Thread is moving fast (again, finally!) so I'm behind and it's taken me a while to sort out my thoughts, rate me late but I needed to let my autism out -
On Chantal's pattern of lying but not being able to have an original thought, most recently demonstrated by the Precious movie scene she used as her own -
She clearly entered into one of those prostitute marriages that Kuwait doesn't legally recognise, if it was ever even THAT legitimate and she wasn't fooled by the blurry handwritten (I assume in crayon) marriage certificate Salah showed Alaa to try to prove legitimacy.
Obviously her ego couldn't handle questioning of her totally real marriage to her totally real true love (who is blatantly an attempt at replacing Nader) so she came up with some explanations -
Firstly that she had a work card (might be called something else) through Alaa's business, which she couldn't as per MTReacts, but I think she knew about that because Salah used working with Alaa's 'perfume business' to get a valid work visa and therefore no longer be illegal and therefore open up the possibility of getting a passport to travel, as established they only mentioned visiting countries friendly to his Syrian avoiding conscription status.
Then she said they could basically petition/sue/legal loophole the court into marrying them against Kuwait's own rules (and if she were to be denied entry/arrested her worst crime by far is publicly talking about exploiting legal loopholes even if they don't exist) and I believe this was based on what others have said - she was denied a tourist visa extension and then applied for an appeal. I believe it was part of this appeal they went to the courthouse for, that Chantal used as an excuse to wedding LARP, where Salah memorably wore a hoodie to his supposed wedding, the man who wears a blazer to the movies. And hence in her jumbled mind, using petitioning the court as a reason for a plausible marriage license, even though again, suing a country into amending its own laws for a tourist made as much sense as her getting a work card on a tourist visa.
Then her habit as established in the Nader era - repeating what has been said to her to the cats. I believe the "why are you so fat" aimed at Sam was a verbatim of what Salah (or maybe Nader, who I think there are enough hints to reaonsably assume she has seen at least once since returning to Canada) has said to her recently. The more I think about it, it is most likely what Nader said to her when she has visited and she immediately repeated the same behaviour of saying to the cats what Nader had said to her.
And finally, this is pure speculation, I think Salah's recent violent flirting in chat "I'll hit/spank you next time I see you" is from Chantal attempting to emasculate him by comparing him to Nader. I believe Nader is the root of what their argument and brief breakup was about. Chantal, as established with Nader, used other men eg Bibi, Peetz, to try to make Nader jealous. I believe, fuelled in whatever way by Nader - guilt of cheating with him, frustration her replacement Nader clearly won't touch her apart from holding her head like a bowling ball only when there is a camera - used some sort of 'why can't you be more like my violent, dominant ex' at Salah. That to me is the most likely reason Salah is now talking about hitting Chins publicly in her chat, poor little domestic violence survivors she is, and Chantal didn't react by screaming "paperclips".
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