Just finished up watching 90 Day Fiance: The Other Way, on the greatest network in the history of television, TLC, and I must say that TLC did well putting together yet another classic train wreck that I so very thoroughly enjoyed. Just when I was beginning to think that the classic 90DF formula was getting a little stale, considering how formulaic the show had become, with a woman from South America, a woman from the Pacific Islands, one guy with deeply conflicting beliefs than the American girl’s family, the couple with the massive age difference, and then the one layup couple, that usually had a religious crutch to stabilize them throughout the show, TLC flips the script and jettisons a bunch of Americans to other countries for some fresh perspective and cringey Americans being Americans behavior.
Anyway, kudos to TLC for breathing some new life into the series. Not that it would’ve stopped me from watching in the first place, and at the time I’m writing this, I’d already seen a preview for 90DF-Prime, which is supposedly going to be premiering soon, which gives me little time to enjoy the aftermath of The Other Way before we embark in another season of regular 90DF.
Regardless, let’s get to the point of this entire post, which is to do a power ranking of the couples of The Other Way. And when I say “power,” I really mean just how terrible of human beings they are. And for the sake of simplicity, instead of ranking them as individuals, I’m just going to rank them by the worst member of each couple, because when the day is over, as long as the cameras are rolling, the couples always stick together like glue no matter what.
#6 Deavan & Jihoon – nothing was more telling about how low-maintenance and lacking in drama compared to their counterparts were, than the fact that Deavan and Jihoon weren’t even introduced into the show until like four episodes in. And it’s not at all that surprising, because despite how much TLC tried to make it sound like the crime of the century, Jihoon’s checkered past of buying and re-selling cell phones in Seoul was pretty small. Frankly, their arc was most anchored by the fact that Deavan’s previous child was a demon, and the atypical judgey Korean parents that really were uncomfortable with the fact that their son was marrying a train wreck of an American girl.
Neither were particularly memorable. Deavan used to be kind of an Instagram camwhore, and Jihoon was more or less an underachiever in terms of Korean culture. Ironically, Deavan was the one with more grown-up priorities, and Jihoon was just kind of a horny pussyhound, but when the day was over, neither were particularly memorable; except for the horrifically stereotypical Asian music played by the show whenever the perspective shifted back to them.
#5 Tiffany & Ronald – prior to watching this season, I had this idea that South Africa was a pretty normal place, potentially similar to America in terms of look, infrastructure and the fact that there’s a ton of white people there. But maybe it was just the town where Ronald lived, but I didn’t realize that crime was such a big deal there. Even the parts where Ronald was telling Tiffany’s kid to put the phone away just when they were parking their car, because “if they see it, they’ll steal it,” and the fact that all the apartments have razor wire surrounding the gates to the communities made me realize that South Africa is a pretty rough place.
But as for the couple themselves, Tiffany was pretty consistently stable throughout the season, and for someone still so young, showed a lot of patience and maturity, dealing with the move to another continent, and balancing the relationship with her new husband, who had a pretty checkered past himself. Ronald, in spite of some of the frustrated rage he demonstrated because nobody trusted him because he was a convicted criminal throughout the season, was overall a pretty chill guy once Tiffany put him back in his place. And despite the fact that Tiffany ended up going back to America for the safety of her children, they sailed pretty smoothly throughout the season.
#4 Laura & Aladin – if there was ever a couple this season that seemed like a layup that they’d fail, it would have to have been this one. Firstly, Aladin is a hunky mid-20s narcissist from a culture that doesn’t believe in monogamy, while Laura is a mid-50s woman from Florida. This couple is a testament to how determined people become to follow things through when cameras are involved, because no matter how much bullshit surfaced between these two, they soldered through to a three-day Tunisian wedding, and went from 0-to-miserable in no time flat.
Both of them were shitheads in their own ways, as Laura was selfish and not at all cognizant of the Qatari or Tunisian cultures she was embedding herself in, and Aladin, despite taking the high road a lot of the time throughout the regular series, seemed to reveal his true colors once the marriage was consummated, and went under the firing squad like no other in the series ending tell-all, facing accusations of just wanting Laura’s American money, and how he was a shitty husband, etc, etc. Regardless, I found it easy to root against both of them, because when the day was over, both of them were kind of assholes, but still easy to cringe and laugh at.
#3 Paul & Karine – this is an interesting ranking, because it’s weighed almost entirely on the fact that Paul was a gigantic douchebag tool, while Karine herself was pretty chill and not nearly as entertaining of a train wreck as Paul was.
Don’t get me wrong, Karine was no saint, especially with that eyebrow-scrunching revelation that she is accepting money from American men with no context given to why they’re giving her money. But behaviorally, Paul was a volatile shithead who made a ton of terrible decisions, and his spontaneous outbursts usually led to laughter from my ending as a viewer. Which is hard to believe is his temperament, considering just how much of a saint his mom was. But when the day is over, Paul was a complete shithead, and it’s amazing that Karine didn’t break up with him, but as well all know, it’s a ticking clock until the novelty of getting to be on television eventually wears off, and once they’re no longer tv personalities, they’re not going to last.
#2 Corey & Evelin – much like the case with Paul & Evelin, this ranking is almost entirely based on the fact that Evelin is basically a living cancer of a human being. Manipulative, gold-digging, unfaithful, venomous and completely inconsiderate, she must have a vagina plated in gold for Corey to be so head-over-heels for a woman that basically cuckolded him in her hometown in Ecuador, and demanded he come down to live there.
All through the series, she bilked him for nearly $50,000 of his life’s savings, and verbally destroyed him on a routine basis. She tore him down in front of her family repeatedly, and even her own dad told Corey that she was headstrong and stubborn and to basically propose at your own risk. It wasn’t until the very unfortunate occurrence of Corey’s dad passing away, did Evelin actually start being nice to him, but only minimally, and when the show ended, she’s still a royal bitch who will undoubtedly ruin Corey, who doesn’t earn any points by not being anything other than the gullible doormat that allowed himself to get walked on throughout the ends of time.
#1 Jenny & Sumit – Without question, the MVP of the season goes to none other than Sumit. No matter how much wide-eyed earnest fake sincerity he tried to show throughout the season, nothing can absolve him of the absolute god-tier bullshittery he committed. Catfishing a woman twice his age, but then getting her to drop all her shit in America and move to fucking India, to where he duped her into getting an apartment for them to live together in, before he repeatedly vanished, alleging that he needed to placate his parents, before dropping the bombshell that he was already married.
Yup, the existing marriage on top of the empire of lies that he told throughout the series, and Sumit is the unanimous MVP of the season. Despite how much he seemed harmless and proclaimed his unending love for Jenny, the fact that he showed absolutely no spine at all, kowtowed to his overbearing Indian family and bent to their every will, justifying all sorts of Indian stereotypes, he still spoke lies as if he were getting paid to spread them, makes him the unfortunate MVP of the season. He was the absolute worst person on the show, and I’d have to wager that in the Rushmore of 90 Day Fiance, Sumit might actually stand a realistic chance of making it on, in terms of the biggest shitheads in the show’s history.
