On this week’s midseason finale of 90 Day Fiance: The Other Way, Ariela and Biniyam exploded.
As you can see in this clip, Ariela freaked out about the living situation … and Biniyam snapped.
With Ariela’s mom having flown back to the US, it was just Ariela and Biniyam.
Though Biniyam promised to work on his English to make communication easier, Ariela still felt alone.
She also needed a real place to live, one with plumbing and safe wiring and other elements of her standard of living.
They toured different apartments. As with most apartment tours on reality TV, it’s hard to say how much was production’s planning.
We watched them tour an apartment that was (mostly) nice by US standards, with a modern looking shower.
Ariela was thrilled by the working plumbing and hot water.
Unfortunately, the price, when translated to US currency, is $1,400 per month.
That is a standard going rate for a two-bedroom apartment in a mid-sized or small US city.
In this location, it’s downright opulent … and well past anything that Biniyam could possibly afford.
Biniyam, however, explains that he works basically four different jobs in order to pull together his meager earnings.
All told, on average, he makes about $500 per month once it’s converted to dollars.
Even if he were making that much each week, that apartment would likely be beyond his means.
Biniyam is pushing for them to instead live in the (unfinished, currently uninhabitable) apartment that costs $170 per month.
Ariela says that Biniyam knows that he cannot actually finish it in time for them to live there.
When she says that he cannot fix it up in a week, he tells her that she is mistaken, and wonders how she would know because she doesn’t work construction.
Ariela spells it out plainly that she cannot live in a place that doesn’t have a working shower and real plumbing.
She reasons that if Biniyam were actually able to set up the apartment quickly, he would have done so before she arrived.
They cannot count on him finishing the apartment at superhuman speeds when there is no evidence that he can do so.
At this point, Biniyam becomes more confrontational than we have ever seen him be on the show.
In fact, he declares an infamous phrase, one that is notorious in 90 Day Fiance circles.
"I’m done," he declares.
They could have had this conversation without any of the yelling, though it seems like Ariela (who is very pregnant) felt that this was the only way to convey the urgency to him.
Also … they could have had this conversation in some place other than the back seat of that poor man’s car.
Wow.
Of course, just as when Angela Deem has screeched that same line countless times, it doesn’t look like Biniyam was, in fact, done.
We see the expecting couple sitting in a doctor’s office in the teaser trailer for the rest of Season 2 that will premiere in October.
There, Ariela is told that she will not only require a C-section, but that she must have it that very day.
Ariela cries as she is about to be, and we cannot emphasize this enough, cut open across her abdomen.
For a C-section, they have to cut through the abdominal wall and the uterus to remove the baby.
Even if Ariela were not doing this in Ethiopia without time for her parents to arrive, this would be scary.
It seems that the baby is born safely … but that this is not the end of their troubles.
In an eye-catching moment in the teaser, Biniyam’s sisters tell Ariela that her baby will literally go to hell if not baptised.
She and Biniyam should have had this conversation long, long before having a child together.