A Lesson in De-Escalation from TLC's 90 Day Fiance

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Season 1 of CBS’ Survivor was my first exposure to reality television. While a competition where 16 contestants are dropped off on a remote island and forced to fend for themselves while also winning various challenges all for the chance to win the $1 million prize isn’t particularly realistic, the people seemed ordinary enough to fit the description. I was hooked.

When we got cable a couple of years later, I was able to catch up on the reality shows I had missed, like Real World, and discover new ones, like Teen Mom. More realistic scenarios combined, again, with seemingly normal people. 

As the genre became more popular, the definition of “reality” stretched. The relatively normal people who participated were replaced by people who yearned to have their every move documented by a camera crew and distributed to the masses. Such a person is incapable of living in a way that resembles what the rest of us consider real life, so these shows had to evolve with their participants.

Reality TV now leans into showcasing the most dramatic and ridiculous members of a society that is becoming more dramatic and ridiculous. Each season’s cast must outdo the previous ones with no apparent end to the rising stakes or pool of potential cast members. I am hooked. 

In a fact that surely has to amuse sociologists, no network does dramatic and ridiculous reality TV quite like the channel formerly known as “The Learning Channel.” And of all the dramatic and ridiculous offerings on TLC, none quite capture the essence of today’s reality TV climate quite like 90 Day Fiance.

The show follows a group of couples consisting of a US citizen and a foreign citizen, as they navigate the K-1 visa process. The K-1 visa allows non-US citizens to come to the United States to marry their significant other as long as they do so within 90 days of entering the country. Failure to do so results in deportation. Hence the name 90 Day Fiance.

The issues that arise from this process are a combination of the premises of every other great reality show. Cultural differences, living with someone new, relationship issues, and on and on and on. Add in the hard deadline and the type of people who would agree to have all of this filmed and you have the perfect recipe for guilty pleasure viewing.

The current couple who embody all things 90 Day Fiance are Gino Palazzolo and Jasmine Pineda. Whoever coined the phrase, “opposites attract,” had them in mind. Gino is a nerdy Michigan native who wears a hat at all times. More than half the time, that hat is a fedora. Jasmine is a social media influencer from Panama who spent the money Gino gave her for a wedding dress on butt implants. 

Their personalities are as different as their appearances which leads to A LOT of conflicts. Conflicts that are entertaining, and, dare I say, educational. In an ode to the network formerly known as “The Learning Channel,” let’s look at a heated exchange between these two and see what we can learn about de-escalation.

The Background

90 Day Fiance: Season 10 Episode 6

Our lovely couple is in the car having just left lunch with Gino’s family who accused Jasmine of pretending to love Gino. They believe she’s after his money and American citizenship. Tensions are a little high as Gino and Jasmine recap the events that just took place. Jasmine drops her phone under her seat. When she reaches down to find it, she instead finds lip gloss. Let’s start there.

Jasmine: "What is this?"

What is Jasmine really asking here? Does she need help identifying the item in her hand? What assumptions do we have to make to take her question at face value?

1. We would have to believe that Jasmine, whose job as a social media influencer requires her to be more aware of her appearance and how to enhance it than the average person, cannot identify beauty supplies;

2. and she believes Gino, a man who thinks wearing a fedora at all times is a more respectable and aesthetically pleasing solution to male-pattern baldness than just shaving his head, is more well-versed on the topic of cosmetics than she is.

What are the odds of one of these things being true, much less both? “What is this?” most likely means “Where did this come from?” or, more specifically, “Whose is this?” It is not a literal question, and it would be a mistake to answer it literally.

Gino: "I have no idea what that is."

Off to a rocky start, Gino. Not only did he answer it literally, but he also lied. He certainly has an idea of what it is, even if that idea is merely “makeup.” He’s been caught off guard by the discovery.

While none of us know the right answer to Jasmine’s question, we do know the wrong ones. This was a wrong one. A pretty significant stumble out the gate, but it’s still early in the exchange. Gino can recover. He cannot continue to play dumb though.

Gino: "Is that yours?"

Unfortunately, Gino hasn’t read this blog. No matter how you choose to interpret Jasmine’s question, we can be absolutely certain of one thing: the item is not hers. If it were, there would have been no question in the first place.

He’s somehow playing even dumber, which is only making the entire situation worse. He realizes it, too. Look at his face immediately after this ridiculous question falls out of his mouth.

