I’ve watched the boards over this past week, and I’ve been pleased at the posts that I’ve seen about the adults. I think finally, this week, there were steps taken in both the adult triangles on the show.
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I’ve been asked what I could possibly see in Julian/Eve/TC.

I’ve had to defend it this past week.

But, then, I’ve always been one drawn to those stories that aren’t so ‘bright and shiny’ and obvious. I’ve always liked those characters who have dark sides and flaws.

Which makes Julian/Eve/TC right up my alley.

This story has been lurking in the shadows, and been on the fence about being a ‘real’ triangle like Ivy/Sam/Grace.

Until this week.

This week, Eve made a declaration that transformed this story and turned it on its head.
 

Eve: I lost everything. My self-respect, my son. Everything. All because I loved you.

Julian: You loved me?
 

And, there it is. The transformation of this story into a true triangle. A triangle means that someone is torn between two people that definitely have a hold on the ‘object’s heart’.

I know what some of you are saying already: Eve’s feelings for Julian aren’t like Sam’s. We’ve seen nothing to indicate that her feelings for Julian are of the romantic nature. True. I agree with that.

But, I also agree with those that say that Eve and Julian have a great deal of unfinished business. Someone wrote in a post that Eve is ‘passionate’ in her anti-Julian feelings. Yes, she is. She HATES Julian.

But, the saying is still true:

" There’s a thin line between love and hate."

The opposite of love is indifference. It’s not hate. Eve has a lot of unresolved feelings towards Julian. Things that I think she’s buried, with the rest of her ‘past’, and that she’s been in denial about for years.

Eve loves TC. That can’t be questioned. She loves and needs him to love her.

We got some very interesting insight into Eve and who she is this week, as she was trying to explain to TC how the ‘patient’ could have wound up with Julian.
 

" She was young. Naïve. Had never felt loved in her life. Julian told her that she was beautiful. That he would make all her dreams come true. She was desperate and lonely enough that she wanted to believe him. Maybe she could have even fallen in love with him, and given herself to him because of that love. Only to realize later that it was a mistake…..one that would haunt her for the rest of her life."
 

If the Hidden Passions book can be used as a guide, there have been only two men in Eve’s life: Julian and TC.

Julian was her first love, and unlike some, it ended about as bad as it could get for her.

She turned her life around because she wanted to be a good mother to her son. Her son was the last thing that she could point to that was positive about her relationship with Julian. Even if she couldn’t have him, at least the entire relationship wouldn’t have been a waste, because, even if it was only HER love, she would have this precious baby. When her son died, it was like the final chapter in her own personal horror story. He died, and she had to deal with it alone. Julian wasn’t there, her parents weren’t there. She had no friends, outside of Crystal. She had nothing.

Eve decided to become a doctor, and shut down emotionally. She functioned in the world, studied hard, got excellent grades. By all accounts, to anyone looking ‘in’ on Eve, on the surface, she was a high functioning and participating member of society. Yet, it masked the fact that she was dead on the inside. She was sleepwalking through the ‘personal’ side of life.

Until she met TC.

Eve NEEDED the human contact that TC gave her. She NEEDED someone to make her feel alive. I’ve never gotten the feeling that she’s been afraid of his temper for herself. She saw the demons in him practically from the first moment that they met. They met BECAUSE of his temper, which had sent him to the Emergency Room.

She was his doctor, who helped heal him physically. And, then, she tried to help heal him emotionally.

Reading the book helped a great deal. It was almost an unwritten bargain between Eve and TC: she saw his darkness and accepted it. There was a terrific passage in the book that I thought was excellent in describing Eve and TC and her acceptance of his demons.
 

" So do you know what I’m saying, Eve?" he whispered.

" I know exactly what you’re saying. There are some things we just don’t get over. Ever."

" That’s right."

