How about these powerful lines of dialogue:

“And now I don’t know what to do. I look at you and I see all the ways I let you down staring back at me…and I don’t know how to change that…”

“You saved my life, John.”

“No. No. You saved mine. You saved me…”

Or these three:

“So what are you going to do? You going to be there for everybody except the one person you say you want to share your life with and maybe…maybe lose out on the best thing that ever happened to either one of us?”

“I don’t want to lose you.”

“Then don’t.”

Wow! From writing to direction to pacing to acting, these scenes captivated. And when it comes to the final product, when Goldsberry and Easton work, they really bring it, don’t they?

Poor, poor John McBain! He’s been closed off for so long – held everything in, stuffing it down and keeping his mouth closed for so long that he can’t quite find the words - not even when he wants to. Lashing out at himself and his own inadequacies by way of a little pink stuffed toy, insisting to himself that he’s got no right to remain silent about things he’s done to hurt people, John McBain’s anguish is almost too raw, too heartbreaking to watch. His hurt goes so very deep – so much deeper than losing Caitlin to a serial killer’s bullet. Something else has been slowly destroying him from the inside for years and now Evangeline knows it.

And poor Evangeline! She’s got her own needs right now – her own issues over being taken hostage and tortured and whatever other baggage she’s carrying - but she’s trying so hard to make it easier for John to open up to her – to finally unburden himself about whatever it is that he’s never admitted to another living soul. She sees what carrying that load is doing to him – how it’s getting heavier and heavier, weighing him down – how if he doesn’t get it out and let it all go, he will completely collapse under the strain and be lost to her forever. And she loves him enough to want to help him. But how can she do that when he can’t find the words to tell her all the ways he’s hurting and why?

Renee and Michael are dynamic and masterful performers. They are able to take the simplest dialogue delivered in the simplest of settings and make it sing. And when they’re given potent stuff like this to work with, they are positively awe-inspiring. They provide for each other just the right amount of this for that – the right something for something – to make scenes like these spring so vividly to life. A member of the Connected Souls message board called them “acting soul mates” and I think that the description is absolutely on target. When they’re on the screen together, it’s nearly impossible to look away because you know that, if you do, you’ll probably miss something amazing – something you’ll be talking about for weeks and weeks afterward. Yes, they are incredibly talented actors separately – no doubt about it. But they are phenomenal together! How else can you explain how deeply they make us care about these two fictional characters named Evangeline Williamson and John McBain?

So what’s next for our Evangeline and John? Where will our couple go from here? John needs to know that Evangeline needs him but she hasn’t been able to tell him just that. Not yet. Evangeline needs to know with certainty that John loves her and wants to share his life with her and only her but he hasn’t been able to clearly tell her just that. Not yet. Will they do it? How will they do it? How do they finally help each other to heal? How do they save each other once and for all?

I don’t have the answers to any of it and I don’t want them! But I will surely be sitting on the edge of my seat, eagerly watching and waiting for it all to unfold before my eyes. And I will savor the experience because I do know one thing. Whatever the scene – whatever twists and turns and emotions are called for – Renee and Michael will deliver and deliver beautifully – the way they do each and every time. We’ll smile when they smile. We’ll cry when they cry. Each and every word – each and every emotion - will resonate and seem so real that, for a little while, we’ll forget that we’re not really watching the sensitive and tortured chief of detectives and the vulnerable and supportive attorney who’ve fallen so deeply in love with each other. Through it all, we’ll have to keep reminding ourselves again and again that what we’re really watching are two gifted actors at work – doing what they do better than just about anyone else I can think of. They’ll make us buy into the Evangeline and John love story yet again, making us fall in love with them yet again - the way they do each and every time.

And I, for one, can’t wait!

Just make sure to keep that box of tissues handy!