Spoiler warning for season four of “Emily in Paris.”
We’ve all had that dream, right? The one where you move to Paris and spend the day eating croissants under the Eiffel Tower and taking walks down by the Seine River. It’s a dreamy idea, moving somewhere as beautiful and romantic as Paris.
In 2020, Netflix recreated that dream for its viewers with the release of its show “Emily in Paris.” The story follows Emily Cooper as she takes an unexpected job opportunity at a marketing firm in Paris. As the show progresses, Emily faces change in her professional and personal life, experiencing more than enough relationship drama for anyone to handle.
Four years later, Emily Cooper’s story is still going strong. Season four: part one was released Aug. 15 and part two nearly a month later Sept. 12. Highly anticipated by fans, the show was the most watched show on Netflix during the week of its part one release.
Season three left fans of the show on quite a cliffhanger. Recurring characters Camille and Gabriel were set to get married, despite both having feelings for other people, and right before they said “I do,” Camille decided she couldn’t marry Gabriel knowing he was in love with Emily. Alfie, another guest at the wedding and Emily’s boyfriend at the time, also walks away from the wedding, leaving Emily single. The season ends with Emily and Gabriel sitting on a balcony when Gabriel reveals that Camille is pregnant.
Season four, which picks up after season three’s finale, opens with Camille’s younger brother explaining the wedding drama and making Emily out to be the bad guy on a TikTok video. At this point Emily is still single, trying (and failing) to make up with Alfie and claiming she has no feelings for Gabriel since he is about to be a father, and she doesn’t want to complicate things.
My biggest issue with this season is the love triangle between Camille, Gabriel and Emily. This is a trope heavily used in the show for the first three seasons, with Alfie being thrown into the mix in season two. While it was entertaining for a while, the results of the wedding felt like the perfect time to put an end to it. Sure, things were left pretty messy with Camille’s pregnancy, but it would have been interesting to see new obstacles in Emily’s life and relationships. But of course, letting things come to an end appropriately is not in Netflix fashion.
Still, the show closes the book on Emily and Alfie when Emily chooses to be with Gabriel. Their happiness is short-lived, though, because Camille moves into the same apartment building as them. It’s clear Camille is still trying to hold onto a relationship with Gabriel, which results in a breakup between her and her girlfriend, Sophia. Camille and Sophia’s breakup was one that hit hard given they were still so new in the “Emily in Paris” universe, and to see it all end so Camille could try and get back with Gabrielle felt like a waste of a good relationship.
The love triangle trope is just so overused in this show. Sure, some of the drama it causes is interesting, but mostly all it has succeeded in doing is making Camille, a character I originally liked, into this man-obsessed villain. Then, when Camille finally backs off from Gabriel toward the end of the season, the writers replace her with an even more annoying girl named Genevieve in part two, who is clearly only there to get in the way of Emily and Gabriel.
Part two of the show also introduces Marcello, a new love interest for Emily. Emily goes to visit him in Rome, and season four ends with Agence Grateau, the marketing firm Emily works at in Paris, planning to set up an office there. They leave Emily to run it (therefore giving her more time with Marcello) and Gabriel seemingly goes after her.
Ending in Rome was not where I saw this season going. While a change in setting should make for interesting content in season five, which Netflix already confirmed, it does feel like they’re just recycling plot lines.
The love triangle storyline will probably continue into next season, with Marcello replacing the role Alfie played in past seasons as a new love interest for Emily. Genevieve will most likely become the new Camille as she already went after Gabriel in part two. It will probably match the issues we have seen these characters face before but, even with the circulation of drama, I think that the new characters added to the mix will make it interesting.
Despite this recycled drama, season four of the series was still a fun watch. With season three having been released in 2022, it was good after nearly two years to get back to the predictable drama Emily and her friends find themselves in. If you are looking for some trashy but entertaining fiction that will probably suck up too much of your time, then "Emily in Paris" is probably the show for you — season four especially.