" Some pain we just learn to live with. Like a piece of furniture in the room – the ugliest chair you ever saw. And you didn’t bring it into your pretty room. It just got dropped there. And you want to move it, but it’s bolted to the floor forever – and that’s that. You can maybe drape something over it. Decide not to look in its direction for years at a time. But it will always be there. In a house you can never leave until you die."

I thought this was a pretty powerful exchange between TC and Eve. TC had opened up to Eve about his life with tennis, and what it meant to him. He revealed that what he feels robbed of the most is the CHANCE to prove himself. Even if he had failed, he would have TRIED. And, it is the chance to try that is eating away at him. Especially since he suspects that it was done to him on purpose. It was this exchange that convinced TC that Eve was the perfect woman for him – because she understood his darkness and didn’t try to gloss over it. The irony of it all is that it was after this exchange, after deciding Eve was the perfect woman, that TC finally revealed to Eve his hatred of Julian.

For Eve, what she has to live with – the death of her son.

The death of Eve’s son = TC’s shed in her mind. I came away from reading the book with that belief. TC has a physical PLACE where he goes when those demons upset him. For Eve, she doesn’t have a physical place, but, she has physical momentos.

The book makes clear that Eve blames HERSELF for her son’s death, and lives with the guilt on a daily basis. It is the burden on her heart, and something that she will never get over. She’s ashamed of herself, and vowed never to tell anyone about her son. She had decided that before she ever met TC.

But, in telling TC these things in t hat passage, there was an agreement between them: they each had their pains, but, that they could accept that part of one another, and look beyond it, to all the rest that they could share.

Eve fell in love with TC because he was the opposite of her experience with Julian. TC gave to Eve. They had a lot of common interests, and now t hat Eve had gotten the ‘fast life’ desires out of her system, she wanted nothing more than a home and family. One of the things she asked TC immediately after he proposed was ‘ could he give her babies’. She wanted a family, HER family, more than anything.

By the time that she knew about TC’s involvement with Julian, Eve needed TC too much to risk losing him. She had come back to life finally, and, in TC, had found love. Love that had eluded her her entire life. She wasn’t going to risk that on ‘the truth’, and allow Julian to take away from her a chance at happiness. Not when he had taken so much else from her.

And, in Eve’s thought process/capabilities of denial, in her mind, she wasn’t ‘playing good’, she was going back to the person that she was before she met Julian. She was going to live up to TC’s image of her, because she thought he deserved to have that woman, because he had helped save HER emotionally.

The book does not go into WHY TC needs Eve to be ‘perfect’ though. Why he demands it from her and not others. It was ever present though, even in the beginning of the relationship: his need for her to be ‘perfection’. I wish that the show would give an answer to that. I still suspect another woman in his life; one that let him down, but, there was no note of that in the book.

That would take us through the history of Julian/Eve/TC until the present.

What are the possibilities of the future?

TC

Will be destroyed when the truth about Eve is revealed. He will believe himself to be Eve’s cuckhold, and feel totally and completely betrayed. He will feel that his entire marriage has been a lie.

The lies will be compounded even more because of WHO Eve was involved with: JULIAN.

TC hates Julian. With a passion. More than any other person on the face of the Earth.
 
 

CAN TC forgive Eve for having had a relationship with Julian? I don’t see it happening. The Cranes have pillaged his family for generations, taking and taking. Those images of Julian Crane, who belongs to a family that humiliated his father, stole his family's heritage, and cut short his tennis career, ALSO having been with his wife? Having been there first? It cuts to the CORE of TC’s manhood. TC’s insistence that he WILL protect his family at all costs, no matter what happens, dare I say that it goes beyond just being a man his ‘castle’..that is has psychological underpinnings that go back to slavery, when the Black male was powerless to protect his family from anything- his children could be sold away from him at any instant.

