Emily in Paris season 4 part 1 spoilers follow.
Let's start by stating for the record that we here are not part of the resentful, Emily in Paris-bashing cabal who all-too-easily pop back up for oxygen each time a new season of the Netflix escapist smash swings around.
We here love starry-eyed, beret aficionado Emily (Lily Collins) in blue-sky Paris, where the Eiffel Tower is snuck into every street scene and nearby office window like an in-show Where's Wally? The show is so blissfully simple and soft-edged that watching it feels like taking ashwagandha while listening to ASMR, snug in a cashmere wool swaddle.
But with the fourth season, Emily in Paris might have taken too big a bite out of the miniature croissant storylines it typically deals in.
The first part – since Netflix continues to force-feed us this split release business – sees the never-not-fabulous Sylvie (Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu) and zinger machine Mindy (Ashley Park) embroiled in a chaotically handled #MeToo storyline. In the promotional materials ahead of the show's release this was obscurely dubbed a "thorny dilemma".
Praise be the wrong'un isn't the charming Antoine (William Abadie), since what would Agence Grateau even be without his frightening intermittent chemistry with Sylvie. Instead, it is pantomime Nick's (Paul Forman) luxury titan father, who's found out for his dodgy treatment of female staff members.
What to Read Next
Much of the first half of the season is spent with Sylvie going back-and-forth on whether to speak on the record about him, while Mindy tries to navigate the implications on her relationship with boyfriend Nick.
It should go without saying that telling stories about workplace harassment, abuses of power and speaking out against such things are important. But are they in the Emily in Paris wheelhouse?
It's not just that the storyline upsets the show's stress-free, dissociative power, but that perhaps unsurprisingly, the whole thing has so far been handled with a clumsy narrative grip.
One of the ways Sylvie and co. fight back against the grubby sex pest is via Grégory Duprée (Jeremy O Harris) and his line of bonkers phallic "penis pants". The trousers sprouting massive bananas certainly feel like a product of the show, but are also jarring in this context.
In this world, where things are done and undone on the whim of Emily's latest marketing brainwave, the workplace harassment question is quietly shelved with little real resolution by the end of part one. Perhaps it will factor more prominently in the back half, which hasn't been made available for review yet.
These Emily in Paris episodes bring to mind the now-cancelled Gossip Girl reboot, which really didn't have much on the original series. The show finally had a queer and diverse cast, but the storylines were performatively progressive and missed what most had tuned into the original for: superficial, soapy fun.
By taking itself a smidge too seriously, the outlandish and unrealistic was lost. There was no Serena tossing her phone into a street bin in slow motion, wild partying or Blair's preposterous scheming. It was the outlandish and the unrealistic we wanted there and it's the same here in sweet Paree.
All that being said, much of the Netflix hit is blissfully the same. Has Emily learned French? God no. Are the performances still varying shades of acting workshop? Hell yes. Is everyone hot? Oh, yes. Are the outfits extravagantly, satisfyingly mental? Yes, yes, yes.
Emily is still stuck between Gabriel (Lucas Bravo) and Alfie (Lucien Laviscount), who's contractually obliged to growl "Hey Cooper" to start all his scenes. Your enjoyment of part one may hinge on which of the two teams you've enlisted with. That and your tolerance for Samsung flip phone product placement.
We're all familiar with the mauling Emily in Paris has received over the years, for being unrealistic, vapid, terrible, etc. But the detractors be damned because here we are on season four. Yet this was meant to be the season of Rome and silly Eurovision nonsense. So far that's nowhere to be seen, with a sloppy workplace misconduct storyline and a toned down Bridgerton carriage scene in its place.
As much as we do want good, prestige TV – and we do! – there is also a place for pure, escapist, girl TV. A show like this is the perfect antidote to present anxieties and a reason to stick around in Paris – albeit, a Ratatouille type of Paris – even after the Olympics have packed up. An encore for the nonsense, please.
Emily in Paris season 4 part 1 is available to stream on Netflix.
Previously Deputy TV Editor at Digital Spy and, before that, a TV Reporter at The Mirror, Rebecca can now be found crafting expert analysis of the TV landscape, when she's not talking on the BBC or Times Radio about everything from the latest season of Bridgerton or The White Lotus to whatever chaos is unfolding in the various Love Island villas. When she's not bingeing a boxset, in-the-wild sightings of Rebecca have included stints on the National TV Awards and BAFTAs red carpets, and post-match video explainers of the reality TV we're all watching.
