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“Hand aufs Herz” recap: Talking About a Revolution

My foray into the world of Hand Aufs Herz has been happening for less than a week and already I’ve had more than one call me but love, and I’ll be new baptized! moment. It’s not just that the show is an absurdly good time; it’s that the fandom surrounding the show is globally magnificent. And nice. Good heavens, how nice you people are.

Here’s my favorite thing I’ve witnessed so far: When I was trolling around trying to find subtitled clips to piece together the whole story, I saw a YouTube comment exchange where an Italian viewer needed subtitles, but there were no German/Italian-speakers hanging around in the comments. So someone translated the scene from German to Spanish, and then someone else translated it from Spanish to Italian. The Internet can be a really shitty place, full of anger and entitlement, but not you Hand Aufs Herz guys. You guys are the sweetest.

It’s like, you know how sometimes you have to watch someone else love something before you can love it yourself? That’s Hand Aufs Herz. Spreading the love for the sake of the love. And spreading it in like a dozen languages.

So when we last left Jenny and Emma, Emma was like, “What’s your problem?” And Jenny was like, “My problem is that I’m not kissing your mouth right now.” And so she did kiss Emma’s mouth and when she walked away, Emma smiled like the sun after a storm.

The next day, Pink sings about falling in love for the first time while Emma chats to her bestie, Luzi, (I love Luzi) about Jenny. It’s an amazing conversation. Ostensibly, they’re talking about how Hotte is smitten with Jenny. Luzi goes, “How could Jenny ever be into anyone like us? She’s from London. Why, I could even imagine her kissing a girl as an experiment the way she kissed Hotte as an experiment! That’s just the way they kiss in London, no regard for feelings or gender. Just kissing and kissing and kissing all day long. Everyone on the street kissing everyone else on the street. The English, man. Am I right?”

Jenny chases down Emma at her locker and wonders if their kiss made her stumble around in a punch-drunk stupor or anything. The answer is yes, but Emma tries to play it cool (like one of those mythical Londoners), so she goes, “Nah, whatevs. I kissed my mailman this morning, so.” Jenny smiles and says, “Well, it blew me away.”

Have I mentioned Lucy Scherer’s dimples yet? No? Let me do that now: Look at Lucy Scherer’s dimples.

And guess what? According to my friend Brooke, Lucy is like 30 years old which means she’s my age which means she’s my new girlfriend. Danke, Deutschland!

Emma doesn’t have time to worry about how she’s going deaf on account of the thudding of her heart in her ears, because Principal Gotting has decided to give an impromptu school-wide exam in … 15 seconds! Surprise! Emma freaks the f–k out, and Jenny’s all, “Sometimes things happen that you weren’t expecting, but that doesn’t make them bad.”

Only, the surprise exam is bad because Emma’s meant to be answering essay questions about US Civil Rights history, but instead, she’s doodling hearts all over her exam book and writing “Emma and Jenny,” “Jenny and Emma,” “Mrs. Emma Hartman” in the margin. Actually, mostly she’s just sneaking peeks at Jenny and wishing she could either: a) Run for her life. Or b) Clear her desk with one fell swoop of her arm and pin Jenny down on it for some more of that “experimental” snogging.

Shockingly, Emma fails the exam.

The next thing that happens is almost as amazing as the time Hanna got hit by a car on Pretty Little Liars. When the exam results come back, Principal Gotting wrangles up everyone who failed – just, like, sends these teachers around with a list, going, “Will the following morons please gather your things and come with me?” – and stashes the students in a supply closet. The way the announcement is made, you’d think they were hauling the kids off to prison or something. When Emma’s name is added to the Dumb Student list, Jenny loses it. She starts shouting about, “F–k you and your test! You won’t get away with this s–t! I’M FROM LONDON!”

After class, Jenny finds Emma and tries to console her, but Emma’s not having it. She goes, “I would have nailed that test if I hadn’t been thinking about nailing you!” And then she storms off to the cafeteria where it suddenly costs a million Euros to buy a sandwich, and also there is announcement on the bulletin board explaining that Dumb Students can’t participate in extra-curricular activities, which means Emma is out of STAG.

It gets even worse when Emma tries to find a place to sit. Regina George and Gretchen Weiners are like, “Only people who aren’t idiots can sit at our table.” Jenny sees it going down from across the cafeteria and she hops across six tables and literally goes, “I am going to count to three and then I am going to murder you and bury you under the volleyball court.”

Gretchen and Regina flee Jenny’s lesbian wrath. Jenny tells Emma: “Don’t worry, darling. If anyone else bothers you, I will rain down some kung-fu on them. It’s something every Londoner knows how to do, kung-fu.”

Emma goes to visit Mr. Heisig, the hottest guidance counselor on the face of the earth, to try to sort out the Dumb Kids and Potential Lesbian thing. Mr. Heisig walks to his filing cabinet and produces a preprinted brochure called Coming Out At School: Folllow Your Heart. It’s amazing. It’s the most amazing thing I have ever seen. In American schools, I think you get expelled if you even look at another girl. (Just kidding, you only get expelled if you try to take another girl to prom.) Mr. Heisig says he’ll also try to sort out the thing about Emma getting transferred to St. Brutus’ Secure Centre for Incurably Criminal Girls.

