"Emily in Paris," Season 3: The good, the bad, and the ugly

Yes, I've binged all 10 episodes of Season 3 since it launched yesterday on Netflix.

Since its debut yesterday, the ever popular Emily in Paris has remained at the top of the Netflix leaderboard and claimed the #1 in “Top Shows in the U.S.” on the streamer. It dethroned Harry & Meghan, also a story taking place mostly in a non-U.S. locale and also about an American expat adapting to another culture and which ranks highly for Americans because much like The Crown, we love a good royal scandal, if nothing else to give it to the monarchy that oppressed our ancestors (or someone’s ancestors) in the early days of the forming of our nation.

But to explain the viral effect of the Emily in Paris is to understand and fully buy into the principle that anything creator Darren Star is attached to (Sex & The City, Uncoupled, 90210, Melrose Place) has a certain je ne sais quoi hit-worthy quality and dazzles its viewers with soap like intensity. From its fun and flirty fashion, glitzy, young, beautiful characters, star-crossed love triangles, and implausible plots, Star knows how to conjure flights of fancy that give way to cinematic reverie.

In Season 3, Emily is moving up in the world. She not only scores the invite to the coveted, swanky pool club, dazzles in her Gidget bikini, but while drinking a Kir Royale, she invents a new cocktails and sprouts new baby campaigns for Insta’ reels cause she’s a marketing maven.

“So we accept these truths to be self-evident,” in the words of one of our country’s forefathers, Thomas Jefferson, “that all women are not created equal.” I’m paraphrasing here, but this is oh so true in a Darren Star creation whose signature is fashionable young female icons who are creative, unlucky in love sometimes, and have bad a** friends.

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And now it’s time for:

The Good:

Emily is an idiot savant with exceptional selling skills. With her winsome looks, confidence, charm and brain buzzing with creative ideas at all the opportune times, she can woo clients and influence important influential people literally around the clock. There is nothing this dynamo can’t do. But there is. So watch here or below for a good laugh.

In Emily in Paris, the eponymous Emily, our gamine heroine (think Audrey Hepburn in her Sabrina days) played with equal parts innocence and unrelenting American bravado (which translates in the French world as her annoying habit of always talking business even during parties and never “turning it off” - Her coworker’s words, not mine) can hold a show and pretty much carry it.

Ashley Park as Mindy Chen, Emily’s best friend, is the best part of the show. I could easily watch a spin-off of this show with her as the lead. She is loyal, calls Emily out on her BS which with Emily is a daily occurrence, and isn’t afraid to put her new boyfriend in place when he oversteps and disrespects her friend. But more than this, Park holds her own as a chanteuse and actress on this show. She’s also a Michigan alum (go Wolverines!) so there’s that. I want to see more of her in the coming season and the show has elevated her role quite a bit as far as screen time since the first season which is a hopeful sign.

The Bad:

Emily never bothers to learn French and she seems clueless about the significance of this, socially. She’s an American ad exec sent to Paris, has lived there for a while, takes French classes and her accent is painful. Not to mention, it’s contagious. Her British boyfriend Alfie in the 2nd and 3rd season, who isn’t even American starts talking like her (for a particularly cringeworthy moment, see Episode 10, where Emily awkwardly introduces a former paramour as “Timothee” and butchers the pronunciation only to have Alfie straight faced say it the same way). Surely Alfie knows better...

Our family had huge laughs from the parody here.

But it’s not just that she refuses to speak French, but that she refuses to understand the culture or people. Her Instagram selfies which are still as tourist-y as they were in Season 1, show no real increased knowledge or aptitude for her surroundings. She’s clueless and is proud of her decisive inability to speak French.

Still there’s a huge plot gap here. How is it possible that Emily is wowing all these potential clients in English at a French agency. Why are the French people speaking English to one another and to their mostly French clientele? Why wouldn’t they speak in their native language? Your guess is as good as mine, but this is Emily’s world and we’re all just patiently waiting in line at the Roue de Paris to be called up as an extra in Emily’s story, her Instagram story, that is.

The Ugly:

Emily’s stupidity in all things romantic. I mean she has Alfie, an expat like her, who is hot and down-to-earth and good with numbers (which let’s face it Emily could use), and he has a British accent. He wants to be serious with her. So what’s the problem? Enter Gabriel and his dumb haircut.

Emily & Alfie. She sings him a song in public this season, titled “Alfie” which she apparently learns in between her job at 2 ad agencies and as a part time influencer?

Emily can’t give up Gabriel, the French neighbor chef, whose relationship with Emily in Season 1 and their “will they or won’t they” plot carried the season. Not to mention the fact that Emily befriended Gabriel’s girlfriend, Camille and then betrayed her by sleeping with Gabriel, but technically Camille and Gabriel were on a break, when this happened. To which, they both agreed to a pact that neither would date Gabriel, and then Camille got back with Gabriel and defended this action to Emily rather formidably. All this was Season 1 drama. This also felt like a borrowed and recycled storyline from the Amanda/Billy/Alison Melrose Place archives.

Emily & Gabriel digest croque monsieurs at McDonalds in Paris while passing gas and sharing stories.

So there you have it. I’ve given you my candid feedback. Watch it at your own risk. Know what you’re in for. And binge away. But don’t tell me I didn’t warn you.