That’s all she wrote for The Young and the Restless’ Cole Howard. The ranch hand-turned-writer played by J. Eddie Peck since 1993 drew his last breath in the July 3 episo

Recetly diagnosed with Legionnaires’ disease, the character seemed to have his whole life before him — it was a good’n, too. He’d just reunited with former wife Victoria Newman, and they’d been dealt the miraculous shock that the daughter they’d believed dead since birth was, in fact, alive and well and as sweet as pie. But alas, a happy ending wasn’t in store for Mr. Nice Guy, whose parents were psycho Rick Daros and Eve Howard, also a, um, psycho.

Days of Our Lives and Dallas alum Peck had held the role from 1993-99. Then, after a long absence — during which he became one of All My Children’s many Jake Martins — he returned to Genoa City in 2023, at which point Cole and Victoria discovered that their “late” daughter Eve was really the then-malevolent Claire Grace.

For a while there, Peck was one of soapdom’s hottest heartthrobs. But when he came back to the show following his long absence, Cole was reduced to pretty much a singular quality: goodness. Which is admirable, for sure, but it didn’t necessarily track with the character who once started making out with his wife’s former stepmother Ashley Abbott while the cat was away.

Consider the aftershocks of Cole’s death here. And catch up on the latest departures from Genoa City in the below photo gallery of Young & Restless exits.