Volume I, Issue iii

November 1998

A Study in Character: Mac and Felicia by Adrian McConchie

The development of Mac and Felicia's relationship and eventual marriage on General Hospital has been an interesting testimony to soap opera--both on- and off-screen. Not only has their romance featured tried and true (or for some, clichéd) soap writing and plot devices, it has also been at the mercy of the shuffle of writing regimes during the relationship. In fact, for the past three years, their relationship could have found a place in the "What's Cooking on the Backburner" column here at the GHR.

Originally begrudging friends, Mac and Felicia's relationship developed into something more over time, when external circumstances intervened. Prior to their romance, they worked together at the Outback after Frisco decided to leave Felicia and Port Charles. Their friendship was a charming, comedic one that would lay the groundwork for their eventual pairing. Essentially, they bugged each other. Or, more accurately, Felicia bugged Mac. It was clear, however, that as much as Felicia's singing and incessant rambling was not to Mac's taste, he was charmed by her refreshing outlook on life, and her work behind the bar, and she was just as happy chipping away at his senses.

It wasn't until Felicia returned to Port Charles after leaving for Texas that the two characters became a prospective couple. Behind the scenes, the work had already begun on a well-plotted suspense story with many arcs that would eventually lead to their romantic pairing. Arriving on the doorstep of the Brownstone with a case of amnesia, Felicia met the residents of Port Charles for the 'first time'. Amongst her friends to visit her was Mac Scorpio.

While still suffering from amnesia, Felicia began dating Doctor Ryan Chamberlain and when Felicia and Mac worked together to attempt to solve the mystery of her past and bring an end to her loss of memory, Ryan grew protective of Felicia. While saving Robin from choking and looking out for Maxie, and hence proving himself as a respectable man of Port Charles, Ryan still couldn't convince Mac of his sincerity.

When Felicia announced Mac was travelling to Texas to investigate her past, Ryan sabotaged Mac's plane. While Ryan was certainly jealous, he was also fearful his past in Texas would be discovered, together with his part in Felicia's amnesia. Felicia decided to join Mac on the trip and after surviving the crash of Mac's plane, the couple shared an intimate, steamy moment in the abandoned barn of a cornfield. For all their charming sparring and John J. York and Kristina Wagner's charisma and comedic ability, the moment where Felicia sponged down a half naked Mac was pure chemistry. Mac had begun feeling protective of Felicia and that sparkle in his eye was never brighter when watching Felicia, naively chattering away or singing, from afar.

Felicia, meanwhile, took great pride in continuing to pull Mac's strings and had a remarkable record of not noticing Mac's more frequent admiring glances. Mac was smitten, although he was loath to admit it. He became more protective of Felicia as she began to remember witnessing a murder in Texas, and slowly became suspicious of Ryan's motives. Meanwhile, in chilling scenes, the audience was learning that Ryan was the man Felicia saw murdering a woman in Texas. After Ryan invited her to a secluded cabin, Felicia remembered Ryan was the killer she witnessed in Texas, and Ryan soon realized he couldn't let Felicia return to Port Charles. In a superb moment of drama, the audience was along for the ride as Felicia grew manic and stabbed Ryan after he attempted to kill her. Mac was too late to save Felicia from the violence, but he wasn't too late to act as a fervent supporter of her innocence when the couple returned to Port Charles.

Up until this point, Felicia and Mac's relationship was purely platonic. Felicia did not entertain the thought of a romance with Mac, although it was rather more obvious that Mac was beginning to fall for Felicia. The collective ingredients of an intelligent, suspenseful storyline, entertaining dialogue abundant with verbal sparring between Mac and Felicia, and the beguiling charm of the actors combined beautifully to lay the groundwork for the more romantic and obvious pairing that was still to come. Just as they are today, Felicia and Mac's romance was refreshingly honest, sincere and above all, natural.

As the Ryan storyline continued, Felicia found herself at the mercy of the assistant DA when she pressed charges against Felicia for the attempted murder of Ryan. After being convicted, it was Mac that rescued Felicia from the mental institution she had been committed to. It was during this stage where the relationship became more concrete, and the roles of Mac as guardian and Felicia as the naïve heroine were more deeply defined.

The romance shifted to more obvious, soap staple plotting when the couple went on the run from the law and attempted to prove Felicia's innocence. Circumstances often resulted in the couple having to share a room, and usually a bed, and although the bantering continued, the pair shared only a few moments of romance between their attempts to escape the law. There were some charming moments where the actors' talent and chemistry shone through what could have been tired plot devices. Felicia thinking she had concussed Mac after hitting him while practicing self-defense and subsequently giving Mac mouth-to-mouth only to find he was faking was a nice touch. Felicia's tantrum when she discovered Mac was joking was even more entertaining.

