Life, relatives, and poor translation won’t let any of these couples be great.
Is there a single relationship that isn’t being tested or on the cusp of destruction after watching 90 Day Fiance: The Other Way Season 2 Episode 9?
Even fan-favorite Kenmando isn’t without its struggles. Where to begin?
Cheating Cheese Stick’s Colombian Apology Tour
Tim and Melyza could have been such a great couple if Tim hadn’t effed everything up. Tim seems sincere in wanting to make things right with Melyza, but can you do that if you can’t sit in all of your wrongness?
Tim and Melyza’s reunion was quite nice considering the circumstances, and they were genuinely happy to see each other after seven months of being apart.
Their furry family was along for the ride, and even though Melyza noticed that Tim got “fluffier,” and he looks totally different (so it isn’t just us who notices that he looks different in every picture), she was happy to have him there.
Own. Your. Sh*t.
When you see Tim and Melyza together, you believe their love for each other and forget that infidelity ruined them.
Melyza wanted to talk about what transpired and how Tim ended up cheating on her when they were about to be engaged. She wanted all the details, and from the sounds of things, Tim withheld a lot of information when discussing how the affair happened.
Tim is apologetic, but he also wants Melyza to “get over it,” and he gets way too defensive for the person who screwed up.
It’s hard to get over that type of betrayal, and if she didn’t know many of the details, it’s infinitely worse.
Melyza thinks Tim knew at some point that he was being unfaithful and was gearing toward having sex with someone else and didn’t do anything to stop it. Also, she had to find out about it from his social media. He didn’t have the decency to be honest with her!
She also feels like he spends time projecting onto her the reason he cheated. Since it was his idea to have a long-distance relationship, it is a slap in the face to then use the difficulty of that to justify his affair.
Tim does come across manipulative when talking about the issue, and you can see why Melyza feels the way that she does.
But she also has to figure out if she wants to forgive him or not. If she can’t, then they’re both wasting their time.
Patience is a Virtue, Bud
Kenny and Armando are holding on strong, but Kenny is going to need to adjust to his surroundings.
On the surface, sometimes you forget the differences between them. You rarely think about their age difference for example and how in that sense, they are in different stages not just in their life but in their journey as queer men.
Kenny has been out for the majority of his life for good, bad, and ugly, he had time and space to come into his own as an out and proud gay man.
He’s been at this a long time, and as a result, he has to learn to consider that Armando doesn’t have that same experience.
Armando is putting in the work, and he’s in the midst of his coming out journey, but he has cultural and national factors too.
Armando probably does require time as far as being affectionate in public, but Kenny seems to underestimate the level of homophobia one faces in Mexico versus in America.
Homophobia in Mexico is not only severe, but queer people don’t have the same protection that they have in the US. Armando isn’t exaggerating. His fear for them and concern for their safety is valid.
And Armando’s experience as a Latino gay man in his conservative and religious Mexican culture is vastly different than Kenny too.
You can’t fast track someone else’s journey, so as much as it’s killing Kenny, he’s going to need to be more patient.
Calling in Reinforcements
Yazan’s uncle seems pretty cool, and it’s amazing how well the conversations are when Yazan and his relatives are speaking in Arabic. Yazan translating things to English is where things sound worse than they are.
Ibrahim is wise, and he was honest about where things need to be with Yazan and Brittany.
Brittany’s ongoing narrative is that everyone is forcing Islam on her when that isn’t necessarily true. They want her to convert, but as Yazan’s uncle was saying, they want her to fall in love with the religion for herself.
He wasn’t painting some awful picture of Islam, was he? He emphasized that she would have to give up certain things if they get married, but he also acknowledged that it had to be her choice.
I wish Brittany could understand what he was saying. But would she have cared or listened?
All she wanted to hear was that he could buy them more time with Yazan’s parents, so she could get her divorce finalized. She still hasn’t told Yazan anything about any of this, and she has no real intentions of giving up her life or converting.
You’re wasting our time!
Bini and the Judgmental AF Americans
Janice has perfected the art of saying the most offensive shit ever while smiling so well her name should be Karen.
