Brace yourselves, readers. This week’s Royal Pains brought one of my greatest fantasies to life on the small screen, so I’m about to gush. 

One of the three storylines this week featured Evan taking on the role of faux-beau (also known as the fake boyfriend) to Paige, the girlfriend of Hank’s patient of the week.  Paige needs a faux-beau to ward off her parent’s suspicions that she’s secretly single because she hasn’t introduced her much talked about boyfriend to them.  The reason for this is that Paige’s boyfriend is considerably older than she is and she is worried about her parents’ reaction.  Frankly I’m surprised that in the world of Ashton and Demi, Tom and Katie, and well, Hugh Hefner and any of his playmates, this is still an issue.

Now remember that this show takes place in the Hamptons, so Paige’s parents have quite the standard for potential suitors and Evan’s casual sense of style wasn’t going to cut it. So you know what that meant, right? Right? Fully paid-for makeover.  

Paige took Evan to a shop in the town’s downtown core and her presence immediately got the attention of the shop owner.  The owner’s attentiveness was aptly rewarded when Paige told him that they’re there to get Evan any and everything he needed, no matter how expensive or absurd. Thus began the most glorious montage of Evan trying on expensive clothes, getting his nails done, his hair highlighted and even being delivered a pizza.

I want this. Just once in my life I want to sit down with a pizza and have fashion-knowledgeable people bring me expensive clothes and let me walk out of the store with an obscene number of bags without reaching for my credit card.  

This innocent, helpful gesture of Evan’s backfired slightly, however, as he started to realize that he wants to be a little less faux and a little more beau.  But Paige was too wrapped up in her own relationship to notice Evan’s longing glances.

I suspect these signs of maturation will continue as the season unfolds; in fact I know so, because Paulo Costanzo spoke about this when I interviewed him a few months back:

“[In the] second season the writers decided they wanted to evolve [Evan] past the superficial, kind of annoying first season logline of his character…so they really deepen him instantly into a sweet, sensitive [character] and kind of the heart of the show in many ways.”

Rock on, writers.  I like this side of Evan.  I like him not scheming or thinking about how he can take advantage of the Hamptons folk for the good of HankMed, so I hope Paige comes back in a few more episodes so we can see just how sincere and gosh darn cute Evan can get.