My relationship with Emily in Paris is complicated. That’s appropriate, I suppose. Netflix’s titular expat with the magically unexpiring visa’s whole thing is relationships that would merit the “It’s Complicated” status on Facebook.
I have fully evolved from considering the show a garish abomination to, out of professional obligation, half-begrudgingly watching it while folding laundry and scrolling through Instagram to, now, being deeply, passionately, scream-at-my-TV invested. This is what streaming-era Stockholm syndrome looks like.
So, like all of us being held prisoner in front of our TVs by France’s most deranged fashionista, I have opinions about Season 4’s messy love triangle, which ends on a cliffhanger at the end of the just-released batch of episodes.
(Warning: Spoilers ahead.)
It seems clear that the show wants us to be hopeful for a happily ever after between Emily (Lily Collins) and French chef Gabriel (Lucas Bravo). Yet the experience of watching the show and this romance, which seems to be riding some on-again-and-off-again carousel that never stops spinning, is no different to when one of your own friends is stuck in unhealthy relationship patterns. Exasperated, you just want to scream: “Get together or break up already! Enough is enough!”
What makes Emily’s situation complicated—there’s that word again—is that the second half of Season 4 gave viewers reason to root both for and against an Emily-and-Gabriel end game.
In the best scene of the season, and maybe of the entire series, something sensical is finally said about this ludicrous relationship. Unfortunately, it’s a rant about the reason why the relationship hasn’t—and won’t—work. After all of their many (many) ups and downs, Emily tells Gabriel that she thinks they have communication issues, to watch Gabriel replies, essentially: “Yeah, no s–t.”
They only ever communicate in her language, not his, he tells her. “Do you want to know who I really feel?” he asks. “Yes, yes I do,” she replies, at first giddy, and then confused when he starts speaking to her in French. Finally getting to unload all of his frustrations in his language, he uncorks his rant about feeling ripped off. He’d spent so much time trying to convince Emily that their relationship was worth it, but she didn’t try. He’s drained by it all.
The best shows of this genre—like creator Darren Star’s past hits Younger and Sex and the City—excel when the fairy-tale soap opera is interrupted by a harsh dose of reality. This was that moment for the Emily and Gabriel love saga. It was a brutal, truthful—and therefore necessary—diagnosis of the relationship’s critical problem, and so irrefutable that it seemed like, finally, the two of them were done.
That turned out to be welcome news for most viewers, especially those most suffering from Emily-Gabril fatigue, when Italian charmer Marcello (Eugenio Franceschini) entered the picture and seemed to offer the kind of uncomplicated, sweeping romance that someone like Emily craves. He’s handsome, rich, and not tangled in an impossible past-and-sometimes-current relationship with a former girlfriend/fiancée/mother of his child.
The Marcello courtship and the professional vs. personal lives issues that he and Emily had to work through seemed so mature and adult compared to the incessant drama with Gabriel. As much as anyone can root for Emily, who is not exactly the most relatable character there’s ever been on television, you rooted for this dolce vita she was being whisked away on.
But then that cliffhanger.
It seems that Emily in Paris is about to become Emily in Rome, with Emily moving to Italy to head up a new office there and give it a go with Marcello. While this is all being set up, at a dizzying pace, Gabriel’s restaurant is awarded a Michelin star, one of his and Emily’s shared dreams for him. When Emily calls him to congratulate, she leaves a voicemail entirely in French. She made the effort to communicate in his language, finally! Gabriel swoons! He decides that he’s going to try to go get her.
So, as the credits roll on Season 4, it’s clear that Emily in Paris isn’t done with the possibility of this pairing yet.
A lot of fans have no patience for this.
That’s fair. There have been so many love triangles in this show’s four seasons that watching the series could double as a geometry lesson.
I’m not as down on the possibility of Emily and Gabriel ending up together. I think they have the most chemistry of any of the suitors they’ve introduced to the show. The simple act of her speaking French on that voicemail—and how moved he was by it—made my heart burst. But I do recognize a potential problem: The Emily in Paris creative team is gambling on viewers being as enamored with Gabriel and Emily as a be-all, end-all couple as they are.
Remember when Sex and the City was airing, and we all had to pretend for six seasons that Big was some sort of brass ring, even as Carrie was introduced to other men who made way more sense for her? It created a bizarre viewing experience where, as a fan of the series, you just went along with it, even while knowing that Big kind of sucked the whole time.
Do Emily in Paris fans have the fortitude to go through the same thing with Gabriel?
Thankfully, Season 5 has already been announced, so we won’t have to wait too long to find out.
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