Her complete and utter shock that even a hospital in “a third-world country” where people live in “squalor” could actually be well-equipped and know what the hell they’re doing was noted.
Repeatedly.
Janice is condescending, demeaning, and generally insufferable.
No amount of smiling and sounding nice while saying half the things she says makes up for it.
Her inquiries about Biniyam’s first wife were about a specific agenda to find a reason for her daughter to reconsider her move and even her relationship.
When you see how earnest and docile Bini is while under Janice’s scrutiny, it makes you sympathize with him all the more.
He mentioned that his first wife got jealous over texts from a female friend of his and left him.
It does sound like there is a lot more to this story, but maybe Janice would have heard more about it if she used some finesse and sounded like she wanted to know about him instead of grilling him.
And at what point does Ari stop hiding behind her mother and address whatever issues she may have with Bini?
Does she know more about Biniyam’s first wife? If she knew Bini had three different jobs but wasn’t a wealthy man and never had a problem with it before, what does she look like getting judgmental now that her mom is there?
And why does Janice speak about Ari as if she is a spoiled child who requires all this care and upkeep and is incapable of making decisions for herself and taking care of herself?
It’s doubtful Ari was maintaining this privileged lifestyle Janice keeps prattling on about with her salary as a freelance writer and editor.
We’re just being realistic here.
But since Janice has made it her mission to convince her daughter to return to the States, then we can fully expect her to use that tidbit about potential infidelity to plant seeds, right?
Justice for Jihoon
Everything about Jihoon and Deavan comes down to a failure to communicate. Deavan saw how difficult it was navigating Korea without Jihoon when she accidentally ordered Elicia insects for lunch.
Elicia dialed it back with her fish out of water American thing, thank the heavens, but she clearly wants her daughter to come back to the States.
Meanwhile, Deavan wanted to talk with Jihoon’s parents to understand what was going on with Jihoon putting money in his mother’s account.
It all went to hell from there.
Jihoon’s father is pretty cool, and once Jihoon told him everything that happened, he understood where the issues were. He recognized that Jihoon lying to Deavan and not talking things over with her is part of how they ended up in this mess.
He’s more inclined to hold Jihoon accountable than Jihoon’s mom, and he has always been a quiet man but a straight-shooter.
Deavan was right that Jihoon’s parents shouldn’t have been apologizing on his behalf or taking responsibility for his actions.
But am I the only one who gets tired of Deavan not owning her own choices and decisions? She blames Jinhoon for everything that goes wrong in her life, and she was dramatic as hell saying he ruined her life as if she didn’t choose to be with him.
But the most irritating thing of all is that they can’t have a real conversation about what’s happening when they have a language barrier and a crappy translator.
Jihoon and Deavan both know their translator device is utter garbage, but they still rely on it for important conversations.
Jihoon screws up; it’s no secret, but how far can he get explaining things when a translator machine is waxing poetic about flowers and the sunrise when he’s trying to talk about money?
They were at the perfect sit down dinner to not only work through their issues but receive guidance and advice from their elders too, but no one could successfully communicate with each other.
You couldn’t blame Jihoon for getting frustrated when he knows enough English to understand that his words aren’t being translated properly.
And Korean, while a beautiful language, can also sound aggressive to those who don’t speak it, so Deavan felt like everyone was mad at her instead of realizing that at most they were frustrated with the language barrier and a translator that didn’t properly convey what they were saying.
And the second Deavan assumed she was under attack, she resorted to getting rude and lashing out.
But once again, there remains a frustrating pattern where the Americans take for granted that their spouses should learn English, but they don’t do any work to learn the other language.
The language barrier doesn’t just fall on Jihoon and his parents. Deavan has never once considered trying to speak to them in Korean about any of this.
She doesn’t consider speaking the language much at all, even while relocating to Korea.
Over to you, 90 Day Fanatics. Let me hear your thoughts!
You can watch 90 Day Fiance: The Other Way online here via TV Fanatic.
Jasmine Blu is a senior staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow her on Twitter.