Emma has a chance to get back into class with regular kids. All she has to do is give a presentation – immediately! – on the American Civil Rights movement. Emma’s feeling pretty awesome about her speech, until Jenny arrives late to class and has a seat right in front of her. You know how people are always saying if you get nervous speaking in front of a crowd, you should imagine the crowd naked? That idea does not work well for Emma. She looks at Jenny and starts stuttering and blushing and practically fainting on the spot.

Gotting is like, “Right, you’re even stupider than I thought. Back to the cupboard under the stairs with you.” And, once again, Jenny threatens to throttle someone for even having the nerve to even frown at her girlfriend.

Out in the hallway, Emma snaps at Jenny: “I cannot function when you’re around me!” And Jenny explains it’s because the function Emma wants to be performing around Jenny is not taking tests and giving speeches. No, making monkey is the function Emma wants to be performing, and Jenny wants it too and they could have something really special if Emma would just calm down. Emma says she doesn’t want to be special, she wants to be normal.

And Jenny watches her clomp away. Again.

It’s not just the price of sandwiches that has gone up under the Gotting Regime. Now all the kids that aren’t morons are required to cough up 200 euros for a field trip, and if they refuse to do it, they’re getting shunted to the supply closet with the rest of the chimpanzees. (Also, I think Hotte says that the field trip is to a Scientology recruiting center, which is the greatest thing plotline I have ever heard of.) The students have had it up to here with Gotting. In London when people want something, they strike. And who’s from London, where strikes are as rampant as kissing strangers? Jenny! And so she is going to lead a school-wide revolution – set to the soundtrack of Tracy Chapman‘s “Revolution” – which includes taking over the actual school building.

Just in case you weren’t already convinced of Jenny’s badassery, let me also point out that she will be leading this revolution … in her pajamas. Seriously, someone explain her NEON PINK pants to me.

In the middle of the students’ sign-painting campaign, the electricity goes off. It gets really cold really fast when the sun sets. Emma’s teeth are chattering like some kind of hypothermic chipmunk because she refuses to get under Jenny’s blanket with her. It’s a magic blanket. It’s the thickness of a towel, but Jenny is wrapped up in it and she’s not cold at all. When she finally convinces Emma to use, like, one corner of it to cover up her foot, Emma stops shivering too. They stare at each other, the way they do, and Emma goes, “I, um, have something I want to tell you. You might not want to hear it, but-” And then she lunges forward and finally kisses Jenny again.

They kiss and kiss and kiss and kiss and Jenny’s like, “Are you still cold?” And Emma’s all, “I am the opposite of cold.” And then Hotte wakes up and is like, “Oh, and you’re also the opposite of straight!”

Emma asks him not to tell anyone because it was just another in a long series of experiments she’s been doing on Jenny’s lips. (Soft? Check. Sweet? Check. Nibble-able? Check.) Hotte agrees to keep it quiet even as he explains that he never thought of kissing his best mate as a scientific experiment.

Back in the common room, Emma returns to the magic blanket and starts explaining to Jenny about the political and social ramifications of saying you’re gay. Jenny laughs sweetly at her and says, “Have you been memorizing a coming out brochure or something?” Which: Once I realized I was gay, I ordered about 25 books from Amazon and read them all just to make sure I had when it took to be a lesbian. (Likes girls? Check. Likes sex with girls? Check. Likes rosy lips, hard nipples, bums, soft thighs, tits and fanny, you know? Check.) (Oh, if only Skins had been on the air when I was a teenager.) (Or if YouTube had been a thing and I could have tracked down Hand Aufs Herz!)

Here’s my favorite part so far. Emma is like, “Am I gay or am I bi or what?” And Jenny smiles and says, “You’re Emma.” It’s exactly what Hanna said to Emily on Pretty Little Liars: “You were Emily with Ben and now you’re Emily with Maya. We love Emily.” And it’s exactly what Nikki said to Helen on Bad Girls: “You’re not abnormal, you’re not normal. You’re just you. You do what you want, what you feel.” That’s good stuff ’cause that’s true stuff, and I love it, love it, love it when TV says it out loud. It doesn’t matter who you love; you’re you.

Jenny and Emma kiss some more when they’re preparing the signs for hanging. And then they kiss some more in the chorus room – except this time, Timo walks in and catches them.

Emma pushes Jenny away and says, “How dare you!” trying to make it sound like Jenny was assaulting her. (Which: If you’re not into it, Emma, I’m happy to let Jenny “assault” me like that.) Jenny chases her down and says, “That was super uncool. We could be so good together. I won’t let you down. But you’ve gotta be a little bit brave.”

Emma isn’t feeling very brave at all. When she listened to Champman’s “Revolution,” all she heard was, “Don’t you know you better run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run.” And so she does.

There’s more to Jenny and Emma’s story; I’ve just got to wait until the subtitled clips are available so I can recap some more! In the meantime, I hope it will thrill you as much as it thrilled me to know that Creator/Writer-Producer Petra Bodenbach knows how much you love this couple, and, in fact, commented on the previous recap:

And to all who are afraid that this love story will come to an end soon — don?t be. There is so much more for Jenny and Emma to come: new enemies will arrive, secrets will be revealed, and some breathtaking new experiences will be made. So relax and enjoy the ride…it?s worth it!

This whole fandom is a breathtaking new experience. By the way, I keep seeing people around the Internet abbreviating Hand Aufs Herz like “HAH.” You know who else’s initials are HAH? Heather Anne Hogan. Coincidence – or destiny?

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