One of my favorite all time reality televisions shows is back the Shahs of Sunset.
For anyone who hasn’t watched the Shahs, the show is based on friends who Persian cultural background and strong family values is the backbone of the show.
However, sometimes family values can fall through the wayside.
The cast is quite eclectic.
We have Reza who seems to be the monarch of the show. Reza comes from both a Muslim and Jewish traditional backgrounds, but his family issues do not come from him being gay, more as the dysfunction of the religions and infidelity which seem to plague this family. Reza’s strong personality is what gives depth to the show. He doesn’t hold back on how he feels, loves to party and doesn’t hide his lustful ways when he’s into a guy. To think the Shahs would survive without Reza, put that out of your thoughts….this show is Reza. Reza is now married to Adam (after much drama), since at some point Reza wasn’t sure if he wanted to be married in the first place. Now within the current season, it’s looking like Adam has strayed, the one person Reza hurt multiple times after Adam finding out Reza wasn’t as faithful in their relationship.
Then we have his friend Mercedes, better known as MJ. His onetime fuck buddy but Reza is strictly gay. He just had an experience, it happened to be with MJ.
MJ comes off like she has her life together, however, jealousy gets the better of MJ when she sees how others are progressing in their lives and at times she feels the need to do the same in order to “keep up”. But just like Reza, MJ loves to party it up. MJ recently met and married her love who is just as bodacious as she is. Her mom Vida has no hair on her tongue and she means what she says. And while some of the things Vida had said can be humorous, I’m not laughing when she criticizes MJ, like she’s not good enough, what man would want her, why does she dress certain ways. Vida’s below the belt comments makes you want to hate her but it’s hard not to. Sometimes the truth hurts.
MJ still has a love/hate relationship with her mom and includes her as much as she is willing to when it comes to MJ’s life events. She was very much closer to her dad Shams, who sadly passed away more than a year ago.
She is now married to Tommy and they have a baby boy, Shams Francis.
Next on the list we have Mike.
Mike is considered the playboy of the group, grew up in a Persian Jewish family tradition. Although Mike is Jewish and the cast is mostly of the Muslim faith, this doesn’t take away any of the friendships he has with anyone on the cast. It is their Persian culture that keeps their friendships together.
Somewhat of a ladies’ man, I think everyone in this group has gotten a eyeful of his ‘dool’ (penis in Farsi), Mike met the “love of his life” Jessica, who’s from an Italian background and converted to Judaism to be with Mike and to have his family’s approval of their marriage. Jessica went through the whole traditional conversion and basically sacrificed her entire faith of Catholicism to be with Mike and in the hopes they will have children and raise them in the Jewish faith, but that was never meant to be.
Jessica and Mike had clear problems from the beginning as Mike roving eyes got the better of him, his irresponsibility with finances as he seemed to have jumped from one business idea to another and not even making a full commitment with that. Less than five months into their marriage, Jessica caught Mike cheating with an email account they apparently shared together and allegedly a messaged popped up from another woman while Jessica was logged into that account.
Although within that season of their return, Mike continued to deny the cheating scandals even with producers asking him if he was and he flat out denied it. Until he couldn’t no more, Mike eventually owned up to his fuck up and admitted he did cheat. But by then the marriage had been long over and Jessica left Mike to begin her own life. Needless to say, it looked like Jessica had returned a few times, as Golnesa better known as GG, took a closer look at one of Mike’s instagram post and if you were paying attention there was a reflection of Jessica’s in Mike’s room in his bed.
Now while I don’t begrudge people who break up, go back to those “familiar waters” every now and again, both Mike and Jessica have moved on and from the news outlets Jessica gave birth to a baby boy last February, baby daddy is unknown.
Mike has moved on with another girl, Paulina, who’s gun ho about their relationship and while Mike is completely in love, Paulina is already making wedding plans and Mike, well….I haven’t seen him ask her yet. But I guess it’s good to plan ahead…?
Next on the cast of Shah’s someone we just mentioned Golnesa, better known as GG. One of the younger cast members, GG is the not so nice, never know what to expect girl if you rub her the wrong way. From day one, this problem child had no issues cursing anyone out who didn’t come correct, even her sister has been in that line of fire multiple times.
While GG maintains a good relationship with her parents, everyone else either treads with caution or unlike Reza puts her in her place and I’ve lost count on how many times he’s done that. GG can be considered misunderstood but at the same time, it’s very clear GG has serious anger issues and she is fully aware of it. Her fights with Asa, Reza, Mike and MJ has never ended well, having most of the cast shun her but then have taken her back when she claims she’s been enlighten in one form or another, mostly by weed.
