Look, we are on Season 547,652 of 90 Day Fiancé (+ fill in the blank spinoff). There is no way to begin to summarize what is going on with this show and these people, some of which are on their fifth or sixth season of this mess by now, so I am not even going to try. Instead here are my thoughts on the couples in the current season of one of the 25,000 spinoffs, 90 Day Fiancé: Happily Ever After:

Bilal and Shaheeda: I will spend the most time on this couple because I have the most to say. Let’s start with this: Bilal. Is. An. Asshole. Seriously, I hate this man so much. He is rude, cold, unloving, and controlling. Shaheeda is a saint for putting up with him, but she is also clearly suffering inside from the cruelty and emotional neglect.

Let’s remember (if you’ve been watching this season), this is a man who thought it was funny to “test” his fiancée’s “motivations” by picking her up from the airport – her first time arriving in America – in a rented, filthy run-down van, instead of his C-Class Mercedes sedan, and then proceed to take her to a whole entire FAKE CRAPPY HOUSE AND PRETENDING TO LIVE THERE. What in the gaslighting mind games actual fuck.

This man showed up for each visit to Shaheeda in Trinidad well-dressed, representing himself as a successful realtor, with Louis Vuitton luggage and designer suits to boot. Shaheeda is not a gold-digger for expecting him to not live in a dump and drive a filthy van – she is wondering if SHE has been catfished by this horrible excuse for a joke. To Shaheeda’s credit she is fairly accepting yet understandably confused by the life she is being presented with on her first day in America. Bilal takes that confusion to mean she is possibly not “here for the right reasons.” This isn’t the Bachelor, Bilal! Stop torturing this poor woman and show her your low-end Mercedes and middle class tract home already!!!

Fast forward a few weeks and Bilal insists on a prenup. Obviously I am very pro-prenup, so much so I run a law firm specializing in them! This is not the issue here. The issue is how inaccurately the show portrays prenups in general (more on that in a future post hopefully), and how this prenup in particular was portrayed. But I don’t expect accuracy from this show, I expect to be entertained, so I guess thank you?

It’s hard to tell exactly what they are doing with the prenup but I believe it’s the standard all assets and debts acquired during marriage stay separate. Also I think Bilal agrees to help financially support Shaheeda starting her own business in the US – all good. For Shaheeda, her negotiated clause of the prenup is that he agrees to have kids with her before she is 40. She is currently 37. This clause would be absolutely invalid in California so I don’t know if it is valid for the laws in their state or just shoved in there for show drama.

Regardless, Shaheeda has made it clear from the get go she very very much wants her own children. Bilal has two children with his first wife and has expressed zero desire for more children and zero desire to acknowledge this sincere need of his wife’s.

In any event he keeps talking about “waiting a couple years” before trusting for children. This man needs a REALITY CHECK. At 37, many women find they already cannot have children, or not without much difficulty or medical intervention. In fact getting pregnant naturally at 37 is already very unlikely and can be difficult both emotionally and physically. Of course it does, in fact, happen. But it also doesn’t happen much more often, and those are the times you do not hear about. As someone who is 41 and currently trying to get pregnant I feel I can speak on this subject. Shaheeda girl, you need to start NOW.

Whenever Shahida raises the issue of children with Bilal he gets upset and annoyed and changes the subject. Very, very mature. He won’t even LOOK at baby clothing for funsies on a shopping trip. This man is a man who is transmitting with every word and action that he does NOT want more children anytime soon. I feel awful for Shahida because I understand wanting children very much and being painfully aware of your age and fertility clock ticking.

Shaeeda takes control and makes an appointment with a fertility doctor (👏👏👏👏) which Bilal attends – reluctantly. The doctor tells her the same thing my doctor told me at the same appointment I attended at age 39 – try naturally for six months, then come back to discuss other options. Then Shaheeda reveals her and Bilal are not trying at all (aka she is still on birth control, plus it’s alluded to them taking “extra precautions” like condoms and pulling out – this man does not want a baby!!). Shaheeda also thinks she has regular periods at 21 (!!!) days. It is news to her that this is NOT normal. So the doctor orders some more testing and I hope they reveal the results next week because I am very invested in this journey for her.

The doctor also explains that the older you get, the riskier a pregnancy is. Bilal’s baffling response to this is – “so you’re saying we should wait a couple years to start tying?” NO YOU SELFISH IDIOT. I feel terrible for Shaheeda and I sincerely hope she leaves Bilal and finds someone who truly loves her enough to not dismiss what is the most important thing in her heart.

Kimberly and Usman. They cannot be for real, right? Let’s remember we met Usman aka Sojaboy when he got married (!!) to Lisa “Baby Girl” Hamm on a previous season of 90 Day Fiancée. That did not last and apparently he is now divorced, banned from saying his ex-wives name on the show, and dating another significantly older and similarly controlling white woman. I have a hard time believing this is a real couple not scripted entirely by the show.

Kimberley (Kimbaaaalee) brought Usman tons of very expensive gifts on her first visit to Nigeria, including a PS5 (how the hell did she get one of those), a MacBook Pro (?!), tons of watches and clothing, etc. She is also down with Usman having a second wife to have babies with since she is too old to give him children. Ok, cool cool. On Kimbaaaalee’s second visit to Nigeria she plans on proposing to Usman. What could go wrong??

Angela and Michael. OK this couple are truly 90 Day Fiance OG’s. I am too lazy to look this up but I think they were from all the way back on Season 1. They have been on multiple spinoffs since, and this must be the couple’s 5th season at least. 