And, Julian/Eve go to yet another sticky and ugly remnant of American History- Black men and their inability to do anything while the White Master came down to the slave quarters and ‘had his way’ with his women. Can anything make a man feel more impotent, than to know that he cannot help the woman he loves, and that another man can force himself upon her without impunity? I KNOW that Eve went with Julian of her own free will, but, TC won’t care, IMO. The thought of Eve being with the man he despises most? That mental image of her and Julian? Of the thought of Julian laughing at him behind his back? TC will feel Eve made a fool out of him. Humiliated him to the man he hates the most.

That ‘image’ was ever present in the dialogue between TC and Eve this week at the party when they discussed the ‘patient’. The words from TC, in describing the situation between Julian and the ‘patient’ was almost a throwback to another era. This is how TC thinks of Julian, which does not bode well for Eve in the least.

TC has believed that he has ‘protected’ his family from foul influences….that his home was a ‘safe’ place for him. With this revelation, even this would have been fouled by the Cranes. There would be nothing of his own that he has that hasn’t been damaged by them, which is why I think it would be very difficult for TC to forgive Eve. For me, in this story, it’s far from ‘ she had a relationship before she was married’. Everyone brings ‘baggage’ to a relationship, and I hope that I’ve shown TC’s with regards to this issue.

If Chad is Julian and Eve’s son, it will only add insult to injury. He loves this young man. Has tried to give him guidance, only to find out that he’s his wife’s son by his enemy. He’ll feel like the relationship with Chad was ‘stolen’ from him too.

Then, there’s his temper. You don’t know what TC’s going to do when he blows. Will he see nothing but red, and who will be hurt because of it.

TC is a man who appreciate the simple things in life: his marriage, his friends, his family. THESE are the things that he cherishes. When he loses his marriage and family, I don’t know what is going to happen to him.
 

Eve

Hurting a man like TC is the last thing she wants to do. She has lived for the past 20 years, trying to be a good and supportive wife to him. She loves TC, no doubt about that. The loss of her marriage will hurt her immensely.

Her marriage and family are the most important things in her life, and for a time, I imagine that she will be back to where she began: alone. When TC and her children turn on her, they will bring an ache to her that will be immense. Eve’s totally afraid of being alone.

Eve has looked to others to validate her existence and to tell her that she is worthy of love. I believe that possibly losing it all will be the beginning of Eve accepting HERSELF, with all her failings, and finding out that SHE is worthy of love because of who she is. Eve looks to her ‘titles’ – Doctor, Wife and Mother, to give her self-respect. I think her journey is to find it within herself.

Only then, will she have peace. And, begin to really get ‘love’. A love where she doesn’t have to lie, or live in fear. But, a place where she can ‘be’. Where the person understands her past and doesn’t condemn her for it.

Julian

I think Julian the coward has been on his own journey. Julian has lived in fear of Alistair his entire life. Reading the book made Alistair’s abuse even more clear.

But, I think that every instance that Julian has sold pieces of his soul to Alistair is building up to something.

A warm, fuzzy Julian?

No.

But, I think a Julian who WILL ultimately take on Alistair.

The show, outside of the Sheridan Death Fiasco, been pretty consistent with the Julian character.

Julian and Alistair may be partners ‘in crime’, but, there has always been a line between the two men.

It’s clear that Julian is not up for killing Luis. Time and time again he’s squirmed at the idea, and come up with reasons as to why it shouldn’t happen, while it doesn’t phase Alistair in the least.

It’s also clear that Julian is not up for Sheridan going to jail. Breaking up Shuis is one thing to Julian. Throwing his sister in jail or a mental institution is something else. And, it takes the threat of jail for Julian himself to get him to ‘come around’.

Remember when Julian went to ‘talk’ to Ethan and Sheridan at the Cottage? The words were Julian’s, but, his heart wasn’t in them. He could barely look either one of them in the eye. But, he was there on Alistair’s orders, and he could report back to Al that he had ‘done as Alistair had asked.’