From season one, on a dinner with Asa, MJ and a few other people that were never seen again, GG was addressed by one of Asa’s friend of being a mean girl and spoiled. Pretty accurate in my book after the woman claimed, just spending a few hours with her, she can see GG was not the kind of person she wanted as a friend.
GG has sparred with so many of the cast members, I’m surprised she is still on the show. I vividly recall when Porsha from the Real Housewives of Atlanta got into a fight and she was fired, yet, GG seems to go unscathed, even at some point in another battle she was having, scratched Reza’s husband Adam, in the face (but he’s long forgiven her).
Two seasons ago, GG met Shalom, who seemed to have just as much anger issues as she does. On a trip to NYC, where GG was acting on a off Broadway play, she told Shalom she had to kiss one of the characters in the play. To Shalom’s dismay, he was beyond upset, arguing with GG and giving the camera guys the finger as he walked out the door in disgust. But fear not, what seemed to be an act, just for the cameras, Shalom took GG to Times Square where he proposed with a big rock and soon thereafter married GG at a justice of the peace, only for the marriage to end a short time later.
GG now owns a cannabis business called WuSah, and her presentation for investors was a hot mess. However, being on television can help a potential investor make their money back, so it looks like GG has no worries, so far. But her disdain with Shervin, who’s a frequent guest on the show, also owns his own cannabis business, upsetting GG to say the least.
Former cast member Asa, was a fixture from the beginning of the show, that is until she started dating Jermaine where she began to be more of a private person refusing to share what was going on in her life.
Asa was the spiritual aspect of the show. A different style from her traditional Muslim faith, she embraced the female factor of what it is like to be a woman within the Islamic family traditions of how women were viewed and dressed. She embraced the burka styles along with head wraps, and kaftans, among many other types, making it more of a trend other than a obligatory religion wear. There were times Reza had issues with the burka and any other type of wear pertaining to religion. While Asa did not always have her head covered, most times than not, Asa embraced the spiritual side of a Muslim life.
She had many run ins with GG. Her relationship with MJ failed time and time again because MJ didn’t like the Reza being besties with anyone but her. She had a good friendship with Mike that is until she became pregnant with Jermaine Jackson’s baby causing a slew of questions of how she had planned on raising her child.
It seemed what started off as a good thing, turned on Asa leaving her to question why she should continue on with the show. Her privacy level was at an all time high and in order for anyone to survive on a reality show would mean they would have to be an open book.
While Asa is no longer on the show, we have seen her periodically after her last season, but the last two seasons she’s basically been absent and not even a mention of her on the show.
Nema, a new cast member was introduced last season as a potential love interest for GG, however, that never came to fruition. I think Nema was just too good for GG and she had zero interest in investing with a man who can actually make her out to be a bit more responsible.
Nema, was living with a girl when he first came on, however, his flirting with GG cost him his relationship and she left, leaving him to pursue even harder at GG who still showed no interest but flirted and toyed with him just because she can.
Nema also helped out GG with her Wusah business.
Nema’s sister briefly dated Mike but that relationship took a deep dive since at the time Mike wasn’t ready to commit.
Why Nema came on instead of making Shervin part of the show…who knows?
Guests of the show: Shervin and Destiny.
I have to say Shervin is pretty interesting and should definitely be more of a cast member than a guest. He’s best friends with GG and I think because of that, he seems to tame her when she gets out of control and most times he’s in her corner, I mean this is until he decided to get involved in the same business as she did.
He’s also really good friends with Mike, Nema and Reza.
Destiney…hmm I’m not quite sure how she fits in. She’s almost like the third wheel in everyone’s life. We were subjected to her antics last season, as she searched for a father who didn’t want to be found. It was almost like a forced story, all of the crying and begging her mom to provide her with much needed information to find her father, it was painfully clear this was just another filler to add on to the show to make up for time.
She’s back this season, once again providing advice to Mike on how to treat his girlfriend….like not for nothing, it doesn’t matter how much advice you can give someone, at the end of the day, they will still do what they want.
Looks like this season will be filled with much drama as there is a friendship battle between Reza and MJ. Looks like useless Destiney is creating unnecessary drama for everyone else and Mike…well, a relationship commitment remains to be seen.
I’m looking forward to Shahs of Sunset season!