Emily In Paris does the unthinkable: It evolves (kinda)

Emily In Paris has gotten away with four seasons of being a superficial, laid-back time filler. It’s an ideal TV show for the TikTok era to scroll through, enjoy the sights, and move on until new episodes arrive for more of the same. It’s not what anyone presses play on for meaningful character study, and it’s not even close to what series creator Darren Star achieved with the four leads of Sex And The City. This is mindless entertainment—hackneyed and repetitive storylines and all—in which Emily Cooper’s (Lily Collins) love and work transgressions get resolved far too quickly. The high fashion remains consistent, too, because no matter how bad things are, there will always be another fancy party (probably with a ludicrous theme).  

A specific escapist quality makes Emily In Paris susceptible to monotony. If the formula switches up, the show’s sheen could fade. That’s why any attempt to handle weighty topics usually fizzles into a generic conclusion. Emily herself has stayed fairly one-note. There is little to glean about her life in Chicago before she moved to Paris, and it seems like she doesn’t want more from her career despite being unfathomably fantastic at her marketing job. (Her salary must be insane for her to afford the outfits she wears, though, right?) Emily’s relationship with Gabriel (Lucas Bravo) has gone through various ups and downs, a frustrating trend that carries on in season four. So can a facile TV show like this even try to grow up? 

Weirdly enough, the Netflix comedy actually bothers to ponder this question towards the end of the five last installments of season four. Don’t worry, parts of it are as laughable and even downright enraging. But it all shapes up into a surprising final act that hopes to shift the predictable status quo Emily In Paris thrives on. Collins also levels up her performance to aid this. Nothing is too drastic, but the script takes small steps to evolve and the show lands slightly better than it ever has because of this risk-taking, if that’s what we very generously want to call it. 

It all begins when Emily takes on a hot Italian client who, naturally, joins the fight for her affections. Yes, Gabriel and Alfie (Lucien Laviscount) now have competition in Marcello (Eugenio Franceschini). Through him, the show at least dares to open up her world beyond staples like striving to get Gabriel that damn Michelin star or figuring out her frenemy status with Camille (Camille Razat). She even takes her very first holiday as Emily In Paris becomes Emily In Rome for a while. It gives her (and the audience) a much-needed break from the routine while setting up a shift in the story. The execution is decidedly silly to match the show’s tone, but it gets brownie points for simply trying to shake things up. 

To balance this, the rest of season four is as unserious as possible. Its worst offense comes in the form of Genevieve (Thalia Besson) in a subplot pulled straight out of teen dramas like The O.C. and Gossip Girl. Genevieve is Sylvie’s (Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu) daughter, who moves from the U.S. after graduating and begins working at Agence Grateau. She is not as naive and helpful as the titular character. In fact, she is the Regina George to Emily’s Cady Heron. After setting her sights on Gabriel, Genevieve becomes a thorn in this love story in eye-rolling ways. There isn’t one iota of originality in this arc, which seems to exist simply to add drama.

This is one of many problems Emily and Gabriel have to contend with. (Another is that our protagonist hasn’t yet learned how to properly speak French.) At this point, their push-and-pull has overstayed its welcome, and it has no signs of stopping despite how season four ends. Meanwhile, Mindy Chen (Ashley Park) has a similar fate. Emily’s BFF is consistently a welcome sight, but she gets saddled with bland subplots, including a love triangle of her own that suddenly comes alive again after it was put to bed. (It’s one step forward, three steps back with this show, huh?) So yes, Emily In Paris isn’t looking to reinvent itself here. But season four does somewhat succeed in making room for a bit of growth going forward. And perhaps that’s all a TV show about flights of fancy can handle.    

Emily In Paris season four, part two premieres September 12 on Netflix