But wait there will be a change. Pudgy Sammy Younai has been dropped from the show. He is being replaced by Lilly Ghalichi, who is anything but pudgy.
Bravo didn’t say why one of the six “Shahs of Sunset” was being replaced. But Lilly is a very sexy thing. She hails from Houston, but moved to LA to join the Persian community there several years ago.
The title “Shahs of Sunset” is shorthand, meaning the Persians of Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills.
This reality TV show ran as six shows last spring. It proved a big winner though not necessarily with Iranian-Americans and producer Ryan Secrest decided to bring it back again. There is no word yet on how many episodes will appear in Season Two.
Secrest is the fellow behind “Jersey Shore,” a reality TV show about a bunch of Italian-Americans from New Jersey. Secrest seems to have struck a gold mine because Americans seem to like looking at an ethnic subset doing their thing.
Many Iranian-Americans found the first season of “Shahs of Sunset” offensive as the six performed as a loud and nouveau riche crowd that was obsessed with material things.
But many viewers were intrigued by the close family ties, the desire to do right by their Persian culture and the strains they went through trying to be both American and Persian at the same time.
The formula will repeat itself in Season Two. This finds Reza Farahan, the biggest personality of the group and a gay who has come out, in a full-blown, as he describes it, “gay life crisis.” He is reevaluating everything in his life from his commitment to his boyfriend to his resentment toward his grandmother.
Party girl Mercedeh Javid (MJ) says she is now ready to develop a real relationship with a “good guy” but the show’s producers say “her party girl habits seem to be catching up with her.”
Mike Shouhed meets a girl he thinks may finally be the one but she isn’t Jewish.
Asa Soltan Rahmati stumbles into a financial crisis while pursuing her dream of becoming America’s Persian Pop Princess.
Golnesa “GG” Gharachedaghi, the one who has been perpetually unemployed, decides to start a business with her sister but finds her fiery temper continues to intervene.
Then there’s the new babe on the block Lilly. She’s rich, slim, smart, successful and beautiful. She’s a lawyer. But she found practicing law to be a bore so she has pursued something she really loves. She designs and markets swimwear. And then there’s Ali, her old boyfriend on-and-off back in Houston.
They are all there together on the “Shahs of Sunset” to be loved, loathed or lamented.