'We're adults now. This is who I am and you be honest with me.' Whether there's anyone in Genoa City who can do that or not remains to be seen."
Fortunately, there are a lot of interesting layers to Jack that the writers can explore -- one of them being that the character has finally come out from under the shadow of his powerful father, John Abbott (Jerry Douglas).
"I love the mischievous, manipulative Jack, but there's something kind of sweet and interesting about spending so much of your adult life not making the mark when you've set your father as the standard, and after so many years, suddenly realizing, 'My God, I've completely taken my father's place in this family and it turns out, I'm better at it than I thought,'" Bergman explains of Jack having taken on the role of capable patriarch. "In all those wild, crazy years of being John Abbott's son and him now gone, Jack has had to grow, which is kind of a fun story to tell. I like that part of Jack's redemption."
For more from Bergman about Jack's next chapter, check out SOD's full interview with the actor here.
What do you think about Jack Abbott's current storyline situation? What would you like to see for the character in the months ahead? We want to hear from you -- so drop your comments in the Comments section below, tweet about it on Twitter, share it on Facebook, or chat about it on our Message Boards.
