Lovers Anonymous has to be one of the most original web series to come out of Netflix Turkey. This is a story of two love/relationship experts who are forced to work with each other, and have different opinions of how to solve any crisis they come across in their clients’ lives. The duo work in a love hospital and have vast knowledge of the subject. Dealing with the patients is the hard part, and their struggles form a bulk of the show.
Cem
Halit Ergenç is Cem, the love expert who has never shown his real face to the public, thanks to his body image issues from a young age. Cem has been a relationship expert for many years, and hence now has transformed into an ‘guru’ who runs a hospital and treats love as a disease. Cem has serious intimacy and trust issues, ever since he witnessed his mother cheating on his father. Cem has his own therapist who insists that he try to have a decent relationship with his mother, but he is struggling to do so. He could never forgive his mother, yet he can’t keep her away from his life. Cem is thrown aback when he meets Hazal, whose thought process about solving love and relationship issues is the opposite to how he operates in his line of work. Cem is the old-school guy, whereas Hazal is a modern woman, and she believes in treating people with dignity. Cem has never been in love, not since his ex-girlfriend Izlem did a despicable thing to him. Will Hazal change his perspective? That is what the show is about.
Hazal
Funda Eryiğit portrays the role of Hazal, a counselor by qualification and experience; she is the antithesis of what Cem is. She and Cem do not get along from the start. Her father, who owns the ‘Love Hospital,’ forces her to work with Cem to take the business forward and use a new method to treat patients. Hazal’s approach is based on her studies, which are much more modern. Cem is afraid of the fact that Hazal would take over, leaving him out of work in no time. Hazal has her own past, and she has been running away from it. The reason she burrows herself in work is to forget her past that involved being in a romantic relationship with her college professor. The end of the affair is what caused her to leave her college and pursue working as a counselor without a degree. Hazal is confident about her methods and does not shy away from putting Cem on the back foot.
Hazal has abandonment issues since her father and mother were divorced. Her father was busy establishing his business while she kept waiting for him to show up for her. This could be connected to Hazal having a relationship with an older man to get rid of the abandonment issues she faced growing up. The breakup had a severe impact on her, and hence she chose to remain tight-lipped about it and sacrifice all of her time to work at the ‘Love Hospital’ and maintain a strictly formal relationship with her father.
Muzaffer
Iştar Gökseven appears in the last episode of season one of Lovers Anonymous as a fashion designer running his label with his wife. His wife is a fashion designer herself, and they seem to be dealing with a conundrum that only Cem and Hazal can solve. Muzaffer and his wife want to break up, since they have been married for the last thirty years. They are clearly a toxic couple who break up and make up often, and that has been their pattern in their marriage. Muzaffer has gotten really comfortable with her and mentioned breaking up one too many times. The couple needs to find a legit reason to end matters to avoid the stress of recuperating and making up.
Mucella
Ülkü Duru, as Mucella, Muzaffer’s wife, is also a fashion designer, as mentioned above, and she is tired of their pattern of toxicity in their marriage. Just like Muzaffer, she wants to find an actual reason to end their marriage and run the fashion house as business partners. Mucella, just like Muzaffer, is unable to accept how easily they manipulate their marriage and take each other for granted. The breakup seems like an aphrodisiac that fuels them to come back together. Hazal and Cem are to pick up on the key point of difference between them and use that aspect to break them up.
Leyla
Zerrin Niscanci is Leyla, Cem’s mother, who has had a profound effect on her adult son. As per the flashbacks, she was never happy in her marriage with Cem’s father, and as a seven-year-old, he could not process that. Cem was a witness to his mother kissing some other man who was not his father, thus causing a rift between him and Leyla. Leyla is still a part of Cem’s life and goes out of her way to be in touch with him. Cem avoids her for obvious reasons, but Leyla tries to get him to converse with her to clear the air between the two. Initially, Leyla is seen as a mother trying to have a normal relationship with her son, but as the show progresses, Cem reveals some of the perturbing details of his life that involved his mother, which meant he could not trust her anymore. Leyla is a mother who has her flaws and does not accept them and apologize for them.
Izlem
Izlem is the first and only woman Cem ever loved. This was the time when he had a bigger body, and his mother, Leyla, was constantly body shaming him. Izlem convinced him to get liposuction, and ever since, he couldn’t bring himself to be in love with her. Izlem comes back as his patient many years later, and Cem does not accept her apology. Even though she has conveyed her love for him many times, Cem has no reason to believe her because of their past. Izlem is the reason Cem has major trust issues to the point he refuses to see love as an emotion but as a disease that needs to be treated. Everyone wants to find out who Cem falls in love with.