#’90 Day Fiancé: The Other Way’ Season 3 Premiere: Secrets & Lies (RECAP)

90 Day Fiancé: The Other Way is back, and while only we’ve only seen some of the couples before (two are new), they all have one thing in common: lots and lots of drama. So we know what to look forward to when we catch up with Kenneth and Armando again; they’re the only couple not featured in the premiere.

For the couples we do (re-)meet, one is separated by a hurricane, another may be separated due to an expiring visa, and another could be separated if a secret is revealed. Plus, it doesn’t bode well for an engaged couple that one person doesn’t really want to get married (at all), and an ex visiting can only mean one thing: trouble.

Read on to find out how the drama begins in Season 3.

Ellie and Victor

We meet Ellie (in Seattle) and Victor (in Colombia) as Hurricane Iota increases to category 5 and causes mass destruction to the island on which he lives, Providencia. She’s left wondering if he survived when she can’t reach him.

It was only one week earlier that Ellie was getting ready to leave behind her entire life (including selling her restaurant to her business partner) to move to be with Victor. (His K-1 visa application was canceled due to COVID.) Understandably, her friends are a bit concerned, since she’s only spent a few weeks with him in person and he cheated on her. (It wasn’t just a fling; he lived with another woman, who alerted Ellie to her existence.) However, Ellie’s happy and certain she found love again after suddenly losing her husband to an accidental overdose. She knows she’s taking a risk (and Victor could be using her for financial reasons), but she loves him and is willing to take the chance.

TLC

Corey and Evelin

We catch up with Corey and Evelin in Ecuador, and the pandemic was actually good for their “rollercoaster” relationship. When he proposed the first time, she said yes but refused to set a wedding date. She wasn’t ready, and they took a “break.” (If you’re having Friends flashbacks, you’re on the right track.) He went to Peru for a month, then returned to Ecuador to collect his things … and COVID happened. He ended up quarantined with Evelin, who found out he’d been seeing someone, Jenny, in Peru. They eventually decided to start fresh, without secrets, and things are looking up: Their bar is reopening, they’re engaged (again), and they’ve set a date.

But there are still problems. For one, he hasn’t been entirely honest about what happened with Jenny and knows it will be “really bad” when Evelin finds out everything. Plus, she has yet to tell her family they’ve set a date. She wanted to leave herself room to change her mind since she actually doesn’t ever want to get married. When they tell her family the news, her mom asks, “You convinced Evelin?” She’s happy for them, but Evelin’s dad knows how she feels about marriage. And Evelin’s sister Lesly isn’t a fan of Corey. To her, he is fake and doesn’t respect her sister. And Evelin’s still just wondering about actually getting married since divorce isn’t an option in her family.

TLC

Ariela and Biniyam

Ariela and Biniyam continue to build their life together (with their son Avi) in Ethiopia. They’ve moved into a three-bedroom house, and soon, one of those bedrooms will be hosting her ex-husband and best friend Leandro, who’s come to visit and meet her family. (He’s finishing up the required quarantine in a nearby hotel.) It should be quite the experience since Ethiopian women never see their ex-husbands again and Ariela knows that Biniyam feels territorial about her. (It probably doesn’t help that she accidentally almost calls Leandro “babe” when he calls and they laugh about it, plus Biniyam’s first wife went back to her ex.)

They’re just friends, like brother and sister, Ariela assures Biniyam and his sisters, Wish and Mimi. (They split when she wanted to travel and he wanted to focus on getting his doctorate.) It also comes out that Leandro visited Ariela when she was in New Jersey, something she told Wish (because they’ve been getting closer) but not Mimi or Biniyam. If he’d known about it sooner, Biniyam says Leandro wouldn’t be coming to visit now.

TLC

Jenny and Sumit

It’s been a rough 10 years for Jenny and Sumit, whose relationship started with him catfishing her (though she says he’s cuter than the guy he was pretending to be). What followed were multiple promises he never kept to marry her because his parents don’t approve due to their age difference of 30 years. But this time, if they don’t marry, she’ll have to leave India; her tourist visa extension has been canceled instead of approved as it has been each time before. Sumit’s astrologer advises them not to force marriage, but Jenny doesn’t care (or believe).

Jenny must leave the country, so the plan is for her to stay in a nearby country instead of returning to the U.S. But there’s a problem: the Nepal border is closed, and that would be the only country Sumit can go with her to since he lost (his in-laws took) his passport. She doesn’t have many options, and it’s looking more and more like Jenny will have to return to America, where she no longer has anything waiting for her. Her life is in India. They can get married, she points out, but he says he can’t go against his parents’ wishes. She tells him she’s going back to America and not coming back and walks off to book her flight.

Steven and Alina

The second new couple is Steven (from Salt Lake City) and Alina (from Russia). They met on a language exchange site, and while she was afraid to meet up with him after finding out he’s a Mormon (she thought he’d sell her organs), they eventually connected. They have been dating for over a year and are ready to start their lives together. He was going to move to Russia to be with her, but due to the pandemic, the borders closed, so they’re moving to Turkey.

As his mother points out, they’ve only been together in person for two weeks. And what if Alina doesn’t want to become a Mormon? Steven’s faith is important to him, so he doesn’t think it’ll work out if she doesn’t convert and accept the faith. However, he also hasn’t lived a perfect life to this point and hasn’t been totally candid with her. He admits he’s fallen short of the standards of the church and is afraid when he reveals these things to her, it’ll make her doubt everything he’s told her.

So, secrets, lies, and drama — it’s just another season of a 90 Day Fiancé series!

90 Day Fiancé: The Other Way, Sundays, 8/7c, TLC (pre-premiere Fridays, discovery+)