#007 - Before the 90 Days and some other things
This was going to be a thing about Heated Rivalry, SNL and why people can’t seem to be normal about the show. That’s not even a top I particularly care about. It seems pretty obvious that love+hot actors=success and infatuation. I’m making crafts making fun of it. Your mom knows about it. Also so many other people have written about it. I really like the below piece by Caroline Siede over at Girl Culture. If you still need your Heated Rivalry questions answered, read this:
It was also impossible for me to care about Heated Rivalry or anything, really, because I watched 90 Day Fiancé: Before the 90 Days last week. Always the ugliest child in the attic of 90 Day off-breeds, this week’s episode, “Final Boarding Call” brought the franchise to a new low. If you aren’t familiar with this particular version of 90 Day, let me quickly introduce you.
Before the 90 Days is typically couples who’ve never met in person. They’ve only chatted online, over video or on calls. On the show, they’re meeting for the first time to see if they want to get engaged to start the 90-day visa process. Other than 90 Day: The Single Life, Hunting for Love and Last Resort, Before the 90 Days is the shallowest of variations that features mostly new couples and stories. There are some legitimate romances featured and those couples inevitably make it to 90 Day: The Other Way or Happily Ever After. But most of the couples pretty clearly won’t work.
Take, for example, the couple at the heart of my current hyperfix: Lisa and Daniel.
Lisa and Daniel should not be dating. They should not even be in communication. Everything about their dynamic is bad, toxic and the result of a mental health crisis. Daniel is a young Nigerian man who believes “white people always tell the truth” and he’ll have a better life in America. Lisa sends him money and he’s clearly willing to do what he needs to do if it means coming to America. These types are typically cast as the bad guys, but in Daniel’s case, he has suffered more than a man with Tourette’s at an awards ceremony. He has been thrown into the fire with Lisa. Give him whatever he wants for not leaving immediately.
Lisa is a lesbian. This is not me projecting or making assumptions. When we meet her she tells us she’s only been dating women for 20 years. She was married to a woman for a decade. She has a daughter from her first marriage, but she’s only been with women since that ended. But when Daniel showed up in her DMs and called her his white queen, she decided it was time to get dickly. Lisa didn’t tell Daniel about her previous marriages or her relationships with women before she hopped on a plane to Nigeria. She didn’t tell him about any of this when he got on one knee at the airport and she said yes to his marriage proposal.
She didn’t tell Daniel about any of this when he introduced her to his family or his local priest. She didn’t tell Daniel about any of this after they shared disgusting details about their first time having sex.
Lisa decided to wait until after she shit the bed with Daniel to let him in on one of her secrets. I wish I meant that figuratively. I wish I did not mean that this grown woman shit herself in bed, but that is exactly what I mean. In the middle of the night, Lisa had a stomach issue. When they woke up, the bed, Lisa and Daniel were all a mess. Daniel politely helped gather the sheets and bedding. He helped Lisa to the shower and just said he understood when she said it was the spicy food.
I’m able to share a lot of details on this because TLC gave us the footage. The sheets blurred, but we got to see way more than we needed to. If Daniel and Lisa had simply relayed this story to us, I would believe them. I didn’t need to see that. I don’t think they’d make that up! That’s also the problem plaguing late-life 90 Day Fiancé and Lisa and Daniel. They are showing us things we should not be seeing. They want Lisa to feel like Angela; the angry, loud white woman who terrorized Nigeria. Angela was so awful, Michael’s scamming felt deserved. When Michael was finally free in America, you had to clap for the man.
Lisa is lying to Daniel and that’s awful, but she isn’t an awful person. She’s someone in need of help. Lisa should not be on reality TV. She’s been married five times. She’s still technically married to her last wife. Her daughter begs her not to accept another marriage proposal and Lisa breaks that rule as soon as she steps outside of the airport. I don’t typically read about the cast outside of the show, but things felt so off with Lisa that I had to dig in a bit. Her daughter and ex-wife have done interviews speaking to Lisa’s mental health issues. I’ve been deep diving in the 90 Day reddit communities and I don’t understand how she passed a psych test to be on the show.
She constantly wears a wig around Daniel because he’s never seen her without one. When she finally decides to show him her real hair, she almost has a panic attack. For what it’s worth, Daniel is more disgusted by her natural hair than the shit in the bed. Daniel introduces Lisa to his friends. We find out that Lisa is also afraid that Daniel has been talking to other women. Even though she’s hiding about 100 secrets, this is something she tries to use as an exist. The relationship and situation are both overwhelming for her. She wants an out, but Daniel’s friends back him up and the two stick together.
