Since Dena Higley moved from Salem USA to Llanview, it's been all about multiples - triangles or quadrangles. That's been her focus and that's why John McBain is where he is now and why Evangeline Williamson is where she is now.

But remember what was happening before Higley took her geometry-gone-wild show on the road, coming to rest at OLTL? John and Evangeline were growing closer. They had decided that what they had was more than casual and that they would see where it led them, to more or less quote John to Natalie that day in the LPD squad room. He also told her that he'd understand if she couldn't be his friend because of it. Now, that's the John McBain we've been missing ever since Higley got her hands on him. That John was clear about who he wanted to be with – Evangeline – and didn’t hesitate to let everyone know. Contrary to popular myth, he wasn’t shy about public displays of affection. He wasn’t shy about acknowledging his relationship with the brash and beautiful defense attorney. He had a new spring in his step and a twinkle in his eye. And he was lighter – noticeably, palpably lighter in affect. He told his brother that he liked being with Evangeline – that he missed her when she wasn’t around. He allowed her access to his life – almost without reservation. John was an adult male who seemed to have found the right adult female to add to his world, with Natalie relegated to her proper place in that world – background noise. Why one might even say that there were times during his relationship with Evangeline when John McBain actually seemed – dare I say it? – happy. And tell me that you didn’t start seeing layers to Johnny Mac that you hadn’t seen in the months before. Tell me that his way with Evangeline didn’t make you sigh. You know it did – just as it did for me.

So what’s with all the John hate now? The July 2006 version of John McBain is way, way different from the November 2004 version of John McBain – the one who lived in Llanview BEFORE Higley. But that's not John's fault. In the 18 or so months since the woman behind the curtain aka The Scourge of Llanview came to work, she de-constructed this evolving character, took away the layers that had begun to appear, and banished him to the hell of being isolated with the ever-loathsome Natalie for no plausible reason, a character with whom none of the lightness I described above can be seen, no matter how many times the script calls for them to roll around together (all of which combined do not equal even 1/nth the emotional wallop of one five or ten-second shot of a fully-clothed John and Evangeline doing nothing more than looking into each other's eyes). And whatever happened to thoughts of his beloved Caitlin? Whatever happened to his therapy sessions? If anything, he is even darker now than he was when he first appeared.

BUT…

Just as a writer wrote John McBain into this corner, the same (or a different) writer can write him out of it – restore the John that made us sigh. I mean, this is a soap. Nothing is set in stone. It took a slow, grueling, agonizing 18 months to take him from the man who was growing and getting better every day to where he is now but it could take no more than a few weeks of careful, conscientious character-based story writing to get him back on the right road.

So why the hate?

And John McBain is, by no means, Higley’s only victim. Look at the Evangeline Williamson we all fell in love with. Well, good luck finding her because, frankly, I haven’t seen her in months. In July of 2006, she’s blind. Can anyone tell me why? She has inexplicably fallen in with Cristian Vega, Natalie’s ex, of all people. For the most part, she has been isolated with him just the way that John has been isolated with Natalie. The Evangeline Williamson wardrobe that real life professional women can envy has largely been missing in action, replaced by cutesy tops and leather pants in the summer (all the better for fingerpainting or, better yet, having paint brushed on her, no doubt - geez...). For purposes of plot, this woman who liked to keep her feelings to herself has been seen openly discussing her previous relationship with Cristian, making unfavorable comparisons between the two men and allowing Cristian to do the same without question. That’s not quite fair, is it? After all, say what you will about what’s been done to John since his abrupt, triangle/quadrangle plot-driven break-up with Evangeline, but he has discussed their private relationship with no one – NO ONE. Yet it’s okay for Evangeline to do it? I don’t think so. Why, there was more romance between Evangeline and John on that park bench early on than in all the moments of her contrived new relationship with Natalie's ex, whether it be the predictable art lesson at the bar or the boxing match or the lip lock on the dance floor. And she has barely practiced law since becoming involved with Cristian, being noticeably absent from her client/friend’s side during several key moments in his recent conviction/incarceration/execution for a murder he did not commit. She has been unreachable by cell phone. What??? She has allowed herself to be physically carried away from doing her job. After complaining about RJ's possessiveness, she meekly accepts the same coming from Cristian. She leaves unchecked the fact of how he went behind her back to get Todd to fire her - in effect, trying to manipulate not only her life but her career. Her career? She almost never spends any time with her little sister. She's lying to her out-of-town family about being blind. Where's her smothering mother? Where's Uncle Clay - the man with the friend who teaches at Quantico? Where's the insufferable Cousin Henry? Worst of all, she hasn’t visited her best friend Nora in months, not even after Nora’s instant-nothing-short-of-miraculous recovery from a 6-month long coma - at least, not on camera. Come on.

BUT…

Just as Evangeline has been written into a corner that includes no one but Cristian Vega, so, too, can she be written out of that corner. It took a few months to deliver this more dependent, less mature version of Evangeline to our screens but it could take no more than a few weeks to restore her to what she once was.

I've heard it said before but most recently on the daytime Emmy award telecast from a couple of years back. When accepting his Outstanding Lead Actor Emmy, GH’s Maurice Benard said something like "if it ain't on the page, it ain't on the stage". If John McBain isn’t written as the man he was on the way to becoming, Michael Easton can’t act it. If Evangeline Williamson continues to be written as less dynamic and less mature, Renee Elise Goldsberry can’t portray her as anything else. They are both magnificent performers but they are actors. They don’t write their own stories. That’s the writer’s job. When it’s going good, we often don’t give the writers their due but it’s still the writing that makes a show what it is. When it's not going so good, it's the writing that makes a show what it isn’t.

Writing.

Here we have a case of two exceptional actors in one inter-connected, less than interesting, illogical, completely unsatisfying mish-mash of a story which is not so much an actual story as it is a series of contrived and often disjointed situations that Higley's version of OLTL continues to place their two characters in, situations whose only purpose is to perpetuate the dumber than dumb John/Natalie pairing and the dumber than dumb Evangeline/Cristian pairing – aka “the quad” - to play off one set of viewers against another hoping for a ratings bonanza that hasn't materialized. But still Higley keeps on trying. The talents of the Emmy-nominated Goldsberry aren’t being written for or showcased to maximum effect and the same can be said of Easton. Instead we’re being forced to endure this long, rambling, incoherent “quadrangle without an end” as the moments take months to finally crawl by while, ironically, the days of Easton and Goldsberry's respective times at OLTL continue to dwindle down to what may be a precious few. Two golden talents; not a decent storyline between them. It’s criminal, really.

But good, solid, thoughtful writing can change it all – just like that.

Those of you out there who are happy with where these two characters are now, more power to you. We all watch soaps to be engaged and to enjoy what engages us and if you’re finding these stories engaging, then there’s nothing for you to do but to sit back and enjoy.

But I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again and again and again. The bar's been set way, way higher than what's playing out these days. I’ve seen the story that engages me - between the characters who engage me. I’ve felt it - felt them. And I’ve come back for more over and over. And these two stories aren’t it – not by a long shot. But good, solid, thoughtful writing can bring it all back. It really can.

Just like that!