Ever love a guy and want to smack him in the back of the head at the same time? Well, that’s how I’m feeling these days about our Johnny Mack.
Poor John McBain. He’s got a certain red-headed train-wreck attached like an albatross around his neck. And instead of being mercifully direct and telling her to back off – that he’s in love with someone else and it’s time for her to stop living in the past, he keeps enabling bouts of whiny hysterics by excusing her antics. Bad Boyfriend card goes to John in this situation.
But it’s not really his fault, is it? He’s just being written that way right now. In One Life to Live’s determination to sweep us headlong through this “Outstanding October” and into the thrilling and tension-filled November sweeps they promise will follow, they’ve not only dropped the ball a time or two where John and Evangeline are concerned. They’ve outright thrown it away.
Correct me if I’m wrong about this but, up until this past week, had our Johnny Mack shown even the slightest interest in the train-wreck other than that of an older, wiser friend who tries (in vain) to pull her out of all the trouble she likes to keep getting into? So why, instead of following up on the aftermath of the trauma that Evangeline suffered in the Llanview train station at the hands of a racist pig, do we have the train-wreck whining about how she wanted John once and she knew that he wanted her so why is he now in love with Evangeline and why didn’t he fall in love with her and how he should let himself feel what she knows he can feel? Why do we have this train-wreck initiated kiss – one that John neither stopped nor really participated in? Why do we have John making telephone calls – albeit sweet ones – to an unseen Evangeline when she could just as well have been onscreen for at least one of them? Why do we have Evangeline finally onscreen sharing her feelings for John with Nora but never mentioning that she’s staying with John for a few days – at his request? Why do we have train-wreck constantly eavesdropping on every part of John’s conversation that involves his relationship with Evangeline and then having the gall to feel hurt over what she overhears? Why do we have John telling his brother how Evangeline is staying with him for a few days and how he could get used to coming home to her instead of telling her? And why do we have John and Evangeline in the same place, at the same time, but not together? We all know the answer, don’t we?
For what these past couple of years has turned out to be a lackluster November sweeps period on ABC that's now upon us once again, the folks in charge at One Life to Live are under the mistaken impression that what John and Evangeline need is a third wheel to make things “interesting”. Guess what? Things between John and Evangeline are plenty interesting without the third wheel. If ever I’ve seen a relationship that doesn’t need to be part of a triangle, it’s this one. The sparks that fly between Michael Easton and Renee Elise Goldsberry as John and Evangeline are plenty enough to keep me glued to my television set Monday through Friday and then again on Saturday and Sunday on Soapnet (not to mention all the hours in between). So for John and Evangeline fans like me I say…
They are nowhere near broken so please STOP fixing ‘em!