After the rather longwinded plot to expose Ryan Chamberlain concluded, the couple was finally free to focus on a pending relationship. By this time, almost a year had passed since Felicia returned to Port Charles, and the slow build in the couple's romance continued. Moments when the couple were drawn into a near-kiss were routinely interrupted by delivery men or well-meaning friends calling in, and had this viewer in excruciating anticipation of some sign of cementing the relationship of what were now two of my favourite characters.

If Felicia and Mac's romance was most successful, natural, healthy and hence realistic during times when external forces were more sensational and based in fiction (Ryan's homicidal stalking of Felicia, for example), it's fitting that it was tested most severely when the realities of life intervened. After surviving another escape by Ryan (who was captured at their wedding which was aborted), the couple faced their most challenging hardship when Maxie became ill.

As Felicia's daughter became more and more ill, and Felicia more frustrated by a lack of diagnosis of the illness, Felicia and Mac faced their most trying and heart-breaking time as a couple. In some of Kristina Wagner's best performances to date, she portrayed a woman whose first priority in life, her daughter's health, was at stake. John J. York's Mac was a heartbreaking study of a man who, up until this point, could do something to help the woman he loved. But in this case he was at the mercy of the doctors of General Hospital, and there was little he could do to help Felicia.

As Maxie became more ill, Felicia became more distraught. Closing herself off from Mac and the rest of the world, she stayed by her daughter's bed for weeks, while Mac could only look on in pain and guilt at Maxie and Felicia. In a touching scene, Mac begged Felicia to come for a walk outside but she was too afraid to leave Maxie. The inextinguishable need for Mac to comfort and help Felicia was tested to the point of frustration as the two grew apart. Just as their romance was a natural progression, so too was the deconstruction of the couple's relationship. In bittersweet, honest writing, the arrival of Frisco was the catalyst for the dissolution of the romantic pairing.

In one of the more surprising and anti-establishment moves by the writing team at the time, a couple which had so carefully and painstakingly been built up over the past year was abruptly separated. While one's first instinct may have been to object to the destruction of a romance that one had invested so much in over the past year, it was ultimately futile. Why?

Just as this pairing was a natural and realistic progression of friendship to romance, the return of Frisco was an achingly honest moment in that it was so true to character and so natural--it was painfully obvious to the audience, to Felicia, to Frisco, and especially to Mac, that Felicia and Mac would never have what Frisco and Felicia had. In a beautiful scene, amongst the turmoil of the transplant of BJ's heart to Maxie, Mac told Felicia that they would never have what she and Frisco had, and that he couldn't live like that.

As refreshing and rewarding as this storyline twist was, it would ultimately be the genesis for Felicia and Mac to be relegated to ill-fated romances (with Tom Hardy and Katherine Bell, respectively) and subsequent time on the backburner for both characters. During this time, the writing regime continued to give the actors scraps of story, and their relationship rested solely on the shoulders of more verbal sparring--but this time without the foundation of a potential romance or even a deeper friendship. It failed. Despite the proven ability of the actors, the intent and the dialogue was unconvincing and awkward.

Just as the more honest romance of Mac and Felicia (and their break up) worked well under a writing regime that focused on realistic, tragic storylines (BJ's heart, Stone's HIV, Monica's breast cancer), as the writing teams changed, and Port Charles became a darker, more dramatic and arguably less realistic place, the characters of Mac and Felicia progressively became isolated from the rest of the storylines.

Fortunately, a half-hearted attempt at re-teaming the characters provided the groundwork for a second try at romance for Mac and Felicia. The arrival of an imposter, James, who took the place of Mac while he was kidnapped, and his interaction with Felicia changed the way Mac and Felicia related to each other. Smooth but hotheaded James fell Felicia and attempted to win her over with an impassioned display of romantic overtures. Felicia, who eventually discovered it was an imposter, found herself missing the quirks that she had claimed annoyed her about her former partner and fiancé. Mac, alternatively, learned from James that Felicia could be attracted by a less protective and more romantic pursuer.

As the James/Tess storyline was appropriately and abruptly wrapped up, the groundwork that was laid so many years prior, together with the chemistry of the two actors saw Mac and Felicia come from obscurity to a new level in their relationship. Again, unrealistic and fictional external forces (pretending they were a couple to discover the reason for Mac's kidnapping) brought with it a delightfully realistic romance between the characters.

In some refreshingly touching scenes, each character began to realize their denials that they were again falling for each other were in fact illusory. As they slowly came to comprehend their true feelings for each other and face their love for each other, the characters, and the audience, were finally treated to the long awaited wedding of Mac and Felicia. And, as usual, it was in rather abnormal circumstances that this normal (by soap's standards, at least) couple tied the knot.

Ultimately that is the charm of Mac and Felicia. Beyond the characters and actors' charm, they are a couple we can all relate to, and that is a breath of fresh air in the dark and tumultuous world of Port Charles where ulterior motives, violence and dishonesty take precedence to good-old-fashioned-romance.