Bonjour to the third season of Netflix’s chaotic original series Emily in Paris! What better way to enjoy a show that feeds everyone’s unrealistic desires to whimsically run off to France than with unrealistic plot points and a classic “will they, won’t they?” love story that disrupts everyone else’s lives?
In this third installment of the exciting television series, Emily (Lily Collins) juggles new projects, new clients, and new reasons to self-sabotage her personal relationships. After Savoir’s big shake-up, sharp-witted mogul Sylvie Grateau (Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu) launches a rival marketing company, Agence Grateau. Meanwhile, Emily scores the opportunity to market the newest addition to McDonald’s menu, the McBaguette.
Stuck between a rock and her very pregnant and emotionally unstable mentor Camille (Camille Razat), Emily makes the hard (and ridiculously unreasonable) decision to discreetly split her hours and the new deal between Savoir, now led by Madeline (Kate Walsh), and Sylvie’s firm. As Madeline makes the decision to move back to Chicago and close Savoir for good, the time has come for Emily to determine if she’ll stay in Paris permanently or return to America.
Even for a workaholic like Emily, her extended split alliance ended exactly as you can expect — with horrific carnage to her career. Luckily for people like herself whose larger-than-life problems always seem to cartoonishly work themselves out, she now finds herself working and living full time in the city of love; she’s also somehow forgiven by Sylvie, as well as her coworkers Julien (Samuel Arnold) and Luc (Bruno Gouery).
Credit: Netflix
With Emily’s boyfriend Alfie (Lucien Laviscount) working the finances for the perfume powerhouse that is Antoine Lambert (William Abadie), Camille’s secret infidelity with a hot Greek artist, and Mindy’s (Ashley Park) rollercoaster love triangle with bandmate Benoit (Kevin Dias) and a former boarding school crush, Emily takes a backseat to this season’s most appreciated drama. Even the drag that is chef Gabriel (Lucas Bravo) kept me more interested than Emily’s predictable fumbles.
The main love triangle is over (maybe)…but these other triangles are much juicier.
At least one exhausting Emily in Paris love triangle might have finally met its end in the explosive finale as Camille refuses to marry Gabriel — after she proposed to him, might I add. Spicy! In a fit of fiery frustration at the altar, the would-be bride-to-be exposes the dalliance between Gabriel and Emily. This also seems to conclude the relationship between Emily and Alfie, who definitely didn’t sign up for any of this drama.
Given that Netflix has already given the green light to not one but two more seasons of Emily, this climatic finale sets the series up for more canoodling between Emily and Gabriel. However, they’re the least interesting couple of the bunch. I would much rather dive into the love triangle between Mindy and Benoit and her blast from the past, Nicolas de Léon (Paul Forman), or the short-lived fling between Camille and Sofia (Melia Kreiling). Heck, even a focus on Sylvie’s relationships with her husband Laurent and her Golden Retriever-esque boyfriend Erik (Søren Bregendal) would be more entertaining than dragging on the unbearable slow burn between the show’s leads. Sylvie’s skinny-dipping sequence absolutely won scene of the season!
Credit: Netflix
It’s about that time for some much-needed character development.
It seems that the high-striving marketing expert and part-time social media influencer should probably have taken the advice of her peers to just slow down. Even an unemployed Emily stresses me out as she basically completes the Tour de France while serving half of the Parisian population in Gabriel’s short-staffed restaurant during her forced period of dormancy. Most notably, even the not-so-easily irritated Julien lost his patience with Emily during a business meeting. Perhaps this embarrassing call-out, paired with the quarrels and break-ups of her friends she always seems to be in the middle of, will be enough for Emily to “s’occuper de ses oignons.”
While the first season image of a high-strung American with tunnel vision is thankfully long gone, replaced by the remorseful student on her way to conversational French, Emily still has a ways to go in terms of character development. Scenes like the one where Emily interrupted her best friend’s concert to give a horrid rendition of Cilla Black’s “Alfie” to win her boyfriend back after their minor scuffle provided too much second-hand embarrassment to bear.
Yet even with the show’s hiccups, the juxtaposition of a Parisian life of leisure and luxury and the excitable Emily rampaging through it all offers endless hilarity. With beautiful imagery, tasty montages, and delectable costuming, Emily in Paris has an unusual magic that speaks to our sense of childlike wonder. This utterly bingeable third season proves it’s the perfect silly little show for when you just need a silly little break from reality.
