CAPITOL SPENDING: The cast of “Breaking Amish” will visit Washington, DC this season. (
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On “Jersey Shore,” the key to the good life was “GTL”: gym, tanning, laundry.
On Sunday-night’s second-season premiere of “Breaking Amish: Brave New World,” the key to the bad life may have been more like, “BIL”: bestiality, infidelity, laundry.
Or at least that is what one young Amish escapee says went on inside his community.
Yes, of course, this “confession” — and even the move out of their Amish villages — was set up, or at least “encouraged” by the reality show’s producers.
But what started out as a voyeuristic lark for us “English” this season takes a dark and ugly turn.
A year later, the group — Abe, Rebecca, Sabrina, Kate and Jeremiah — is in bad shape.
In fact, they all seem to have come to one conclusion: They neither belong in the world inside nor in the one outside.
Rebecca and Abe, a married couple, are reduced to living in a tiny, one-room apartment in Punxsutawney, Pa.. with their daughter — although the child is never seen on-camera.
Kate, who lives in Manhattan and is pursuing a modeling career, has had some decent catalogue gigs, but has also developed a drinking problem.
Sabrina, who’s gone semi-punk, is awaiting the return of her boyfriend. No, he’s not on a business trip — he’s in prison for assault, and she lives alone with a semi-automatic rifle propped up against her door.
Jeremiah, the playboy of the group was living with Sabrina—and an “English” woman, Kim — but has since moved to Sarasota, Fla. with Kim.
In short, their new lives outside the insular world they know and didn’t love have turned out, in many ways, to be as restrictive and confining than the ones they ran from.
Why? Because they are simply all unprepared for life on the outside: Too little education, too little experience and too few skills.
Again — probably forced by producers — on the season premiere, Jeremiah invites the other four to come see Florida for themselves.
It is, he says, a place where they can find work in construction — in Sarasota, a city that has become the vacation spot for the Amish and Mennonites.
Who even knew the Amish went on vacation, let alone had a special hot spot?
Rebecca falls apart at the thought of even going to see Florida. And when Abe’s 18-year-old sister shows up at their door, begging them to take her in, Rebecca’s anxiety becomes a full-blown, unhinged meltdown.
It’s a sad and lonely world these young adults inhabit.
While they’re hardly the “Jersey Shore” in suspenders, the people of “Breaking Amish: Brave New World” might be brave — but coming to the “new world” doesn’t mean they’ve become new people.
This series is definitely worth checking out — even in its second season (and there’s a spinoff on the way, too, with an all-new cast. Stay tuned.