Emily in Paris (Netflix) and I did not get off to a good start. I watched the first season and thought it was soulless, vapid, insufferable fluff. Yet within days, a lot of people I knew were watching it. They mostly seemed to agree that it was vapid fluff, but were happy to suffer through season one, and later season two. I did not feel so out of step again until I enjoyed the first two episodes of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. I asked a friend if Emily in Paris is still dreadful. “Yes,” he said. “And it’s heaven.”
To prepare for season three, and in the interests of journalism, I watched season two, somewhat reluctantly. I had loathed the selfish and entitled Emily (Lily Collins), and found its forced zaniness to be grating. Perhaps it was the lowered expectations, or perhaps the need for light relief has only grown since 2020, but I didn’t hate it quite as much as I had before. It seemed to have become more self-aware. Emily was no longer the centre of the universe, and the supporting cast had been given personalities outside her orbit. It understood its absurdities. Emily was even learning French. It wasn’t heaven, exactly, but neither was it hell.
Emily returns for a third season with her world in chaos. The French staff have exited the marketing firm Savoir to set up on their own, and American boss Madeline (Kate Walsh, who has a perfect grasp of the intended tone and puts in a virtuoso slapstick performance) is attempting to pick her way through the cultural confusions of the French luxury market. Luckily, she has Emily at her side, though in a twist everyone saw coming, Emily is simultaneously trying to work for the French firm and for Madeline, who is heavily pregnant, at Savoir. It’s essentially a fashion and champagne version of the Vicar of Dibley Christmas dinners episode, and something has got to give.
Inexplicably, still, everyone wants Emily, and wants to help her out. She is a successful influencer, livestreaming her way around the city as she eats chocolate mousse and rides a Segway in front of Notre-Dame. Madeline and Emily’s old boss Sylvie are fighting over her, though Sylvie is too proud to admit it. And Emily’s ex-boyfriend in Chicago puts her up for a contract with McDonald’s, which, in Paris, is apparently the height of sophisticated lunching (there’s no shortage of real-life brands on show here). At least one of the French actors has the decency to eat his McBaguette with barely disguised disdain.
But if everyone wants Emily, what does Emily want? Now that she can speak a little French, she wants to stay in Paris, rather than moving back to Chicago as planned. The first few episodes spend a lot of time attempting to put the pieces back together after breaking everything in season two, right down to the location of the offices and who her boss is going to be. I still don’t fully follow the work side of things, in part because anyone Emily comes across ends up being recruited into the French luxury market somehow, no matter whether they are an accountant, or a jazz singer, or the parent of a friend. The campaigns look like the sort of thing the losing Apprentice team comes up with when they’re forced to try selling baby food to Waitrose, if that happened within an episode of Ab Fab and Bubble was in charge.
As she is a magnet for any man in Paris who looks as if he has been pulled off the set of an underwear shoot for a mid-range catalogue, Emily’s personal life is also going swimmingly. She has a boyfriend called Alfie, in possession of the most immaculate facial hair the world has ever seen, and who is so charming and rogueish that he calls her by her surname, the scamp. But that lingering chemistry between Emily and chef Gabriel continues to smoulder, even though Gabriel and Camille are giving it another go, and Emily is trying to be a friend to them both.
After watching the second and third seasons in close succession I now know that Emily in Paris is horribly moreish. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but it is so relentlessly chirpy it doesn’t really need to. The clothes are bright and hypnotically garish, to the extent that, like its ancestor Sex and the City, you just want a new episode to start so you can see what everyone is wearing. The plot lurches from melodrama to high farce – there’s a rumoured death and a hologram interlude, which, you know, go for it, why not – and whisper it, it’s actually quite fun. So fine, Emily in Paris, I give up. You win.
