"The Penis Party Is Here!" It's Your Emily in Paris Recap

Some of this is OBJECTIVELY ABSURD.

Courtesy of Netflix © 2024

Bonjour, Broads, and welcome to our official recap of Emily in Paris, Season 4, Part 1! (Episodes 6-10 drop on Netflix on September 12.) Today, we tackle the plot; next week, we’ll be sending a separate newsletter devoted solely to the outfits — so, don’t worry. You’ll have a place to discuss Emily’s bonkers insane masquerade ball get-up at length. (But also perhaps some of Luc’s pocket squares or Sylvie’s chic trousers or Camille’s frankly tragic get-ups or why Gabriel seems to have slightly different hair in every episode, why does this keep happening, this man is so hot, it should not be this hard?)

If you need a refresher of where we left our heroes and heroines, our season three catch-up is here.

Overall, this season — as usual with Emily in Paris — went down easy. This is not a show you ever need to gird your loins to watch. It’s not The Bear; you will not have an anxiety attack. It is, by and large, a fantasy, and that is its appeal. Conflict is almost always resolved immediately and without lasting impact, with a few exceptions. Generally this does not bother me. I am not watching Emily for heart-wrenching confrontations, and this season actually did introduce some longer-running conflicts for our characters, a welcome development. But there’s a lot of acreage in terms of conflict before you get to “heart-wrenching confrontation” and the show needs to dip a toe into it a bit more often. This season, there was one plot point that stretched the limits of credulity so far that even I, admitted Emily in Paris apologist, wanted to SCREAM.

Let’s get into it.

Episode One: Break Point

The season kicks off with a clever and funny way to remind viewers where we left everyone: Camille’s brother Timmy makes a TikTok that goes viral about what a shitshow her impromptu wedding was, and how Emily ruined all of their lives. This doesn’t really have a huge impact on Emily beyond being lightly embarrassing, and there’s a throwaway bit about how she thinks she can get Timmy to take it down, but it’s sincerely amusing; Emily in Paris is at its best when it broadens its scope a little bit and shows us just how many tertiary characters are walking around Paris hating Emily’s guts.

So, Emily is (once again) in a mess on multiple levels: Alfie has ghosted her, and she finds out at work that — whoops! — she and he are actually meant to be the stars of one of Agence Grateau’s new ad campaigns, and need to appear on Kiss Cam and publicly smooch at the French Open. This is objectively totally ridiculous: There is NO WAY that both Emily and Alfie would not be aware that they’re starring in an ad campaign. For one thing, wouldn’t they be getting PAID for this? None of this would have happened without people signing a wide, wide variety of contracts, and marking down in their calendars that they had to be a Roland Garros on X date at Y time, well in advance¹. These things are run with military precision! Anyway, it’s all just a means to an end: Alfie does show up at Roland Garros and kisses Emily so she doesn’t get in huge work trouble, but he breaks up with her in the process, which is, honestly, probably for the best for him. Hot, hot Alfie will surely not be single for long.

Alfie breaking up with her also inspires Emily’s Work Lightbulb Moment of the Episode: Antoine’s Rich Wife has asked him for a divorce, and ergo he needs his new perfume to be a big hit, and thus it needs a great name. Enter Emily and HEARTBREAK Baccarat. (I really like that Sylvie and Laurent are making a go of it, but I also kind of ‘ship Sylvie and Antoine, while we’re here.)

Additionally, Julien — who was in the middle of low-key maybe quitting the agency at the end of last season? — does go ahead and quit. And you know why: Emily interfered in his pitch and with his clients again, and when he complained to Sylvie about it, also again, she made it all about herself. At long last, it appears consequences have entered the chat.

As far as Mindy goes, remember how last time I noted that it was nice that no one from her boyfriend Nico’s family said anything jerky to her about her insane and noteworthily skimpy outfit at the Pierre Cadault launch party? It turns out someone did: Nico’s father Louis de Leon, the head of the show’s faux LVMH, and a man who, as we learned last season, is also bedeviled by lingering MeToo accusations. Yadda yadda yadda, Mindy ends up selling the "Kate Middleton”-like² dress Nico gifted her to wear to the French Open to appease his father to Vestiaire Collective, and is using the proceeds to help fund her upcoming Eurovision performance, which she and her band apparently need to pay for entirely themselves.³ (Eurovision doesn’t really come up again in these five episodes, but I assume it will be the season finale set-piece.)

Oh right, one more thing: CAMILLE’S MISSING!