This was the year I fell in love with 90 Day Fianc. Theres something so strangely soothing about stepping into this reality-TV hellhole for an hour or two every week, then turning it off. It was one of those imaginary Americas that stole my heart. Didnt we all spend 2018 looking for imaginary Americas to believe in, then feel wildly betrayed by, then keep clinging to even as we fall messily out of love, knowing all along its a cynical fraud? That was our America in 2018, and nobody got to the core of it as brutally as 90 Day Fianc. Its more than just a perfect reality show its also a bizarrely accurate state-of-the-union address.
You cant really call this show a Dumpster fire, because those rarely go on for four years, while 90 Day Fianchas been raging since 2014, and its already up to Season Six. TLC has built the reality-trash juggernaut into a Game of Thrones-size franchise, with a labyrinth of spin-offs like Before the 90 Days and Happily Ever After. Like anybody else who wanders into 90DF, I thought it would be so simple a cheap laugh or two. I wasnt planning to get involved. But then I found myself in over my head, with no escape. Getting hooked on 90DF is like falling for a stranger you found online, then leaving your homeland to meet your new soul mate, then the next thing you know, youre stuck in Baraboo, Wisconsin, surrounded by hostile folks arguing in a language you barely understand, while planning your quickie wedding at the local Dunkin Donuts. Who among us, right?
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The premise: Its about couples with the K-1 visa, which allows a U.S. citizen to bring over a future spouse from another country. But once the fianc acquires the visa and arrives in the U.S., the clock is ticking. The couple has 90 days to get married, or else the visa expires and the fianc must go back to their home country, sadder but wiser. So theres pressure on these lovebirds to get hitched fast, even though they usually barely know each other. The foreigners come from all over Jamaica, Jakarta, Mexico, Russia. They rush through all the rituals of courtship, like meeting the family. Theres culture shock. Language barriers. And, needless to say, lots of screaming and crying all while being followed around by a camera crew.
The show requires that the American partner believes, or at least semi-believes, the foreign spouse might sincerely fall in love with them. You may well ask, who could be capable of such delusional self-deception? Rest assured: TLC has no problem finding these people. These are couples who met abroad, often during a vacation, or online. Theres always family drama, because the in-laws can be surprisingly judgy when you announce youre marrying a total stranger. The foreigners get a crash course in American life, whether that means Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, or Lumberton, North Carolina. They grew up watching glamorous depictions of America on TV, so theyre confused. It doesnt look like they imagined. As one bride said this season, Its not my American dream. My expectation was like a movie.
This seasons stars include Larissa, a Brazilian loudmouth who makes the perfectly sane decision to move to Las Vegas and marry a computer programmer named Colt. At 33, Colt still lives with his mom Debbie and their three cats: Baby Girl, Sugar and everybodys favorite, Cookie Dough. Larissa hates the cats and thats the least of her problems. Colt and his mom have a very special bond; as he says, A mans first best friend would be his mother. But as soon as Larissa moves in, theres trouble. She yells at Colt constantly, even when theyre shopping for wedding cake. You dont care about cake! she sobs. You dont care about anything. You act like an attention whore! On a show like 90DF, that might be a redundant accusation.
Theres Eric, an extremely sweaty forty-something divorced dad and former Marine who suffers through a midlife crisis (I was thinking about going out to Syria or Turkey to fight ISIS) until he finds true love online meet Leida, a former runner-up in the Miss Indonesia pageant. This seasons most romantic couple: Kalani is a nice Mormon girl from Orange County who went on a vacation to Samoa, met Aseulu in the tiny fishing village where hes spent his whole life, got pregnant, then went home to tell her family the happy news. Asuelu, who is very glad to be here, greets Kalani at LAX by ripping off his shirt, kicking off his shoes, and doing a semi-naked traditional Samoan love dance in the middle of the airport.
Everybody is here because they have their eyes on the prize: The Americans want love, sex and romance, while the outsiders want the green card. And of course, they all want to be famous on TV. The age-old Bachelor conceit of the right reasons never shows up on 90 Day Fianc, so the pressures off in that department. There are no innocent bystanders here. As viewers, we go into this show knowing its a mercenary scam, just like they do. These people are grifters out to use each other they volunteered for this con because they figured they were smart enough to out-think the game. Yet that turns out to be exactly what makes them all authentic Americans.
Because its 2018, the question of who gets to be American and who doesnt is more politicized than ever. Up in North Carolina, when Mexican teenager Fernanda goes out to dinner with her meathead fianc Jonathan and his friends, the conversation turns to immigration. They explain to Fernanda how immigrants take jobs and commit crimes. They also describe why theyre delighted with the current president and his speeches about building a wall along the U.S./Mexico border. The families often dont bother to hide their racism and xenophobia. In this seasons most infamous moment, one bride explains in a voice-over why her father disapproves of her chosen partner: My dad didnt want us to struggle the way he did, so he wanted us with white guys. (She claims she didnt say it, insisting the producers edited several of her comments together.) The America that hates and fears the outside world its right there in the open on 90 Day Fianc, because in 2018 theres no way to avoid it.
90DF might be a heartless and sleazed-out portrait of the country, but thats what makes it feel like an honest one, and thats why it got me. No matter where they were born, everybody in the cast is here because, on some level, theyre in love with their own personal American dream. They signed up for this experiment, this imaginary republic, knowing the risks and dangers. But they find themselves stranded in an alien dystopia they dont recognize, so far from their hopes, they can barely remember what their hopes looked like. These days, we all know how that feels.