Rewatch

There are some favourite storylines that I can rewatch so many times. Fervid from season 3 I have to watch at least one time a year in whole, but I watch the fovourite clips every now and then. This Christmas I discovered the Cenny, or Lenny and Carsten, a storyline from the German soap Gute Zeiten, Schlechte Zeiten, and I fell in love! I did nothing but watch, live and breath these two boys for the whole Christmas break. There is so much to love! Now I have already rewatched it. I just had to.

Carsten Reimann and Lenny Cöster.

Leonard "Lenny" Cöster were played by Alexander Becht and Carsten Reimann by Felix Isenbügel. The characters Lenny and Carsten met in the army, Lenny were a conscript and Carsten some kind of officer or something. Lenny had a hard time in the army because he was bullied for being gay. At the time he didn't admit for himself that ha was gay, and I am not sure that the writers even had decided him to be, because he had a girlfriend, Emily, that he claimed to be in love with, and he also had a previous storyline where his father thought him to be gay, which Lenny used just to bugger him off. His father was a major homphobe back then.

Lenny and Carsten in the army.

When Lenny was bullied, beaten and even urinated on, Carsten was there to support him. It is so painful to see how Lenny suffers. But he gets to leave the army and starts boxing instead, just to be able to defend himself. And it proves that he has lot's of talent in boxing. One day he gets in a fight in the street and who shows up if not Carsten. He is impressed by Lennys fighting skills and asks him to join his "clique", the gang, that is some kind of fight club. And the gang meet up with other "cliques" and they beat eachother up until they bleed. Very romantic. But then Carsten realizes that Lenny is really cute and there is no return.

Carsten is touching Lenny stealthily.

One day at the beach Carsten is touching Lenny when he thinks Lenny is asleep, and Lenny enjoys it, even though he try not to. And then the ball is rolling. After a fight between Lenny and Carsten and two other guys Lenny and Carsten end up half naked in the bathroom and yet again there is some touching. And this is a really strong and kind of violent scene. I love it!

Felix Isenbügel and Alexander Becht half naked.

After that there is a quite classical scenario for a gay guy in denial. Lenny tries as hard as he can to resist Carsten, and Carsten is suffering badly. These kind of classical stories almost always contains a certain amount of abuse and violence, like pushing and shouting: "I am not gay", you know what I mean. But this story, contains a lot of abuse actually. Lenny and Carsten gets in more than one fight and at last, Lenny even betrays Carsten and asks Carsten to meet him, just to bring the gang to beat him up. But in the last moment he gets in to the fight and tries to stop it. The result is that both Lenny and Carsten ends up in hospital.

Lenny feels remorse.

After that, Carsten believes that it was Lenny who beat him up, and of course he thinks that he is not a suitable boyfriend so he leaves Berlin for Barcelona and poor Lenny goes after him, very wounded, but can't find him. But Carsten returns for a short visit to his granny in hospital, and of course he bumps into Lenny. Tumult occurs, Lenny tries to convince Carsten that he loves him and finally, after a real talk, Carsten forgives Lenny, just like that, and they can finally start their relationship.

A lovely kiss in the street.

But. There is no sun without clouds, and Lenny just accidently threatened a liqour shop owner with a broken bottle and robbed him back when he felt the most shitty (before the Carsten beat-up) and now he has to pay. One year in jail is his punishment and the whole family is devastated. The most annoying thing is that after waiting more than a year for anything real to happen between the guys, it takes less than two months before Lenny leaves for prison. Some kind of an anti-climax. But Carsten stays in the series, moves out and moves in to the Cöster's, becomes Lenny's little sisters love interest (bizarre), and he even nearly dies when a ceiling falls down. Of course we enjoy watching the great character Carsten in GZSZ, but it is just not the same without Lenny. But four months later, Lenny gets furlough for a couple of days and the couple can be reunited.

Lenny and Carsten being cuter than ever.

With longer hair and more optimism Lenny returns for a couple of lovely days with Carsten and his family. A few days after returning to jail he gets to leave prison to serve the rest of his sentence by working in a social project that Carsten arrange for him. Finally, Lenny is out from jail, in freedom, but unfortunately the social project is in Rosenheim, a small whistle-stop in Bavaria, that is in the south of Germany. That is very far from Berlin! Bugger. When we finally gets the Lenny and Carsten reunion they have to move away. Of course Carsten is leaving Berlin with his love. And since then, in august 2010, we haven't really heard from them. Bugger again.

The happy and the long-haired Lenny and Carsten.

I really love love love this storyline. I have realized that the storys that I fall for the most are the ones with lot's of denial and with lots of fighting against the feelings, a certain amount of abuse, and with a an ending. All storys have to have an ending, but some of them, like Christian and Oliver, is harrowing on forever it seems (even though even Chrolli now seems to have come to an end). I can't really explain why I like these sort of storylines, but I do. And this storyline continues everything. GZSZ is told to be a darker soap, with darker colours and settings than Unter Uns, Verbotene Liebe and Alles was zählt. Maybe that's why I like it. And it really seems that every character in GZSZ has some sort of agony.

Another thing that makes me really like the Lenny and Carsten storyline is the acting. Alexander Becht and Felix Isenbügel is really doing a good job with their role interpretations, especially when they are crying. They are really believable when showing emotions, and there are lots of emotions. Just saying.

Alexander Becht.

Felix Isenbügel.

Felix Isenbügel actually said to RTL that he could imagine coming back to GZSZ. But not without Lenny, I am telling you! And now I guess you all think: "Was that a happy ending?". Yes it was. They are rare, but they do exist.