Emily In Paris Is A Fundamentally Awful TV Show That Fails In Every Way

Nobody genuinely thinks “Emily in Paris” is a good show, right? It doesn’t seem like anybody in the world is comparing Darren Star’s Netflix original to, say, “The Wire” or “The Sopranos,” or even great television comedies like “Veep” and “30 Rock.” The offenses committed by “Emily in Paris” and the titular character Emily Cooper — gratingly played by Lily Collins — are numerous and infuriating, especially as the show enters its fourth season. There’s a larger issue, though, other than the show just being “bad” or “an astoundingly terrible vision of what it looks like to live in Paris.” The show is rotten from its very root because it’s fundamentally incapable of telling a story.

“Emily in Paris” is abysmal at storytelling, to the point where it doesn’t even bother with the basic conventions of the form. There is never any real conflict on “Emily in Paris,” there are no stakes whatsoever, and nothing that happens ever matters. You could watch this show starting with the pilot, the fourth episode of season 2, or the midseason finale of season 4, the first half of which dropped on Netflix, and it wouldn’t matter. You never need to know what’s going on. Nothing ever is going on. Couple that with a cast of characters who are so irredeemable and such poor facsimiles of actual humans — French or otherwise — and you’ve got a show that fails in every imaginable way.

Let’s start with Emily Cooper herself, the emotional and cultural terrorist who takes Paris by storm — and when we say “by storm,” that means “disrespectfully, loudly, and in the most irritating possible way.” It’s not just that Emily is incredibly annoying, though that doesn’t help, nor does her absolute unwillingness to assimilate into French culture. Emily never bothers to actually learn French. She never, ever takes the metro in Paris, so we’re left to assume that she either takes taxis constantly, totters everywhere in stiletto heels, or simply teleports around the French capital. She’s magically allowed to continue living in Paris in the apartment her job provided for her even after she quits. 

(An aside: I lived in Paris, so I can personally assure you that Emily lives in an unrealistically enormous chambre de bonne and that getting a visa from the French government requires a lot more effort than wearing designer clothes and being on a magazine cover. Show me Emily sobbing near the préfecture at Cité when something goes wrong with her titre de séjour application, you cowards.)

In any case, Emily spends her time in the City of Lights breaking up relationships, treating her friends like merde, and doing a very bad job at her actual job. Without getting into a million specifics here — anyone who’s watched knows what I’m talking about — Emily’s behavior and endless mistakes never result in any consequences. Emily never actually loses a friend, nor does she lose her job. Emily exists on a different plane than the rest of humanity, allowing her to commit atrocities with zero fallout.

It’s not that Emily doesn’t suck in the first three seasons of “Emily in Paris.” She absolutely does. That begs the question, though, as to why anyone is even still cordial with her by the time season 4 rolls around. At the end of season 3, Emily’s “friend” Camille (Camille Razat) — whose on-again, off-again boyfriend Gabriel (Lucas Bravo) quite clearly carries a torch for Emily — runs away from her nuptials to Gabriel after she points that out. Emily’s boyfriend, the rakish Englishman Alfie (Lucien Laviscount), is devastated and leaves her and Gabriel to talk things out. (Why two different men think they’re in love with the soulless void that is Emily Cooper remains one of the show’s biggest mysteries.) As season 4 starts, it would be normal to think that Alfie, Camille, and Gabriel would avoid Emily like the plague – mais non! Everything’s more or less fine.

Despite the fact that Camille says she’s pregnant with his child, Gabriel is weirdly calm as Emily tries making a French omelet in front of him (poorly, as usual). Alfie is sort of mad but eventually agrees to meet Emily at the French Open so that they can share a contractual on-camera kiss as part of a mass advertising blitz for Emily’s job. (Nothing in this show makes an iota of sense.) Camille is mad at Emily for approximately five minutes before they fall into a lake and her righteous fury just … washes away. Emily is bad at her job and a terrible friend, and none of that ever matters at all. 

There are rules in storytelling, and there are essential narrative choices one needs to employ in order for said story to work. Apparently, Darren Star — the man who inflicted “Emily in Paris” upon us all — does not believe this, and if he does, “Emily in Paris” indicates he doesn’t necessarily understand it. All of this preamble about how Emily is terrible and never faces a single consequence sounds like a lot of hand-wringing and complaining — and I guess it is — but it also reveals the hollow, empty core of “Emily in Paris,” a show without any stakes or conflict. 

Will Emily move back to Chicago during season 3 and leave Paris behind forever? No. The show isn’t called “Emily in Chicago.” Will Camille’s pregnancy have any tangible effect on Gabriel and Emily’s romantic future? No. They don’t care, and Camille has a girlfriend anyway. When Emily makes a mistake at work, is she ever held accountable or fired? No! Does it matter that every French person in Emily’s orbit, including her coworkers at the French company at which she works, has to speak English to this total idiot who can’t make time to study? Pas de tout!

Without stakes or conflict, there’s no reason to watch “Emily in Paris,” unless you just want to watch bright colors and disassociate wildly. Nothing has ever happened on “Emily in Paris,” and nothing will ever happen on “Emily in Paris.” So why? Why is this show even a thing?

All of this is to say that “Emily in Paris” is barely even a television show, because it takes place in a realm where problems don’t exist and nothing ever happens. In October of 2020, after season 1 dropped, Darren Star spoke to AOL about his approach to the show. After noting that, at that time, tourists weren’t allowed in Paris due to COVID-19 (something the show sidesteps entirely), Star said, “I think, definitely, we need some fun escapist entertainment, and that’s what the show delivers.”

It doesn’t, though. Escapism doesn’t mean a show where the characters, who are all terrible and insufferable, exist in some sort of boundless void where nothing of consequence ever takes place. A show without tension isn’t a show; it’s one of those YouTube videos of tropical vistas set to elevator music that you sometimes see playing in nail salons. It’s images on a screen, not a form of art. “Emily in Paris” should not even be considered television or a story by any definition of either word. It’s simply peacocking set to film, forcing viewers to watch as Emily fumbles through her latest “problem,” only for everything to magically resolve just in time for Ashley Park to sing another song for some reason. 

“Emily in Paris” isn’t just a bad show. It fails to meet the definition of a “show” in every way.

Also, for a show set in Paris, it’s weird how infrequently the characters step in dog crap. It’s really everywhere there. They should fix that if there’s a fifth season.