After surviving all of this together, it’s understandable that Lisa felt it was a good time to tell Daniel about her most recent marriage. Not all of them, but y’know, the main one. Over dinner, she tells Daniel it was a man (not true) and that they’re still married, but separated. Daniel is understandably upset. It’s against his religion and culture to be with a married woman, separated or not. This, finally, is enough to make Daniel storm away. Lisa breaks down and it’s harder to watch than the blurred poop sheets. She calls her daughter who reminds her she hasn’t even told Daniel everything. Lisa cries more.
None of it is entertaining. It’s just deep secondhand embarrassment, but not like in a fun way when Nathan Fielder does it. This is just a woman who should be back home with her family getting treatment. After the ANTM documentary, people wondered when there’d be some sort of TLC reckoning. Relationships like Lisa and Daniel’s will probably make up most of the footage. People who simply should not be on TV, but they create moments we simply have to talk about. Because the relationships on this version are so shallow, they have to lean on shock value.
I don’t want to shame Lisa for having an accident in bed. Accidents happen! TLC didn’t need to make it so graphic for us or show it to us at all. For any other couple, this could be a moment of intense, gross intimacy that pulls two people closer. With Lisa and Daniel it felt like the latest in the humiliation ritual that leads to them charging $80 for a cameo. The future of reality TV is one where producers prioritize empathy over entertainment value. That means casting people who can handle being on TV.
Upcoming Shows
3/5 - The Download, Skiptown Playhouse, Los Angeles, CA
3/10 - Horse Around, Nico’s, Los Angeles
New Crafts
I’m still crafting to support good causes. This week I made some Heated Rivalry stickers and keychains. Still raising money for Unidos_MN!
I am getting so good with shrinky dinks and sublimation stickers.
RANDOM
The more out there stuff I’ve been fixated on lately.
Stuff I Read This Week
If You Tell by Gregg Olsen - Book about Shelly Knotek who convinced her husband to help her kill four people and used abuse to keep her kids quiet.
How Should a White Woman Writer Be? by Malavika Kannan - It has been a LONG TIME since I read some real criticism. This made me stop and go follow the author. What a read.
Stuff I Watched This Week
Industry S4 Finale - What a fuckin’ great finale. I’ve loved Industry from the beginning. Like everyone, I loved that it let its female characters be dark and vicious. The dynamic reflects the finance industry where typical female characteristics are seen as weakness. The finance industry is not a place where “female friendship” and support exist. Harper and Yasmin have been giving Peggy and Joan since we met them. Two woman in a world that sees them as less than choosing different methods to survive that fact. Like Peggy and Joan, Harper and Yasmin love and resent each other. They hate and support each other. Industry has gone even further by having Yasmin take her place as the show’s true villain. She’s become a woman who sacrifices other women to the machine. Her early misogynistic comments and actions felt like they came from a place of ignorance. She knows what she’s doing now. Also goddamn that Rishi episode. GREAT TELEVISION!
Southern Charm - It’s so scary how Craig loses his mind and does not remember the next day. Shep feels so old and sad now. I still don’t know if I really like anyone right now. I guess Rodrigo is fine.
Southern Hospitality - New season started!! Emma is crazy!!!
School Spirits - The finale is up so you can go watch the full season. I love this show so hard. I screamed. I cried. I clapped. Jennifer Tilly did the damn thing. I really hope we get another season but they certainly answered a LOT of questions.
Neighbors - I think we are going to see so many of these people in future true crime shows for shooting their neighbor with a gun.
Love is Blind - SNOOOZZZZEEEEE the weddings all happened how we thought they would. I have no real interest in the reunion. Vic and his girl were so great though. It’s like they’ve been together for a million years. They were already husband and wife.
Below Deck Down Under - SNOOOOZZZZZZZEEEE oh no ben is slow with dinner service!! There’s just no real drama in this mix yet.
High Potential - This one felt like a bit of a reach plot-wise but hey, it was fun.
Scrubs Revival - I do not care that I am loving this shit so bad and I am laughing so so so much. I love sitcoms with jokes!
Shrinking - And I love this sitcom with few jokes but so many quaint, emotional moments. No spoilers but thank god D****s ***’* *** because I would’ve lost my shit.
Blue Therapy - Netflix made a British version of Couple’s Therapy.
DMV, St. Denis Medical, The Rise and Fall of Reggie Dinkins, Stumble, Ghosts - Did I mention comedy is BACK? How lucky we are to have all of this to watch.
My favorite new show recently has been Strip Law on Netflix. I love a comedy with jokes!
I somehow got sucked into the 90 Day franchise when my roommates would watch it in lockdown, and now I’ve got my partner into it. It’s one of the only reality shows I really like, mostly because it used to be about “real people.” But it’s just getting cringier and cringier and more upsetting. You captured this so well. I hope that woman is getting help and support 😭