So, she begins as if it had only been yesterday since she last spoke, I don’t know about you but I detest what has happened to John McBain over the past years. This was once one of the most stand-up characters on the show - someone with a real need to do what was right. He now marries as a means to an end. He now has intimate relationships at the drop of a hat. And, worse yet, he now cheats. What?? The John McBain I remember NEVER cheated. Now he does. And it looks like he's about to become a father to a child he fathered with one woman while dreaming of another (a storyline I would much, much rather see play out differently, at another time, and with different characters but I digress...). It’s actually excruciatingly painful to watch what OLTL has done and continues to do to poor, poor John. So let’s play a little game. Let’s call it “what if…”.
What if a little creativity were to take hold in the OLTL writing department? Impossible, you say? Try to stay in the real world, you suggest? Don't be preposterous, you yell? Never will they allow such a thing to take place, you shriek? Now just hear me out.
What if instead of forcing the 99,997 try of the John pairing that NEVER catches on, no matter how many times they write it, the powers that be at OLTL were to use a little imagination to bring everything back in line? What if it were suddenly revealed via script that John has, in fact, been just as scattered in his life as it has looked to all of us? And what if the destruction of his personal (and sometimes professional) integrity were traced back to one event – the loss of his treasured relationship with Evangeline Williamson?
We all know that it can certainly be argued that John hasn’t been the same since Evangeline left him. His initial response was to try to figure out a way to get her to believe in him again - to get her back. She’d given his mother’s pearls back to him – the very pearls he’d given her on her birthday (the very string of pearls he has never given to anyone else…). Then she was kidnapped in retaliation by the serial killer he was tracking and he was devastated at the thought that he was responsible for it and that he might not be able to get to her in time. He did, though, catching all kinds of flack for doing his job, saving the other victim first and not letting her slide into the flames instead of saving a still conscious, still struggling Evangeline first. He tried one last time to “be worth it” for Evangeline. He went to her apartment to try to open up and reveal his inner feelings to her, to be the man she wanted him to be. He couldn't do this alone anymore, he said. When they were together, she made him feel like he was worth something, he said. How sad. Still the words just would not come. When she sent him on his way, he really started believing what his own lack of self-esteem had been telling him all along, which was that he wasn’t good enough for Evangeline. In his eyes, she would probably be safer and better off without him. Actually, as I recall, a so-called "friend" told him something to the effect that being with someone like Evangeline – someone who’d always had it easy (!!) and who had never struggled for anything (!!) - would never “rub off” on him. He’d be much better off with her. So what did he do? He listened. He couldn't do it alone anymore and so when Evangeline left him, he went to the one who was waiting in the wings.
Still that connection between John and Evangeline remained. Whenever they shared the same space, it was there. It was tangible. You could feel it. You could see it in their eyes. You could see it in the equally scattered way that she went on with her life after leaving John (programmed murderer, rapist). When John was in that car crash and was presumed dead, it has been said by those who are far, far, far more objective than I on the subject that it was Evangeline who took the news more like the woman in his life would have. Truly heartbreaking stuff with her crying into a shirt he’d left at her place, never having gotten around to completely severing her ties to John by returning it after they broke up. How about her joy at the sight of him lying there in that hospital bed, when it was revealed months later that he was actually alive? There were 4 bodies present in that hospital room at the time but only 2 of them could truly be seen. And I’m sure I don’t have to tell you who they were. But I will. As soon as John looked up at Evangeline, the other 2 bodies in the room disappeared into the wallpaper – where they belonged. That’s how powerful the connection still was.
How about the time Evangeline went to visit a still recuperating John at his place in the Angel Square Hotel? They sat across from each other over a cup of coffee, talking about their current relationships and the obstacles that each relationship faced at that moment. Of course the surface conversation couldn’t mask the subtext that abounded about two people who still cared for and about each other, both of whom acknowledged good memories of their past relationship and the emotion in their eyes when they did.
