A lotta times watching The Young and the Restless, we roll our eyes at how self-centered Phyllis is. But not during the November 25 episode (recapped here). As she expressed her shock, her horror, her hurt over BFF Michael defending Sharon, aka the driver she’s sure almost made her roadkill, we were 100 percent in her corner.

Michael’s insistence that he had to take Sharon’s case made zero sense. He defends people, that’s his job — that was his excuse. But there was no reason in the world why he had to take this case. Genoa City has other attorneys who are not longtime friends of the victim’s. Christine could have represented Sharon. Or Brittany. Or hell, pull John Silva out of mothballs!

Michael claimed that, as a lawyer, he is governed by a strict body of rules. But none of those rules require him to take every damn case that he’s offered. He’s not a public defender who is obliged to go courtin’ with any ol’ client, whether a jaywalker or a serial killer, he’s a fancypants private attorney who can say yes or no he pleases.

So when Phyllis called Michael taking on Sharon as a client a betrayal, it wasn’t an exaggeration. We’d have been apoplectic and wounded to the core, too. Michael himself has proven in the past that he can turn down cases. In fact, when Phyllis needed defending after she killed Jeremy Stark, he turned her down (as he was busy bailing out mom Gloria overseas).

To add insult to injury, Michael offered up as a replacement lawyer, of all people, Heather — whose father Phyllis had nearly murdered when she deliberately ran down him and Christine with her car in the 1990s!

Look, we love conflict. We love drama. That’s why we watch soaps. But when it makes as little sense as Michael’s backstab of Phyllis — and that is what this is — our reaction isn’t excitement or engagement, it’s frustration and disappointment. Do better, Young & Restless.