Emily In Paris starts to find its feet just as Emily does in her new job and a new country, but just misses the mark still.
In the second episode, Emily (Lily Collins) is out for a run and listening to a French audio course when she stops to take a picture of a statue. Returning home, Emily makes the same apartment mistake again and Gabriel (Lucas Bravo) opens the door and share some cute banter.
Leaving for work, Emily steps in some dog poo and takes a snap of the owner, only to realise her account has grown by 1200 followers. Arriving at Savoir, Julien (Samuel Arnold) greets her as la plouc, but she promptly uses her translator app to tell him to go fuck himself and he loves it. Emily stops by Sylvie’s (Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu) office with some ideas for De L’Heure, but she can’t pronounce it properly and that doesn’t put her off to a good start.
That night, Emily attends a party for Maison Lavaux’s De L’Heure and wears an elegant black dress with a lovely tulle skirt, which is definitely a nod to Carrie Bradshaw from Darren Star’s Sex and the City series. Sylvie and Paul (Arnaud Viard) introduce Emily to Antoine Lambert (William Abadie), who owns Maison Lavaux. She goes into a ramble about her ideas, which Antoine thinks are interesting before he leaves, but Sylvie says you don’t talk about work at a party.
Overlooking the Eiffel Tower, Antoine joins her and puts some perfume on her and there is some absolute steam between them. Well, mostly coming from Antoine and Sylvie observes their exchange.
The next day, Paul informs Emily that Antoine wants her to work on the De L’Heure account when Sylvie interrupts and says she should work on Vaga-Jeune. What’s that you ask? They’re suppositories to promote vaginal wetness in older women. Sylvie also warns Emily for being too friendly with Antoine, and afterwards, Julien informs Emily that Sylvie is Antoine’s mistress.
Emily sends a message to Mindy (Ashley Park) and the pair meet up for dinner. Emily begins to cause a stir when she requests her steak to be cooked longer and it leads to chef coming out…and it’s none other than Gabriel! He suggests she tries it and she ends up loving it.
With her boyfriend set to arrive the next day, Emily visits the markets and the bakery, all the while posting a few snaps and gaining another 3500 followers. She calls Doug who is still in Chicago and he’s not a fan of just being by himself for a week while she’s working. Doug wants Emily to come home otherwise they’re over, so she hangs up on him.
Waking up to the pouring rain, Emily arrives at work and begins working on Vaga-Jeune, learns the vagina is masculine in French, and makes a post on her social media.
The next thing we know, we’re at the Élysée Palace and Carla Bruni sends Emily’s post to Brigitte Macron, the French President’s wife, and she shares it on Twitter.
At a lunch, Sylvie is complaining about Emily to Paul, Luc, and Julien when Paul receives a message from the CEO of Vaga-Jeune about Brigitte’s post. Meanwhile, Mindy sends Emily a message to tell her about the retweet and Paul calls her over to join them and he is thrilled.
Overall Thoughts?
While I definitely becoming more invested, the episode still feels clunky. Again, I’m comparing it to Younger which has the same length episodes and it always seemed to pack so much into 30 minutes, but still have a nice flow. Unfortunately, Emily In Paris just feels choppy and none of the characters stand out just yet, except for Emily obviously, but she has to as she’s the lead. Even that being said, I don’t feel hooked into her character, such as being excited for her being accepted into the group or ending it with her useless and pointless boyfriend. Let’s hope the next episode picks up!