And let’s not forget a teary John hearing from Bo about how Evangeline had been gassed and was now in a coma. Let’s not forget John lurking around her hospital room, hoping for a chance to see her. Let’s not forget John admitting to someone else a typically understated yet deeply felt: “She means a lot to me, too…”
Okay now let’s put all of this together in a way that seems clear to me. John McBain couldn’t let go of his painful past enough to begin a relationship with anyone else but somehow the beautiful and capable Evangeline Williamson broke through to him. Their year-long relationship took a few twists and turns, with Evangeline changing the ground rules every time she found herself feeling more for John than she expected to feel and John changing right along with her. She didn’t want strings; there were no strings attached. She wanted strings; suddenly there they were. She wanted a deeper commitment from him; he gave her his mother’s pearl necklace for her birthday. When she wanted to hear him say that he loved her after banning the word from their vocabulary earlier in their relationship, he said it to her in so many ways – through his actions, through his tenderness, through his honesty, through the look in his eyes. But it wasn’t enough for her. Evangeline panicked and ran for the hills when she came to feel hopeless about his feelings for her, essentially abandoning a John who felt that he was getting better and stronger each and every day during their relationship. But he clearly never stopped loving her or missing what they had together.
He said that he never felt that he was good enough for her and so when he couldn’t give her what she said she needed from him, he gave up trying with her, trying instead to make something happen with someone else. But that got old and the textbook example of co-dependency (I'll put myself in danger, you'll save me, I'll put myself in danger again...) ended. Then there was Marty Saybrooke. Then there was Blair Manning. Then there was Marty Saybrooke again. Now we have John kissing another woman while still involved with Marty, finding the other woman's latest ‘damsel in distress’ situation too tempting to pass up, giving him a chance to rescue her yet again – doing the only thing he thinks he’s good at, the only thing he thinks he’s good enough for. It's totally appropriate for John to be involved with a psychiatrist. However instead of trying to have a relationship with him, she should be treating him because clearly this man is in free fall.
What if Evangeline were to come out of her coma after all of this? What if she were to come back after nearly 3 years unconscious having had an epiphany? What if she were to admit to herself that she fell deeply in love with John but ran away when she thought that he might not love her the same way, trying to protect her heart, which had already taken a leap of faith, with her head which refused to follow suit? What if she were to admit to herself that her relationship with the man she got involved with afterward was based on gratitude more than anything else? He was grateful to her for everything she did to get him out of prison; she was grateful to him for standing by her during her blindness. Was gratitude enough to build a lifetime relationship on? Apparently not, since even the likes of a lowly rapist began to look attractive to her while she was with this man. And we all know that she would NEVER have looked at any other man if she’d still been with John, just as he NEVER looked at any other woman when he was with her. What if she were to admit to herself that all of the I-love-yous in the world, no matter how sincere or how heartfelt, do not mean and cannot mean nearly as much when they don't come from the right person? What if she were to admit to herself that John McBain was the right person - that she never stopped loving him, never stopped wanting to be with him, to have him in her life? What if she woke up believing that as long as the man she loved made her feel loved as John had when they were together, the words didn't really matter? What if she was now determined to fight for what she wanted, to hold on with both hands this time out rather than nobly stepping out of the picture, allowing another woman to take her place by his side, and silently watching those good ol' demons destroy him more and more with each passing day?
So what if John were suddenly confronted with this newly resurrected Evangeline, a woman now determined to live the life she truly wants after losing 3 years in a coma? What if he were to admit to himself that he felt responsible for her coma, since she would never have been in that loft had she still been with John? She might not even have been kidnapped from the Woman of the Year award ceremony had they still been together, since he would have been her date for the evening, as originally planned, and likely would never have left her side that night. What if he were to admit to himself that he hasn't felt complete since that horrible day when she left him standing there in the middle of his office with tears in his eyes after telling him that their relationship was over?
What if the ghost of his father Thomas McBain came a-knocking again, convincing John that Evangeline’s recovery was not only miraculous but also a sign that sometimes people do get second chances in life and that sometimes they deserve a second chance to be happy? What if after everything he and Evangeline had been through, John were given a second chance to do things differently with Evangeline, the woman he loved even though he couldn’t say it out loud, to be the man she needed, the man he so wanted to be for her - a second chance to actually be "worth it"?
Hmmm...Interesting premise, I’d say. I know I’d watch it!
Now if we can only find someone who might be able to write it...