Joy and sorrow are often close together. And I don't mean when Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann has to sit next to Sahra Wagenknecht in "Markus Lanz". I mean the saddest week of the GNTM seasons on a regular basis: The week after the Thomas Hayo special. For months, we Hayonistas from the Anglicism avant-garde eagerly await the comeback of our attitude savior, only to fall back into Hayo melancholy just one episode later. By the way, the medical term for this is HAS (Hayonis-Absentia syndrome). Commonly called Hayo-Turkey. For many GNTM fans, every week without Thomas Hayo is now worse than gendering for Friedrich Merz.

Accordingly, the eleven remaining Runway Warrior Turtles throw themselves into the fight for the top ten. The first hurdle is a shoot that basically works like a casting for the new season of "Real Housewives of Los Angeles." In a luxury penthouse, so many swanky accessories of nouveau riche style deniers are piled up, as if a lottery millionaire had bought out Elton John's "bling bling" garage sale with his winnings. There are more designer handbags on the set than on Kim Kardashian's credit card statements. In addition, star photographer Yu Tsai is waiting for the Klum harem. For inexplicable reasons, he wears an old pink double-breasted suit and a dusky pink coat around his shoulders at 30 degrees. A bit like Olivia Jones when she goes to carnival as a mafia boss.

Always a safe bank of emotions

As a bonus, the annual Honey successor casting takes place in parallel. Boyfriends and family have secretly flown in. Always a safe bank of emotions on the open-ended Gisele-Oppermann-Heul scale. Or as model dean Heidi Klum says: "When family and friends come, it's always a motivational injection." What Zoten queen Heidi really means: GNTM has learned from past seasons, when the girls had to fight for the rare single rooms in the model villa after the arrival of their life companions. This year, each couple gets a suite in the shooting building for a week. So the chances of getting your first GNTM baby are better than ever.

Until then, however, the father-candidates of the potential top model babies introduce themselves first. The eye-catcher of the Boyfriends class of 2023 is Jeffrey, Anna-Maria's fiancé. The one-man boy band from the celebrity metropolis of Bochum scores with charm. And his accurate haircut. Although: The way he drapes himself in front of the skyline with a mischievous smile and waits for a young, pretty woman: I know horror films that started like this.

Marvin, on the other hand, Nina's boyfriend, looks like a cross between Eminem and Wayne Rooney. He has played through the romance bingo accurately and consequently has an engagement ring in his luggage. Of course, this immediately creates sheer horror at the receivers. After the energy crisis and climate collapse, another existential catastrophe may now be looming: Another live wedding in the GNTM finale. Thomas Gottschalk is presumably blocking all numbers of ProSieben employees out of shock to be on the safe side.

During the shoot we experience little surprising. Except, perhaps, Heidi's criticism of Olivia's modeling skills: "I can't hear you!" Olivia's career is basically over. You have to be able to hear models in photos. This is the be-all and end-all in the industry. Somajia, on the other hand, misses Thomas Hayo almost as much as I do: "I don't want to stay broken, I want to be rich!" Hopefully she has internalized the mindset of Jeremy Fragrance. Then she knows how to produce a perfume for 15 euros and sell it for 300 euros. Idiots take a lot of coal for scrap. In principle, like the advertising block marketing for GNTM.

"You just run into the void!"

When friends and family finally intervene, there are all sorts of touching moments. Coco's mother, for example, brought alphabet soup with her. So real alphabet soup to a boil. No transcript of Heidi Klum's introductions. This strengthens for the later Final Walk. Extra wide petticoats are worn there. Radius 2.50 meters. Katherine is the first to identify the dilemma: "You can't see your feet, you just run into the void!" In the long term, this is the lesser of two evils, as GNTM graduates traditionally do not run into the void and tend to think into the void.

The walks are correspondingly curious. Vivien, for example, consistently steps on the front of her petticoat tent as if they were presenting floor mats. Selma falls. Ida brings back memories of her school days: she gets stuck more often. Mariela even experiences a pasta moment. Guest judge Sofia Vergara sums it up: "In the beginning you were stunning, but up here you looked like you were wiping spaghetti out of the corner of your mouth." A sentence that I often hear when I meet former GNTM candidates for dinner. Olivia wants to score with unusual poses and presents the jury with a curtsey. Klum, however, is somehow angry that she was not crowned the new Queen of England at the weekend and appreciates this royal reverence with incomprehension.

Only Nina is worse off. After extensive criticism, she asserts that she would do everything much better if she got the chance again, but Heidi can't turn back the clock either. Presumably, she has her (attention!) Flux clumper not included. In the end, Sofia Vergara buries Nina with the verdict: "Something is wrong with her charisma." After a mixed shoot and a boom on the catwalk DAX, Heidi sends her into the arms of her neo-fiancé Marvin. And then both of them went home. With GNTM, on the other hand, everything is still right. The next broadcast is scheduled for Thursday at 20:15 p.m. Without Nina. But with me. See you then!