Are we even surprised anymore? I don’t know why I keep watching this crap. I really don’t. Why do I keep watching this crap when I know it won’t get better?
OK, so where to begin with Emily in Paris season 3? Usually, I would talk about plot and themes and aesthetics and characters. But for this show… Let’s only talk about character development, because I have absolutely nothing to say about the plot or the fashion. The plot was boring/unimaginative. The way that they end all the different plot lines is just really lazy writing. I will say that this show at least seems to be taking into account the criticism online, so this season I didn’t see any instances of cultural appropriation (I’m so glad they dropped the Chinese plot line for Mindy; I don’t understand why they couldn’t get a Chinese actor to play a Chinese character and instead had to get a Korean actor? Like, we’re here, we have talent, and we deserve to have our own characters), and the French characters were finally speaking in actual French to one another instead of speaking in English to each other constantly. The show also filled its quota of the gays and the minorities (Alfie and Sofia), so yay. Honestly, that just makes me question whether quantity or quality of representation is more important, but hey, at least Darren Star is trying, huh?
That was me being sarcastic. It’s 2022. Can’t we have gay characters who aren’t sassy, who aren’t breaking up other people’s relationships, who aren’t essentially one dimensional characters with about two lines of meaningful dialogue?
The fashion of this show was cringey. Even Sylvie, who’s fashion I really used to like, was just off this season. So let’s just talk about character.
To begin with, our main protagonist, Emily Cooper. In the first season, she was ignorant and stupid, racist without even realizing she was. In the second season, she was annoying and honestly I don’t remember much about her from the second season because, hello, she was so boring I just wanted to skip over all of her parts. This season, she’s just a plain push-over and people-pleaser. She’s constantly thinking about other people, and she basically allows other people to walk all over her. Case in point: Camille. I get that sleeping with your friend’s boyfriend when they've just barely broken up is terrible, but she’s apologized so many times and Camille broke whatever that stupid pact that they made was, so why is Emily still letting Camille treat her like garbage whenever she gets the chance to? And why is Emily constantly apologizing to Nico when he treats her like garbage in their private life because of their work disputes? Doesn’t Nico understand the difference between private/public life?
Then there’s Camille. Season 1 Camille was a sweet French girl. Season 2 Camille had two brain cells, the first one named “Gabriel” and the second one named “Kill Emily.” Season 3 Camille is a questioning bisexual who just so happened to blame her failed wedding/relationship once again, on the relationship between Emily and Gabriel, who, may I remind you, has had sex once and since then have both been in long-term, stable relationships. I’m still mad that the writers decided the best way for Camille to not marry Gabriel is for Camille to say to Gabriel that “I know you love Emily. It’s obvious in the way you look at her.” Like, no, sis, it isn’t. I don’t know why you’re dragging Emily and Alfie into this, but why would they ruin her character this way?
I’m just so sick of Gabriel at this point. Can we please, please just get rid of him? Why do we need Emily to be obsessed with this man who can’t seem to do anything without Emily’s help? Why can’t Emily just be with Alfie, who is so clearly better for her? He’s smart, charming, and doesn’t have an ex who just so happens to be Emily’s friend. Can we please drop this plot line? OK, and then Sylvie. God, I loved Sylvie. She was the only redeeming grace for me from this show, and then they turned around and made her complete shiite in this season. First of all, she just drops Erik like it’s nothing. Erik was a huge part of her character development last season, the way that she stood up to people who thought she was too old for him. I loved that bit of representation: older women can have sexuality, and older women can be wanted sexually as well. But then, this season, they not only make her drop him like that, she immediately turns around to hook up with her husband who she literally just promised Erik she was completely platonic with. What the actual crap? WHY?
This is a recurring theme in this season, by the way. Main characters just dropping major love interests without a second thought. Example deux? Mindy. Mindy and Benoît were fine and dandy, suddenly they break up without an actual breakup scene, and Mindy, who literally bawled her eyes out for this dude in season 2, mind you, is immediately all like “Ooh, that random guy on the streets is hot too.” Like? I would appreciate some consistency between the character arcs of each season? At least, once again, she’s not cracking not-funny jokes about being Chinese anymore. As a Chinese person, those sucked. And they weren’t even funny. I do love the bit where Mindy decides to stick up for Emily and when she tells Emily that she’s her first love. I hate it when TV shows decide to make a random dude that a girl is dating that she’s known for barely a month more important to said girl than her best friend she’s known for years. That’s one of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to this kind of show. So I’m glad they didn’t make Mindy do that.
I’m still reeling over the fact that they had two main characters just drop love interests without a single scene for the audience to process it and was just like, “Yeah, OK, whatever, no one watches us for the plot anyway.” And the way they sent Madeline off? They were just like, “OK, let’s make her a hysterical screaming boss lady whose water breaks and then randomly jets back off to Chicago so we can clear Emily’s conscience about leaving her mentor to pursue the dream she wants.” Sounds totally reasonable.
I don’t even really want to talk about the male characters. Luc was still weird. Alfie is so insecure I genuinely want to punch him in his face and ask him why he wouldn’t even give Emily the chance to explain what are obviously the words of an extremely upset woman directed more at her fiancé than Emily. Gabriel is still stupidly unaware of boundaries; at least try and pretend like you care about Camille. Nico is immature. Incredibly so. And Benoît and Erik are essentially the same person in different fonts.
I don’t actually think I’ll be watching the fourth season. The first two seasons were mindlessly vapid enough for me to actually enjoy (once you got past the racism and the American-centric point of view on everything). This one, though? This is where the problems actually started to get worse. In my opinion, if you can’t write 3D characters, stick with your 2D ones and don’t try to do anything else. A 2.5D character is worse than a 3D one.
Happy Wednesday!!
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