90 Day Fiance Paola Is A Woman For All Seasons

Like so many of the network's series, TLC's 90 Day Fiance was created with one purpose in mind: to invite the viewer to judge everyone on it. (See also: My Strange Addiction, Extreme Cheapskates, Hoarding: Buried Alive, Say Yes To The Dress, 19 Kids And Counting...wait, is that true of every single show on TLC?!) But the bases on which we're invited to judge this show's "stars" are more charged than usual. Four American men have found four foreign women who've agreed to get engaged to them, on which theory the women are, as we follow them, living in the U.S. on K-1 visas while they and their potential spouses spend time together -- the most time they've ever spent together, in fact -- to see how compatible they are and whether they will actually get married at the end of, you guessed it, ninety days. Even if you've never seen the show, as I assume most of you haven't, you probably already have ideas about the couples based on my description, and if you assumed that the guys are all kind of awkward and that the ladies are all way out of their league(s) and mostly in it for financial gain, you're pretty much right. After the first episode I saw, I was contemptuous of Paola, the gold-diggiest of all, as I thought then. Now, on the eve of the season finale, I have to announce that I was wrong. Paola may still be a gold-digger. But I love her.

Paola is a stunning Colombian woman, with perfect hair, nails, lips, and boobs. At least two if not all four of those are fake (she may have also had a nose job?), but as fakes go, they are spectacular. Unlike most TLC stars with breast implants -- if breast implants they are; I'm no expert -- Paola's are a reasonable size, proportional to her frame, and displayed to advantage in a series of low-cut sweaters, dresses, and one rather memorable bikini top. I'm not saying she definitely did get a boob job in order to attract a man from a wealthy country. I am saying that if she did, she picked out a very good pair.

I think part of what makes Paola so fascinating to me is the focus she brings to her task. Attracting Russ such that he'd want to propose was only Phase 1. Now she needs to get him to go through with the wedding, and he is not making it easy. With the short-sighted idea of saving money, for example, he tells Paola they're going to have to live with his parents -- and, since his parents are devout Christians, they will not get to share a room. Does Paola respond by pouting or throwing a tantrum? Not at all. Instead, she makes everyone uncomfortable by coming down to breakfast wearing a lacy baby doll nightie fit for the Lingerie Bowl; she also sneaks into Russ's room after his parents go to sleep to seduce him. Cut to: Russ finding them an apartment with a hot tub in the basement.

Then there was the time that Russ tried to make Paola fit in with the rest of the people he knows in his Oklahoma town -- where she's evidently the most exotic person by quite a wide margin -- by taking her to get her first pair of cowboy boots. Paola, God love her, picks out the most expensive pair in the store and Russ has no choice but to pay for them, AND WHY NOT. SHE IS WORTH IT.

Russ doesn't cover himself with glory when he and Paola go to a dance studio so he can learn salsa, either. Paola, of course, is a beautiful dancer, and has a great time dancing with the male instructor while Russ gracelessly stomps his way through his steps with a female teacher. Paola and her partner giggle to each other in Spanish about how Russ, with his toes turned out, looks like a penguin, and Russ, who was already annoyed that Paola's partner was showing him up, gets all snitty that they're sharing a private joke about him, which is where we really see Paola at her best: she leads him to the side of the room, presses up against him, and coos and wheedles until he gets over himself. It's such a masterful display that one might even feel like it's wasted on a mark like Russ.

But look, everyone is getting something out of this transaction. Russ is a decent-looking guy (the most attractive dude on the series, for sure), but Paola outclasses him by several levels of magnitude. And though there may be nothing to the fact that the first autofill Google offers when you type in "90 day fiance russ" is "90 day fiance russ gay," if there IS something to it, having Paola around will probably make things easier for him with his pious parents and/or among his fellow oil workers. And Paola gets a green card, which she can take with her when things with Russ inevitably fall apart and she moves to Miami to hook up with a fiftysomething club owner or condo developer, one of which she will find within hours of leaving the airport, if not on the plane.

Paola has much to teach us. If Sunday's season finale ends up being the series finale as well, I just hope and pray she returns with a YouTube channel. Or, in a couple of years, as a Real Housewife.