With the Paris Olympics behind us, there’s really no better time to visit the cleaned-up City of Love than this year. Here to prod you closer to buying that plane ticket is the latest season of Emily In Paris, which hits Netflix today. The 10-episode season will be screened in 2 parts, with the 2nd half airing from 12 September.
Whether you’ve already binged all 3 seasons ahead of this latest, or are new to the franchise, we’ve summed up some pretty important life lessons you might have missed while ogling the heartthrobs and outfits in Emily In Paris.
Spoilers ahead, if you’ve not watched Seasons 1 through 3.
Embrace change. Don’t try to force your ideals and ways onto others like Madeline does, which comes across as inflexible in the face of cultural differences between Americanised and French ways of operating.
Differences aren’t always bad, as Emily learns throughout her stay in France. We have much to learn from the way she fearlessly plunged into a whole new language, culture, way of life and work. Throughout the 3 seasons, we’ve seen her meet change and challenge head-on━and that’s something we should take away from the show, if nothing else.
Life’s too short to be miserable all the time, and Emily definitely encounters plenty of low moments throughout the almost 1,000 minutes of the show thus far. Learn to have lots of fun while you face changes in your life ━ take a page out of Emily’s book: explore the city, buy yourself flowers, make new friends, live life to the fullest.
To quote the sage Luc, “You live to work, we work to live.” Oui, that’s something about life we could learn from the French.
Between the lines of embracing life and having fun are 3 words: never give up. Emily’s relationship fails when she moves to Paris, and she is snubbed at Savoir. She messes up presentations to clients, commits major faux pas at work, accidentally sleeps with her friend’s boyfriend, also sleeps with her friend’s 17-year-old brother━the list goes on.
But you don’t see Emily fall into depths of self-pitying despair for episodes on end; she shakes her failures off, tries to make amends (not always successfully), and finds alternative ways to go about things.
Yes, we did say that you shouldn’t give up, but there are times when you need to know that the end has been reached. There’s no point in trying to save a sinking ship. The complicated love triangle surrounding Emily, Camille and Gabriel is only proof of what happens when you don’t.
Emily continues to nurse her feelings for Gabriel, in spite of knowing that Camille is his girlfriend, and this gets in the way of her relationship with Alfie. Camille tries to hang on to the relationship, even agreeing to marry him, only to change her mind at the altar when she finds out that he’s still in love with Emily. If this guy isn’t a walking red flag, we don’t know what is━ladies, know that when it’s time to let go, let go.
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With all of Emily’s open-mindedness about her new life in Paris also comes an acceptance of the mistakes that she makes along the way. True, she doesn’t not make the mistakes again (read: falling into bed again with Gabriel after the fact), but she does try to learn from them.
Case in point: she tries to assimilate into the Parisian way of life from the ground up━going for French classes. She also tries to keep her distance from Gabriel to preserve her friendship with Camille, and she learns how to handle clients the French way. Of course, you’d want to maybe try harder than Emily did to avoid the messy relationship drama.
The French joie de vivre, or joy of life, is exemplified in Emily’s way of being. Her bullish approach to the 8 months-ish that she’s spent in Paris over the 3 seasons is an inspiration to us all, proving that being of good cheer does make a difference when you’re faced with difficulties. Her self-reflection allows her to see her mistakes, and her cheery attitude helps her get past them. Some have critiqued Emily’s exuberance in the show as narcissistic and self-absorbed, though, so you might want to take this lesson with a pinch of salt.
We see a similar positivity in Mindy, who runs headlong into new opportunities, and whose passion for her craft is what spurred her to leave her pampered life in China for Paris.
Find yourself a friend like Mindy: she’s stuck by Emily’s side through the show, even if some of you may say Emily doesn’t deserve a friend like her. Tensions have run high, and they’ve gotten upset with each other, but it hasn’t gotten in the way of their friendship. Mindy was upfront about why she had been unhappy with the way Emily had handled things with Nicolas━Emily apologised and made the effort to mend the bridge with Nicolas. How’s that for honest, true friendship?
On the other hand, it may seem like Camille did forgive Emily for sleeping with Gabriel; you might even think her giving the Champére account back to Emily was a huge olive branch. In reality, it was more of a means through which she wanted to get back together with her boyfriend. Yes, they’ve had their HTHT moments, and Camille was one of Emily’s first friends in Paris, but this is also a head’s up not to be naive in friendships. In any case, Emily did have farewell sex with Gabriel knowing full well about Camille so, ugh.
Setting all that friendship chat aside, we see Camille really come into herself by the cliffhanger ending of Season 3. She’s no longer the same lovelorn girl we were first introduced to in Season 1, nor That Girl Who Took Back Her Cheating Ex in Season 2. Camille seems to grow into herself as she steps up into more active roles in her family business. We also get to see her taking charge at work, and exploring her own passions━both in her job and her relationships.
That final scene where she leaves Gabriel at the altar is an epiphanic moment for her, where she’s taken charge of her life and the direction she’s taking. Let’s not forget that her mum played a big part in pushing her back to Gabriel. She’s the one who proposed to him, but it’s also her who has decided to walk away, pregnant or otherwise.
On that same note, we have Mindy, who decided to live her dream and pursue a career in singing, rather than go back to China and join her family’s business. Both Mindy and Camille have, over the course of the 3 seasons, found their feet and grown into the people that they truly are.
Conversely, there’s people-pleasing Emily, who tried so hard to say yes to everyone that one might even say she lost herself. Season 3 saw her working for both Sylvie and Madeline in order to not disappoint either, resulting in her getting fired by both; her attempts to protect Mindy’s feelings also wound up in a fracture in their friendship━in trying to please everyone, she failed to be honest to herself about her own wants, feelings, and needs. Don’t be like Emily: set boundaries, learn how to say no, and be true to yourself.
Ne pas choisir, c’est encore choisir, Emily is asked to translate in French class—a quote from existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre that reads: Not choosing is still a choice. Set boundaries, learn to love yourself, and be like Emily—but not entirely. Emily In Paris is 99% unrealistic, but there are still life lessons we can take away from it.
All screenshots courtesy of Netflix.
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