Angela and Michael eventually got married in Nigeria a few seasons ago, and now Angela has been back in the US without Michael for two years while waiting on his visa to go through. This is probably an unpopular opinion because I know many people love Angela for being so unapologetically herself and going through a really admirable personal transformation for her own health, etc. And that is all true and great. But she is AWFUL to Michael. Again, I don’t know if she is getting an unflattering edit by production or if this is really how she is. But she RAGES at this man nonstop. I have never seen her have a normal conversation with him. She is always screaming and accusing him of things. And I have never seen Michael raise his voice. Who knows what goes on when the cameras are away, but no matter what he does it does not excuse her horrific treatment of him. 

She truly appears to hate him and I don’t know why she is still trying to make this work – probably for the paycheck, tbh. 

The current drama is that Angela is flying out to Nigeria without telling Michael in order to suss out whether he is using her for $$ before his visa comes through in the US. Totally normal and sane.

Angela also spent .5 seconds googling Nigerian marital property law and so she seems to think that since they married in Nigeria everything Michael owns there belongs to her (???). I know zero about Nigerian marital property law, but I would be surprised if it gave more rights in marriage than California does!! Whatever her rights are, Angela is intent on exercising them by showing up at Michael’s house and destroying his car and stealing his phone, which she claims to “own.”

I really want to like Angela but I’m sorry this woman is unhinged and cruel. 

Elizabeth and Andrei – I have a love/hate relationship with this couple. I think Andrei is extremely controlling and at times verbally abusive and has a problem with his temper. But I also appreciate how protective he is of Elizabeth and stands up for his family in the face of her fucked up family. 

Elizabeth’s brother Charlie is a raging alcoholic who literally ruined Elizabeth and Andrei’s wedding in Moldova by having a blacked out rampage in front of everyone. He then got blackout again and physically fought Andrei at a family gathering on a previous season, so now Andrei and Elizabeth refuse to enable him further by refusing to attend family events where Charlie will also be at. Elizabeth and Charlie’s mother is in denial and clearly enabling Charlie and cannot understand the difference between Charlie drinking and everyone else drinking at family gatherings. Elizabeths sisters know Charlie has a problem, but are trying to keep peace so they attend events and try and keep him sane. Someone call Jeff VonVonderen and get this entire family into treatment, STAT.

Charlie is, of course, in complete denial that he has a problem, citing the fact that he drinks “the same amount” as Andrei and everyone else at family events. That may be true, but as anyone who has watched Intervention for 17 seasons knows, it’s not about the amount you drink. It’s about why you drink, what happens when you drink, and whether you continue to drink in despite of the negative consequences of your drinking. 

Charlie needs treatment and I hope the show facilitates him getting the help he needs. In addition to capitalizing on the drama – come on, we can have both right!?

Jovi and Yara – I don’t have a to to say about this couple because they are relatively function as far as 90 Day Fiancé goes. I love Yara. She keeps it real and is beautiful and smart. Jovi has grown on me. Like most men on this show, he was fairly controlling in the beginning. But I think being a father has softened him. And Yara has clearly cracked the whip on him and kept him in check.

They have a beautiful daughter Myla. Yara is Ukrainian and a big part of this season is the war in Ukraine and Yara’s obvious pain over what’s happening to her country and desperation to get back to her family – who appear to be living in Prague – and help however she can. I find this very real and raw and relatable. 

Ed and Liz – We know Ed from a previous season of 90 Day Fiancé, where he was engaged to someone from Thailand, which clearly did not work out. I remember him on his first visit to Thailand/ meeting of. He has seen been on the streaming-only spin-off “90 Day Fiancé: The Single Life” which is the only spinoff I’ve never watched. Not because it’s on streaming – of course I subscribe to every service that exists! But because it looks boring as hell. So I don’t know who Liz is or any backstory on their relationship, but they are apparently engaged after having a somewhat tumultuous relationship involving a traumatic (for Liz) breakup at some point. 

Ed charmed me a little on his season of 90 Day Fiancé, because he was keenly aware of his complete lack of physical appeal and managed to be hilariously self-deprecating about it. But he has a strange dark side that is super controlling and insecure and it’s a massive turnoff and borderline problematic. (Why are all these men so controlling!?)

So far we have seen him have a problem with Liz’s weight and talk down to her in front of his friends. Dude, you need to take the W with a woman who is FAR our of your league and STFU about everything. Forever.

Jenny and Sumit – Jenny and Sumit are low-key my favorite couple. They make zero sense together and against ALL odds (literally) they are still together and appear to genuinely like, if not love, each other. Which is how low the bar has been set for this show. Just liking your spouse is so unheard of when it happens it a miracle worth celebrating.

This is all even more miraculous when you consider the fact that Jenny and Sumit met because he catfished her by pretending to be a tall, gorgeous, wealthy British model, and once he came clean as a short Indian dude working in a call center, Jenny was basically like, “I still would!” And here we are 10 (!!) years later.

There had been a lot of drama along the way, like Jenny finding out Sumit was actually already in an arranged marriage with a horrible woman whom he hated but getting out of an arranged marriage in India is like updating your address at the DMV in Hollywood. Nearly impossible. Somehow he managed to do it by refunding his wife’s dowry to her parents and agreeing to support her for some number of years.

Even so Sumit’s parents hate Jenny because she tricked them into letting her live there while pretending to be an American traveler in India but really she was boning their married son. There is a lot to unpack here and this is this couple’s fourth season so I that’s really the best I can do for now.

Every week the show chooses a couple that gets no coverage that episode, and this week it was my precious Jenny and Sumit, so we have to wait for next week to see whether Jenny survives their tantric sex seminar. I am rooting for them.