That’s the face of a man who realizes that he has once again said the wrong thing. They sit in silence.

Sometimes, silence can be golden. Other times, it can be deafening. If I had to guess, this silence is deafening. It’s the oxygen to the fire that is Jasmine’s anger.

The silence is allowing Jasmine’s imagination to run wild. What started as Gino having an unknown passenger has no doubt progressed to Gino being on a date with a mystery woman to Gino wearing nothing but a fedora and a look of determination as he has this mystery woman folded up in the passenger seat like something you’d see in an Auntie Anne’s display case.

Gino has to say something. Even better if it’s something not stupid.

Gino: "Who knows?"

Not long after Survivor debuted, CBS found itself with another hit TV on its hands with CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. It became such a hit that CBS put it on directly after Survivor so they could dominate ratings on what has historically been television’s most important night, Thursday.

The show followed Las Vegas crime scene investigators as they solved crimes using forensic science. It was a fictional depiction that portrayed seemingly real-life scenarios in a way that made them believable enough for viewers to ignore the aspects of the storytelling that fell somewhere between implausible and impossible.

In fact, those aspects were often seen as believable as well. An actual crime scene investigator collects evidence. They don’t chase suspects, interrogate people, or solve cases on their own.

But we probably wouldn’t watch 40 or so minutes of Gil Grissom dusting for prints, so they take some liberties and use TV magic in a way that isn’t too different than what reality shows do.

One such bit of magic is the way cases are solved as a result of science pointing the team in the direction of a smoking gun. The show did this in such a believable way that it has impacted the prosecution of real-life cases.

In reality, science rarely gifts us a single smoking gun that ends up proving the guilt of a dastardly ne’er-do-well. Luckily for us though, reality TV is not reality.

What do you see in the picture above? A man in a ridiculous hat doing a cartoonish shrug? Yes, but look closer and you will see a guilty man.

I was one of the millions of Survivor viewers who hung around to watch CSI and help CBS win Thursday nights. In season 1 episode 21 (“Justice is Served”), Catherine Willows and Sara Sidle investigate the death of a six-year-old girl who died while on a carnival ride with her mother.

It was ruled a homicide, which means they have a murderer to catch. They discover that the ride operator was a man going by a fake name because he was a convicted sex offender. He quickly becomes a prime suspect and they work to try to prove his guilt, but the science does not cooperate.

Back at square one, Catherine thinks back on a previous conversation with the girl’s mother in which she asked her about the events surrounding the incident that led to her daughter’s death. Catherine suddenly recalls that the mother looked to her left as she explained everything she remembered.

As every TV forensic scientist knows, people look to their right when remembering things. Looking to the left indicated that the mom was not remembering, but instead fabricating. The mom was lying, she killed her daughter, and the science was able to confirm it.

Now, look again at Gino’s face. What are his eyes doing? I’ve laid his face over a chart to help us figure it out.

Unlike the murderous mom, Gino is remembering. And, not just remembering, but visually remembering! He’s picturing exactly whose lip gloss that is! Look again! That is the face of a man who is reminiscing!

Gino: "Who knows?"

He repeats his previous question but in a softer, whimsical tone. Trying to deflect but also daydreaming of when the lip gloss’ owner was riding shotgun in his 2015 Ford Explorer. He has the answer to Jasmine’s question but refuses to share it. How’s Jasmine handling it?

Jasmine: "WHAT IS THIS?"

About as well as can be expected, I suppose. Much like Catherine Willows, we are back at square one. This is Jasmine’s second time speaking. She has chosen to repeat her original question angrily in the hopes of finally getting the answer she wants.

This is a chance at redemption for Gino. He now knows how not to answer this question. Can he do better the second time around?

Gino: "I DON'T KNOW...what this is."

Of course not. Lost in his daydream, he forgot which path he took when he was first asked this question. Did he try to answer it literally? Did he attempt to answer the question behind the question?

He knows he handled it wrong the first time around. Logic tells him to do something different this time. Unfortunately, there’s no amount of looking to the left that’s going to get him back on track.

He’s so flustered that he messed up his demonstrative pronoun usage.

This is over here. That is over there. The lip gloss is over there in Jasmine’s hand. This is the type of mistake a man who is scrambling makes. This is bad. Can it possibly get worse? Where is rock bottom?

Gino: "Where did you find it?"

He’s got to be fucking with us, right? He knows exactly where she found it. HE WATCHED HER REACH UNDER HER SEAT AND GRAB IT!

