So, with the saga of Danielle and Mohamed on the shelf for another indeterminate amount of time, it’s time to move on to the third season of TLC’s 90 Day Fiance. I’ll admit a large part of the amusement of watching the show is trying to play the game of identifying which couple(s) ultimately fails, leading to an unhappy ending for one of the Americans on the show, and injecting a whole lot of hypothetical narrative to which people from another country are putting up with this farce in pursuit of a green card.
Last season, I declared that it was a season designed to have sure-fire failures, but much like the first season, every single couple, including Danielle and Mohamed ended up tying the knot.
I’m not going to make that same mistake again, because as long as the cameras are rolling, and they’re part of this show, every single one of these couples is undoubtedly going to successfully get married, regardless of what occurs six, eight, or ten months after the cameras are gone. Nobody wants to be the person who gets dumped on cable television, and even TLC producers aren’t as heartless as to let such occur if it can be helped.
Regardless of matrimony, it doesn’t mean that some of these people aren’t doing this solely for the green card, and have secret agendas of securing safe passage into the United States before launching their mother plans of getting out when the coast is clear.
That being said, along with providing editorial commentary about each of the couples, instead of trying to determine the success/failure rate of each couple, I’m just going to put down odds that they’re doing it solely for the green card.
Interestingly, both the Philippines and Colombia are represented, for the third time each, in three seasons. Either they have high numbers of green card hunters, or TLC really likes going back to those wells for couples.
Mark (Maryland) + Nikki (Philippines) – Mark is 58 years old. Nikki is 19 years old. Elise, Mark’s live-in daughter, is 21 years old. Yeah, this is totally work out just fine and dandy. Bonus train wreck information: Mark was previously married to a mail-order bride, also from the Philippines, who is the mother to Elise and Mark’s three other children. Basically with all this considered, Mark and Nikki are easily going to be the unanimous favorites to be the Danielle and Mohamed Award for Biggest Train Wreck Couple of the Season winners. Green card alert: 100%.
Melanie (Pennsylvania) + Devar (Jamaica) – Melanie went to Jamaica for a vacation, and met Devar on the beach, and suddenly they’re engaged. No offense to Melanie, but she’s a hard 6 at best, no matter how much of a workout buff she is; however compared to Devar, who’s basically a Jamaican Adonis, the red flags go up for the green card alert. I feel bad for Melanie who’s a single mother to an 11 year old, because ultimately she wants a man that clearly is physically fit and might be a good stepfather to her kid, but Devar is reeking of a man, who is trying to escape the general Jamaican poverty, where he might be able to make some US dollars to funnel back to his three sisters, whom he had been living with prior to engagement. Green card alert: 100%.
Fernando (Florida) + Carolina (Colombia) – Now there’s only so much I can hypothesize here, because this couple has yet to be introduced on the show at the time I’m writing this, and everything I know is based on the “Meet Fernando and Carolina” video available from TLC’s website. But Fernando is a 39-year old living with his parents in Florida, while Carolina is a nubile 25-year old from Colombia. Based on the length of the video, Fernando is a micro-managing personality who loves to hear himself speak and is freely willing to point out criticisms of his fiancee that he’s probably spent like two days with, such as their gap in age. Also possibly gay. Why Carolina is willing to change her life and come to America for a dude like this, to live with him and his parents is beyond me other than anything more than the pursuit of the green card. Green card alert: 80%.
Kyle (Louisiana) + Noon (Thailand) – Much like Fernando and Carolina, they haven’t yet been introduced in the show, but it’s still easy to make a prediction based on the information about them that is already available. Kyle is a slacker bartender from New Orleans, who brings Noon over from Thailand. Now it’s easy to make jokes about what kind of slum places like Bangkok are, but if Noon thought she was going to be upgrading by moving to America, she’s sorely disappointed, when she moves in with Kyle, who lives in a grungy, roach-filled apartment; with a roommate. Their preview also shows Noon’s general disdain of walking around the drunken French Quarter, and watching drunk chicks slurring and trying to hit on Kyle while he’s trying to bartend. Although they will undoubtedly get married by show’s end, there’s no way she’s sticking around when the cameras are gone. Green card alert: 60%.
Josh (Idaho) + Aleksandra (Russia) – Josh is extremely Mormon and lives with his entire family, which for a Mormon family isn’t really that large. Alessandra is a former go-go dancing party girl who has supposedly found God in the book of Latter Day Saints. Although this sounds like a recipe for a potential train wreck, the highly-religious people on 90 Day Fiance have been typically successful. The drama will be minimal and artificial, often forced, around her previous lifestyle versus modest Mormon beliefs, possible home sickness, and the guaranteed forced separation prior to marriage, but they’re so young and stupid that they’ll probably work out. Both are kind of derpy, which makes them shoe-ins to fill the slot vacated by Danny and Amy in season 2. But who knows if Aleksandra is putting on the mother of facades in order to get a green card? Green card alert: 30%.
Loren (New York) + Alexei (Israel) – Loren met Alexei during her Birthright trip to Israel, and right before she left to go home, Alexei proposed. She’s kind of a princess-ey type and sort of obnoxious to listen to speak, and clearly has her priorities straight, since Alexei’s physique was a huge factor in her attraction to him. But something about the whole Jewish connection, as well as Loren’s overprotective father who vows to break Alexei if he breaks Loren’s heart makes me think that this just might be genuine, and that they’ll not only get married, but probably last. If anything at all, based on Loren’s vapid personality, she would likely be the higher flight risk than Alexei, but it’s always difficult to discount a person willing to take the plunge into engagement within the span of just 10 days. Green card alert: 10%.
The bottom line is that no matter how much we may or may not want to see a colossal failure happen, if Danielle and Mohamed can tie the knot, then every single one of these couples is going to succeed in at least tying the knot. It’s what happens when the cameras stop rolling, is when it might just begin to finally get truly interesting.