This week, Julian was NOT happy about Sheridan spending time in the mental institution or any legal ramifications. It was all over his face. Last week, once Eve left the Library, Julian ‘talked the talk’ with Alistair, but, Ben Masters conveyed it perfectly that it was all for Alistair’s ‘ears’, and that Julian wasn’t into it at all.

Julian has come to the conclusion that his father doesn’t give a damn about him. He ‘Knows’ it, but, hasn’t fully and truly accepted it yet.

I think three things would forever change this, and totally turn Julian against Alistair:
a) Julian finding out that Alistair KNEW that Ethan wasn’t his son, and let him believe it anyway. Because, in Alistair’s mind, a White Imposter was better than a Black Crane. Alistair, who goes on and on about Bloodlines, would remove HIM, his SON, in favor of Ethan, an imposter.
b) Julian finding out that his father has held jail over his head…..and knowing all the time that Martin Fitzgerald was ALIVE. I’ll say it again, Alistair is willing to let BOTH his children believe that they ‘killed’ Martin, for his own reasons. Sheridan – to break up her and Luis, and Julian – in order to keep the ‘ultimate’ threat over his head: prison.
c) Julian finding out what his father intended for his son with Eve. I cannot see Julian accepting this in any form. There are lines that even Julian won’t cross, and to realize what Alistair intended for his son, I would hope would be it for Julian.

Whatever can be said about Julian, I believe he loves his children. I think Ethan can be Exhibit A. It’s written and spoken about on the show about Ivy’s devotion to Ethan. But, what about Julian’s. The simplest way to example Julian’s love for Ethan is to realize that in all the time this show has been on, Julian has NOT ONCE treated Ethan the way that Alistair treats him. Not once. That, to me, shows his love for Ethan.

And, we’ve seen Julian react to the mentioning of his son with Eve. He DOES feel loss where that child is concerned, and his feelings about it are compounded by the way that he let Eve down during her pregnancy. I believe Julian will feel happy that his son with Eve is alive. Oh, he might take a wrong turn, here and there, but, in that initial moment, he’ll feel joy, as a father would for a son. He’ll show more fatherly concern in that moment than Alistair has ever.

Julian’s utter shock at Eve’s confession of love was also very significant. How many people have ever told Julian that they loved him during his life? How many women? I think Eve was probably the first and only, because I doubt that Julian believes that he is loveable.

Knowing that he had her heart, changes the dynamics for Julian. Before now, he believed Eve was ‘like the others’, and only wanted the Crane Name and Money, which is what Julian has brought up when he reminds Eve of the times that they shared together, and that she had reserved her heart for TC only. That he had it at one time is sure to affect him.

Once Eve and Julian’s Son (hoping for Chad everyday) is revealed, that adds something else to this story. There were those who thought that Chad wouldn’t bond Julian and Eve, the way that Ethan is supposed to bond Sam and Ivy. I disagreed with the naysayers then, and I do now. Especially after these past couple of weeks. This son will help both his parents to heal; the son is a chance at a ‘redemption’ of sorts for Julian. Julian is a bad guy in a dark hat, yet even HE is disturbed by his behavior towards a pregnant Eve, and KNOWS that he SHOULD have done better. For Eve, he’s the chance at helping her get peace with herself. She blames herself for his death, and I have no doubt that she’ll blame herself for not ‘knowing’ the truth. Only her son’s love and forgiveness will help her heal her broken heart.

Julian, Eve and their son ARE a family, and I could see Julian using their son as justification as to why he has the ‘right’ to go after Eve again. There is an irony here. For all her love of TC, Eve doesn't 'trust' TC, because TC isn't in love with Eve - he's in love with a vision of perfection that he created. TC doesn't know the 'real' Eve. Julian does....and accepts her anway, faults and all. That will be a powerful 'weapon' for Julian, if he chooses to use it. None of this trio is perfect. They each have a place in ‘darkness’, and I think that’s why I find them so interesting.
 

SIP