Jasmine: "A lip gloss."

Jasmine, confused by Gino’s question and desperately trying to get him to move past the literal interpretation of her initial inquiry, identifies the item in her hand. By doing this, she hopes he will finally tell her who owns the lip gloss.

Gino: "What the fuck are you talking about?"

But Gino needs time to think about the safest way to reveal the owner, so he tosses up this deflection. The clock is ticking though and he resigns himself to the fact that his original strategy has failed. He can no longer pretend to not know what she means. He must provide an explanation of some kind.

Gino: "This is...no girlfriend or anything like that."

At last, Gino admits he understood the question behind the question by finally answering it. It’s a very bad answer though. One that makes him sound guilty. We see that in Jasmine’s response.

Jasmine: "WHO[sic] IS THIS?!?"

Fed up, she finally screams the actual question she wants answered. Gino needs to give some real answers and fast. So, naturally…

Gino: "I DON'T FUCKING KNOW!"

…he does not. This is met by a death stare from Jasmine. Finally, Gino begins to crack.

Gino: "Could be one of my coworkers..."

It’s a start, but a dumb one. The level of specificity of “coworker” is what makes it so. This answer either has to be incredibly vague (i.e. “someone was in my car”) or outright identify the lip gloss’ owner(i.e. “my sister, Jennifer, was in my car”).

“Coworker” falls in the part of the spectrum that greatly reduces the suspect pool to a point where you would have to know whose it was. How many coworkers can one person possibly have? How many could have been in his car?

The answer cannot be “coworker” without him knowing the exact person. By not identifying them, he’s hiding something. He seems to realize this almost immediately.

Gino: "...or some other motherfucker in my car..."

Not as gracefully as you’d like to word it, but okay. Right now, our range of suspects goes from “coworker” to “some other motherfucker in my car.” We can overlook the incriminating choice of “coworker” so long as he sticks the landing.

Gino: "...that was a coworker!"

How can he be this bad at this? Okay, so now our suspect list ranges from “coworker” to “coworker.” Jesus. Wonder whose lip gloss it could be?

We have reached the point of no return. The questioning turns into a full-blown screaming match. Jasmine accuses Gino of being a cheater and says she’ll be going back to Panama. Gino angrily tries to explain the concept of going out to eat with coworkers.

Gino parks the car. Jasmine exits in a rush. A camera pans down to reveal that she has once again dropped her phone. She runs behind an unidentified building to cry in peace. We’ll have to wait until the next episode to find out what happens.

Now that we’ve broken down exactly how Gino was inventing new and exciting ways to mishandle this situation, what if I told you that he actually provided the correct information, just at the wrong time?

Imagine if his initial response to Jasmine’s question was this:

Gino: "Oh, that's probably my coworker's. We all went out to eat awhile back and she rode with me. It must have fallen out of her purse."

Delivered matter-of-factly at the beginning of the conversation, it’s a completely innocent and reasonable explanation. In fact, I believe it’s what actually went down.

They probably hired some new social media manager who he quickly developed a crush on. He’s not going to make a move on her. He doesn’t have the nerve. A man can dream though.

But then, an opportunity. Everyone is going to lunch together. Gino shouts, “I can drive!” And the poor, unsuspecting coworker gets in his car, thinking to herself, “He seems nice. And we’re just going down the street.”

She quickly realizes her mistake as he spends the entire 8-minute drive to Ruby Tuesday gushing about the reliability and safety features of his beloved 2015 Ford Explorer. We already know what she is quickly learning. This is a man who rambles when he’s nervous and her mere presence has him in rare form.

Mercifully, they pull into the establishment’s parking lot. She can’t undo the seatbelt, which won an award for innovative technology, fast enough. In her rush to exit the car, she hastily grabs her purse, unknowingly dislodging her lip gloss in the process. It becomes a victim of the spacious interior that Gino just bragged about.

Not known for self-awareness, Gino remembers this car ride fondly. He was so geeked up that he barely touched his Ruby’s Signature Sampler. She switched jobs shortly thereafter so all he has are these memories, which he looks back on from time to time.

At the end of the day, this was nothing and it should have stayed nothing. You and I have had dozens of interactions just like this one and handled it perfectly with no effort or thought put into it. I would not believe someone could mess this up so badly if I hadn’t seen it with my own two eyes. I am hooked.