'Emily in Paris' Season 4 Part 2 Gets Back to Fantasy

By Chris Revelle | TV | September 16, 2024 |

The work of a TV critic can be a funny one. You watch a ton of stuff, some you like, some you hate, a few you love, and then there’s a vast gray ocean of good-enough mediocrity that you could call “fine.” For me, loving a show or hating it are the best options; both reactions are extreme and provide ample material to write something compelling. It’s the mediocrity that can really snag because it takes more work writing about something that didn’t move or inspire you in any particular direction and making that interesting or compelling to read. What is one to do then with Emily in Paris, a show that inspires both love and hate within me despite being mediocre in quality? I could excoriate it for being froth, for being a dopey soap opera with atrociously clunky dialogue, for having the depth of a reflecting pool; the temptation is strong. There’s a sort of pugilistic rush to a big bombastic take-down. I’ve come to realize, however, that for all the reasons I jeer at Emily in Paris, I’m fascinated by those traits in equal measure.

Circa 2011, the now-defunct website Nerve ran a monthly feature called “Ridiculous Tips For A Miserable Sex Life” in which the writer would comb the sex tips found in magazines like Cosmopolitan and Maxim and excerpt them with funny commentary. At some point after reading about how to include a vacuum in the bedroom and crazy uses for peppermint oil, the writer jokingly hypothesized that all these men’s and women’s magazines were run by a cabal of mean-spirited gay men who sold increasingly absurd sex advice to straight people to see how far they would go. That feels like a good comparison for the feeling I get while watching Emily in Paris; it’s such a ridiculous and cartoonish heteronormative world conducted by one powerful gay man Darren Star (instead of a cabal). It’s not nearly as mean-spirited as the magazine cabal, but there’s a certain quality to the soapy frothy romps produced by gay men, for straight women. Sex and the City and Desperate Housewives are good examples of this. I won’t tell you it’s high art, but it’s a special kind of fun.

When I wrote my review of part 1, I related the season back to being an exercise in the Mary-Sue/Gary-Stu trope, but neglected to point out that Emily in Paris made some strides into more serious territory. The episodes were longer and strove to address topics with more weight to them like a #MeToo plotline involving Louis de Leon (Pierre Deny), the powerful fashion designer. He was sexually assaulting people in the couture closet so often they had to institute an unofficial buddy policy for protection. Sylvie (Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu) was among the people he assaulted in the past and she struggled with telling others, like her husband. Mindy (Ashley Park) had developed a relationship with Louis’ son Nicolas (Paul Forman) which complicated matters further.

It was an interesting turn for the show to take, but I think, especially in comparison to the far-sillier part 2, it was ultimately unsuccessful. Emily in Paris is fluff and nonsense, it’s a fantasy where everything works out for our heroes and though big soapy conflicts will arise, the stakes will never feel too real or too complex. A story about workplace sexual assault carried out by a powerful man, while competently executed, is just too heavy, like an anvil dropping right through a cotton candy cloud. I appreciate the show’s desire to do something different, but this wasn’t the best direction for it to take. Emily in Paris does a competent job of it, but the storyline sits at odds with the rest of the show.

The second half sees the show return to the high silliness it does so well, but it also finds some other more successful ways to evolve. Emily (Lily Collins) actually moves on (???) from both Alfie (Lucien Laviscount) and Gabriel (Lucas Bravo). I was stunned. I truly didn’t think the show had it in itself to stop going through that revolving door, but Emily meets a new hottie named Marcello (Eugenio Franceschini), the heir to the Umberto Muratori Italian cashmere brand while taking an escape to Rome. Emily embarks on a flirtation with Marcello that, of course, leads to potential business between Umberto Muratori and Agence Grateau. I was genuinely impressed with the show’s willingness to change things up while returning to what it does best: fantasy. The whole Roman affair explicitly references Roman Holiday, a perfectly on-the-nose touch for a series that embodies a Breakfast At Tiffany’s poster in a dorm room.

Spoilers for the end of this goofballs show: after a fun little heist-flavored romp to secure a deal with Muratori, Agence Grateau establishes a Roman office to be headed by Sylvie with Emily as her right-hand woman. Emily so impressed Marcello’s mother Antonia that Antonia made it a clause in the contract that Emily lives in Rome full time. So she moves to Rome! Emily in ~~Paris~~ Rome? Same bonkers soap opera in a different gorgeous European city? Mindy breaks up with Nicolas and makes plans to join Emily in her new adventure. I was thrilled! A new city, a new slate of fish-out-of-water jokes, a new slate of hapless saps for Emily to toy with!

Alas, with one hand the series points to the future and with the other threatens to pull itself back. Gabriel spends a lot of this half-season brooding and moping and pining for Emily. He wants to be back with her (please god nooooo) and later when he discusses plans to expand his restaurant Gigi to other places, Mindy suggests Rome. I know this show can’t help itself, I know it’s absolutely the type of series to migrate its cast to Rome. However, Star said that while Emily seems to be making a big change, she didn’t change her Instagram handle to @emilyinrome. “They can be in more than one city, and Emily can spend time in Rome. She can spend time in Paris, too. She’s not leaving Paris,” Star said. Netflix just announced the show has been renewed for season 5 and Star assures us that the fifth season would give us further adventures in Rome. I can only hope that when Emily in Paris returns to us, it’s found new levels of frothy fun.