90 Day Fiance: The Other Way Season 2 is officially here!
The first night of the new season focused on several couples. Fans will of course recognize Jenny Slatten and Sumit as they try again.
Brittany and Ariela are both young Americans who have been married before to men from other countries and are up for round two.
Meanwhile, Kenneth and Armando are a pair of gay dads who are prepared to risk everything for a chance at happiness.
This season already has us hooked, and we are just getting started, people. Here’s what went down on the premiere …
Brittany and Yazan
Brittany is a rapper and model who is very outgoing and has a history of dating men who range from much older than she is to extremely old by any standard. Yazan is from Jordan, has a degree as a mechanical engineer, but works helping his father at the fish market.
This is very different
Brittany made friends with Yazan’s sister in the US, but they happened to see each other for the first time while his sister was video chatting … and they both did a double take because they’re both conspicuously hot.
Yazan proposed almost immediately
He sent her a ticket to Jordan and they hung out for all of nine days before he proposed. They are both understandably a little anxious culture. Yazan is a Muslim and very family-oriented, while Brittany is a free spirit who says that she’s not going to let any book tell her how to live her life.
They’ll have to live separately before they get married
Yazan is clearly crazy about Brittany, to the point where she has to tell him that no, they won’t be getting married just a few days after she arrives.
But there’s a little hiccup
Brittany is still married. “I married my ex five years ago and it didn’t work out how I thought it would. And right now he’s not playing nice at all. He’s giving me a really hard time,” she laments. Her ex was deported just months after their split. Brittany admits that she actually forgot that he was still legally married.
So …
Brittany wants a speedy divorce, but is warned that it could take as long as 11 months. Yazan and his family think that it’s over and done with. Oh dear.
Jenny and Sumit
Jenny Slatten is back in the US, but eager to see Sumit again after their time on Season 1.
Recapping their past brings her to tears
Sumit, of course, lied to her before she found out that he was in an arranged marriage with children. “I forgave him,” she says. “He never wanted to be with his wife in the first place. It wasn’t his choice.”
The highlight of every day is chatting with him
“He’s proven to me that he wants to be with me,” Jenny affirms. “I am the one that he loves.”
But …
Jenny has a lot of things to sort out before she moves to India (again), which means paperwork and applying for her social security so that she will have an income.
Also …
Jenny has to go through the humiliating ordeal of explaining her situation — all of the drama of Season 1 — to a financial adviser, who straight-up admits that he can’t imagine giving someone another chance after all of that.
She’s risking it all for love
But will Sumit actually go through with divorcing his wife, even though his culture prioritizes his parents’ wishes?
Ariela and Biniyam
90 Day Fiance: The Other Way Season 2 stars Ariela Weinberg and Biniyam Shibre appeared to not meet each other’s expectations in the Season 2 teaser trailer.
Ariela is a freelance writer
She also works for her father, who is a doctor, and is working on finding a replacement for herself. Though she fairly young, she has actually been divorced.
She has also been an ex-pat before
When she was 17, she went on vacation to Argentina with her mother, where she basically just refused to leave. She met a guy and got married but it didn’t last. Then, she traveled to Ethiopia … and history seems to be repeating itself.
She wasn’t looking for love
But Ariela spotted an outrageously hot man — Biniyam, whom everyone calls “Baby” — and used the “don’t I know you from somewhere?” It worked. Even when she tried breaking up with him, she ended up calling him again. (We all understand that “calling” is both literal and a euphemism, right?)
All of that “calling” had an effect
Three months later, Ariela discovered that she was pregnant. She is in the US for prenatal care but plans to give birth in Ethiopia … though she has real concerns that, though they do epidurals there, the hospital may just run out of the medicine.
The pregnancy is the real concern
Ariela looks at herself as simply making a sacrifice, but her mother — a trauma nurse — has real worries about her daughter’s potential medical complications during childbirth, and plans to travel with her to oversee the birth. Ariela is due on December 25.
Kenneth and Armando
Kenneth is 57 and American while Armando is 31 and Mexican. They met up in a forum for gay dads and they are head over heels for each other.
Kenneth has FOUR kids
They are all grown and he is also a grandfather. (Absolutely wild to me that this guy is almost my mom’s age; he looks MAYBE 45) He has also never been away from his family for this long, and they’re really going to miss him.
Kenneth is excited, but …
He knows that moving to Mexico is a “roll of the dice,” and his daughter is concerned that her dad could be in for a nasty surprise if he finds himself in a more homophobic community than he expects. It’s not that the US doesn’t have dangerous homophobes, it’s that LGBTQ+ Americans are more likely to recognize those areas within their own culture and avoid them. Mexico will be new territory for him.
Speaking of homophobia
Armando has a young daughter. His family is deeply homophobic and so he has had one relationship — with his daughter’s mother. He felt that this was the only way for him to “be a man” in his family’s eyes. Eventually, he had to stop living a lie so he told his then-wife. She told his mother and he was forced back into the closet. He separated from his wife, and she was hit by a car and died.
This is intense
Armando has the conversation with his sister, pleading with her for acceptance, as she had previously labeled him a “sinner.” She accuses him of tricking the family with a relationship with a woman. To put if plainly, Armando’s family are not good people. It’s difficult to say that he should just leave them in the dust, however, because his dog hotel business is on the same property where they live.