Yeah, I’m still around.

And it should come as no surprise to anyone who has ever read the stuff I usually write that the only on-screen pairing I’m interesting in watching is John McBain and Evangeline Williamson. That’s it. No substitutions –‘just for now’ or ‘just for a little while’ or ‘just for transition’ or anything. They are the story I want to see. They are the story that moves me – the only story that moves me and I do not want anything else – period, end-of-story. Now that that’s out there…

My poor Johnny Mac and my poor Evangeline have been twisted and turned and painted into this corner and that over the past year and a half. Now there’s this Evangeline/Todd thing to factor in. For the record, it’s not working for me. First of all, having Evangeline go from professing her love for Cristian (still not getting that…) to any and everyone within earshot to initiating a kiss with Todd makes Evangeline look emotionally immature and oh-so-fickle. Is this the Evangeline Williamson that we’ve all watched evolve over the past few years? I don’t think so. In addition, now we have an Evangeline Williamson who is walking in John McBain’s shoes. Todd sneezes; Evangeline runs to get him a tissue. But it’s Jamie’s birthday party, you say? Hey, Todd seems to need her so she’s gone. Sounds a little familiar, doesn’t it? It’ll be interesting to see how many people find Evangeline’s actions here totally understandable but are still condemning John for doing the same thing where Natalie was concerned when he and Evangeline were still together. But plot point or no plot point, John was written horribly back then and quite often since, his integrity smashed to bits in order to facilitate that version of “The Triangle”. Now Evangeline is being written just as horribly in order to facilitate the current geometric shape of choice. Neither character wins and, as viewers who love them both, we wind up on the losing side right along with them.

And there’s one teeny, tiny fact about Todd Manning that I just can’t seem to get out of my head. He is a rapist. Yes, it happened a long time ago but it still happened. Such a vile and reprehensible act toward another human being can never be forgotten and only barely forgiven. And this man is worthy of who and what Evangeline has been to this point? I wholeheartedly disagree with anyone who answers ‘yes’ to that question. Somehow I don’t think that a man capable of violently taking another person’s humanity has any more character or is any more deserving than a man with a hero complex and issues surrounding loss and a lack of self-esteem for whom the words ‘I love you’ are hard to come by.

Let’s take a look at Cristian Vega. He is a murderer. Yes, he was exonerated. But is Tico Santi any less dead? Yes, Cristian was brainwashed to do it. So it’s murder with an explanation, as I said somewhere else. But it’s still murder. Did Cristian ever seek therapy to figure out how to de-program himself? Nope. He did it on his own – spontaneously taking control of his life from Carlo Hesser. So he’s better now, right? What about that little ‘trying to beat Ted to death for betraying him’ episode? Now, that was done by the no-longer-brainwashed Cristian Vega. And if Evangeline hadn’t stopped him, Ted would have died that night instead of dying later in an arsonist’s fire. Say what you will about how open Cristian is and how vulnerable and sensitive he may be. But tell the truth. Would you really be comfortable lying next to and closing your eyes around a man who still doesn’t know what triggers his violent impulses and hasn't tried to find out? I know I wouldn’t.

We won’t even get into how possessive of Evangeline he is, preferring to think that he’s the only man for her when he still doesn’t really have a job and no real ambition to get one, preferring instead to take “gifts” (a camera, a computer) from his working attorney girlfriend while approving and disapproving of her friends and career choices. Oops! I’m getting into it, aren’t I? Sorry. Guess I lied…

One of the complaints about Evangeline when she was with John was that she was too weak. So what do you think of an Evangeline Williamson who takes career advice from a man with no career, who asks for permission to see her friends, who seems content to be seen as ‘Cristian’s woman’ (strangely similar to being ‘Cristian’s belt’ or 'Cristian’s shoelace’ or ‘Cristian’s paintbrush’), spending the bulk of her time holding his hand and reassuring him (and everyone else in town) of how much she loves him over and over again? Is this Evangeline Williamson, the dragon slayer? Nope – not by a long shot. Remember John’s words to R.J. about Evangeline way back at the beginning of their relationship – ‘she’s not my woman or your woman or anybody’s woman’? Remember her words to John: ‘I’m not the kind of girl that needs saving’? No, she was the kind of woman who didn’t need his permission to do anything - 'a force of nature' as John once described her. Now that sounds like the Evangeline Williamson I know and love.

But hey, let’s not forget little Miss Natalie in all this - the Me-Centric Champion of the World. Is it just me or is anyone else sick and tired of her whining to John about how hard his “death” was for her to deal with? Didn’t he go through something, too? But, of course, her feelings of sadness and the one or two tears she dropped over what happened to her in this whole ‘John-has-been-killed-in-a-car-accident’ thing completely trumps any feelings of terror, fear, or physical and emotional pain and suffering he might have experienced as a result of being in a fiery automobile crash, being burned over some horrible percentage of his entire body, being wrapped in bandages for months, unable to communicate with anyone, and enduring a series of skin grafts afterward, only to come home to some childish and needy mess of a girl who can’t navigate her own life but insists on taking control of his every waking hour, leaving him not even a moment of solitude for reflection or to even offer up some small prayer of thanks for getting another chance at life when, clearly, it could have gone the other way (can you say ‘Hugh Hughes’?). Of course, John should put his own feelings aside and feel sorry for Little Miss Needy – again. It’s what he has always done. Why should something like being burned in a fire and almost losing his life make this time any different? Is she the Poor-Poor-Me-Pity Fest poster girl or what?

Lucky for us that, even in the middle of all of these random and silly plot points and viewer “training” and manipulation, there is still a gem that is part of the cast of OLTL that goes by the name of Renee Elise Goldsberry. There is still a gem that is part of the cast of OLTL that goes by the name of Michael Easton. These 2 facts alone mean that, in an instant, something wonderful can appear in the middle of all the madness – something that fires us up and once again raises the bar, giving everyone else a standard to shoot for. The most recent wonderful something happened when Evangeline FINALLY went to visit John at his apartment. I can’t tell you what Cristian said to Evangeline two or three minutes after the fact and I can’t tell you what Natalie said to John after less than a minute has gone by, but I can tell you what happened in John’s room that day. For me, those are the moments worthy of occupying space in my memory – the stuff that happens between Goldsberry and Easton as Evangeline and John – the stuff that’s special.

There was so much emotion in the air between them – STILL. I saw it in their eyes, I felt it in the words they said to each other and even in the words they didn’t say to each other. John told her that he’d been thinking about her a lot lately. She told him that she was sorry she hadn’t been by to visit sooner. There was shyness. There was playfulness. There was familiarity. There was emotional intimacy. There were memories of their time together. John’s eyes spoke volumes when he saw her at his door – fully animated and alive for the first time in many months. Her eyes spoke volumes when she saw him standing there in front of her – completely present and engaged, her feelings for him there for anyone to see. “Yay! It really is you,” she said. Well, it really was them, thank you! That was the John McBain I’ve come to know and care about. That was the Evangeline Williamson I’ve come to know and care about. And that was the couple that kept my eyes glued to my TV screen on that first day of February, not willing to leave the room or to even look away for a second, afraid that if I did, I might miss some fully-loaded word or look or thought or touch or light in their eyes for each other.

Now, that’s my Super Couple!

And there is no way that I will settle for less!