We made it! We are finally at the finale of 90 Day Fiancé and wow, we’ve come so far, folks. This week, we bear witness to no fewer than four (4) weddings. What a time to be alive!
We start this episode with Jay, the no-good-dirty-rotten cheater who miraculously makes his fiancé, Ashley, look sympathetic. We learned last week that immediately after getting married, Jay downloaded Tinder to cruise for women. Now, some may see this as a lapse in judgement, but I see this as a wonderful ad for Tinder. We have not seen product placement like this since Ashley Madison first reared its ugly head on Real Housewives of New York. But … I digress.
For some reason, Jay wants us to feel bad about the predicament that he got himself into. He regrettably asks the audience, “Would you call messaging someone cheating?†To which I respond, yes, absolutely. Jay’s problem is that he lacks impulse control, a behavioral issue very common among male adolescents. Again, nothing about Jay’s conduct is surprising if you have two eyes and and a brain. Ashley can’t believe he was direct messaging a ~*thicc*~ 18-year-old white girl. I can believe this, very easily actually. Ashley is unsure whether Jay is sorry because he cheated on her or because he got caught. I’m positive Jay is sorry because he faces deportation. Honestly, Ashley is the most emotionally dense saint to every walk this earth. The fact that her husband immediately tried to cheat on her in her bed at her house after her wedding and she still has questions about him is … alarming.
Ashley’s bleached-blonde friend ripped from a Helter Skelter casting call, Brandi, makes no excuses for Jay, saying that if this happened to her she would immediately leave him. There is no gray area with this advice!! Yet somehow Ashley leaves the conversation thinking, “Hmmm, I still don’t know what to do about Jay.†I understand that she’s responsible for Jay so she can’t kick him out of her house. I understand that she still loves him so she doesn’t want him to get deported and banned from the U.S. But … BUT … The man downloaded Tinder the day after his wedding. There is no excuse Jay can make about boredom that justifies this. And, sorry, but if Jay didn’t want to get himself into this predicament, he should’ve been a better philanderer. (#DontCheatorDontGetCaughtonTV). As this season wraps, I’m glad we can all agree on one thing … Ashley is a fool.
It’s a beautiful day for Kalani and Asuelu to get married, much to the chagrin of everyone related to them, except baby Oliver. Kalani and Asuelu spend their entire wedding day saying they hope her father doesn’t find out about her pregnancy. For people who don’t want this secret to get out, they sure talk about it a lot. Little do they understand that the best lies start from within. If they don’t want her father to find out Kalani is pregnant, they need to stop believing she’s pregnant.
Unfortunately, these scenes show us the story-structure flaws of reality TV. In a scripted television show, Kalani and Asuelu would spend the first half of the episode doing everything they could to prevent Kalani’s dad from finding out that she’s pregnant, before he inevitably found out and ruined the wedding for our comedic entertainment. In reality TV, we get absolutely no resolution at all and are left to imagine how angry Kalani’s dad would be. I, for one, am disappointed that no one (read: Kolini) interrupted Kalani’s wedding to note that she is making a terrible mistake. And while her wedding is the most beautiful of all the 90 Day weddings (which is a very low bar, don’t get it twisted), it feels very anticlimactic. But I don’t want to be a Debby Downer: Instead of mourning the storylines that could have been, I will celebrate how precocious Asuelu and Kalani look dancing and how beautiful this family’s hair is.
Speaking of Deb, Larissa and Coltee also finally get married, because that’s what you do on this show at the end of the season. There are so many little delights here that fill me with absolute joy. I love that Coltee made Larissa get her dress at Goodwill, a perfectly reasonable option for affordable dresses that I’m sure Larissa fought with every fiber in her body. I love that Larissa is genuinely happy that the limo has air conditioning, a sad nod to the bleak world Coltee has built for her. I love that this is the emptiest wedding I have ever seen and that there are literally more people filming than there are in actual attendance. I love that Coltee’s cousin John is wearing his branded Friendly’s work shirt and he couldn’t even muster the decency to find a formal work polo. I hope he gets an end-of-year bonus for this free promo because otherwise he’s sold himself too short. (John, if you need someone to manage your influencer career, call me. I have no experience and tons of confidence!) Lastly, I love that Larissa tries to brag about Coltee being a software engineer, as if that makes him more desirable. And don’t get me wrong, I love scientists, any engineer can immediately slide into my DMs … but I believe Coltee is a “software engineer†in the way that Stringer Bell is an “entrepreneur†in The Wire. And while Stringer Bell was running a successful illegitimate business, Coltee is probably editing Myspace HTML. (No shade!)
Unfortunately, Coltee and Larissa’s very sad dream wedding bursts with the bombshell that Coltee called the police on Larissa in a domestic dispute and now the state of Nevada is pressing charges. What a twist!!!! I won’t judge Coltee for this because if he was being abused, he had every right to alert the authorities. I just want to know what exactly happened and why the 90 Day camera crew wasn’t there! What we need is a Big Brother camera setup where we can pay to watch these people interact in the privacy of their homes at all times. Now Larissa may face deportation as criminal charges aren’t very good for a green card application. This is an absolute shame, because we can all personally vouch for the culture Larissa has brought to this country’s television programming.
When Eric and Leida make it to their fateful day, it’s not surprising that Eric’s daughter Tasha and The Other One™ are nowhere to be found. I guess they don’t want to witness their father’s holy matrimony with the stepmom from Cinderella. Eric and Leida’s day is mostly uneventful, except somehow Eric forgot his pants 35 minutes before the wedding? I don’t know how this is possible, but I’m choosing to believe Tasha stole his pants in her last defiant act, as she will detail on her debut LP, My “I Stole My Dad’s Pants So He Wouldn’t Get Married†Chemical Romance.
After pants-gate is solved, Leida and Eric proceed to have a wedding in front of an audience whose median age is 87. And even though Eric didn’t hesitate to choose his new wife over his very flesh and blood, Eric is delighted to see his youngest daughter Jenna in attendance, who was definitely bribed with Smucker’s Uncrustables. My favorite part of the wedding is when Eric makes a toast to “everyone that showed up.†This is such a passive-aggressive way to insult your family on national television. I appreciate Eric’s sweat-covered decision to double down.
Meanwhile, Steven and Olga bid farewell to each other; looks like the baby is staying in Russia with the one parent who is not envious of the attention he receives. Back in America, Steven will commit to following through on the K1 visa application process, which begs the question, why was he on the show 90 Day Fiancé in the first place if he just got engaged and they have more than 90 days together?
Fernanda and Jonathan also get married, and it is beautiful. Of all the 90 Day Fiancé couples they seem most like they’re going to make it. The central conflict of their wedding day is Fernanda’s disappointment that Jonathan’s mom couldn’t come to the wedding because his grandparent was sick. She’s also really upset that her mother couldn’t see her on her special day, although she casually slips in that she’s saving one of her wedding dresses for her Mexican wedding … Which sounds like she is having two weddings. One more wedding than most first-time brides, and two more weddings than me! I feel sorry for her predicament … but not that sorry. Now that this is over we get the 90 Day Fiancé tell-all, and I am waiting with bated breath to watch Larissa, our star, antagonize every one of her peers. Until next week!