Bienvenue, welcome! This is the Emily in Paris season 1 episode 3 recap. Our primary concerns today include: How can we live far from home to the appropriate degree: remaining who we were while figuring out what we might yet become? What is the difference between sexy and sexist, and is it best determined by a Twitter (RIP) poll? Why can’t we all just shower in our neighbors’ bathrooms?
As the show opens, it’s morning on the Seine — or is it???? IT IS NOT! I f-ing knew that that supposedly morning light was too golden for sunrise!! (Paris dawns are decidedly blue-tinged!!!!!)
HERE ARE THE FORENSICS: Behind Emily in this shot is the Louvre, which means she’s crossing north to south on the Pont des Arts, and running toward the Institut de France — but there are shadows cast from the left, which is the west! Which means that this shot, supposedly at 8 a.m., must have been taken in the evening, when the light is very golden! Hollywood is a lie.
Moving on: Madeleine is unsatisfied and Emily is jogging, in a very cute and very cropped top. It’s (supposedly, lol) 1 a.m. in Chicago, where her pregnant boss is nauseated and awake — and surprised to learn that Emily and Doug (I had literally forgetten his name — repose en paix, Chicago boyfriend). “So you’re single — in Paris?” Madeleine is jealous: “Your life is croissants and sex.” So far, Emily says, just croissants. A man pees behind her. Paris! What are you gonna do?
It’s off to the boulangerie for a croissant and a social media moment at Air & Velo — this latter enterprise as far as I can discern is not real, though there are quite a number of spin studios in Paris (this is my fave: Dynamo, a.k.a. “l’indoor cycling”). There’s a quick visual joke about fit women smoking and a non-operating hashtag (#smokin’bods — again, why wouldn’t Emily, a professional social media consultant, not understand that the apostrophe would break her hashtag?? of course she would?). Then she goes home and realizes her shower no longer works, the concierge doesn’t care, and Gabriel conveniently has one she can borrow.
Let’s take a moment to appreciate the lovely colors here….
And this beautiful stairwell, which Emily descends in hopes of finding a solution to her shower dilemma:
Then it’s off to work, to be utterly random and culturally oblivious: Emily has prepared an set of commandments focusing on office culture, which forbids both office romances and bad attitudes. (As Mindy will say later: “You told French people this? No wonder they hate you.”)
She still doesn’t totally understand why Sylvie doesn’t like her. Everyone likes Emily, it’s what she’s best at. This is the moment when Sylvie says, “If you keep smiling like that, people will think you’re stupid.”
Emily stays on task, though. Her mission: to “be sure that De L’Heure gets ‘de More’ followers” — for the time being, by producing some social media content while behind the scenes at a high-end shoot for a new perfume commercial. Unfortunately, Antoine of De L’Heure wants to accomplish this with some imagery straight out of a wet dream (from the 1990s, no less), with a video camera trailing behind a nude Serbian model as she crosses the Pont Alexandre III. (She’s actually played by a Moldovan actress, Alexandrina Turcan.)
Cue an emergency session of “Have you guys ever heard of American values???” (The ultimate joke is on Emily — rewatching this in 2024 is a strange experience, knowing that when this episode Donald Trump was about to be voted out of office. Plus ça change! Which is perfectly defined as the “resigned acknowledgment of the fundamental immutability of human nature and institutions”!)
Emily gives everyone a mini tutorial on the male gaze, Sylvie makes a fleeting reference to the French equivalent of #metoo, #balancetonporc, and Emily eventually leaves it to the American people to decide via Twitter poll: Is the ad sexist or the sexiest? “I just want to protect your brand,” Emily says plaintively, into the wind. “Desire does not mean a lack of respect,” Antoine replies. “There’s no bigger compliment.” (Remember, he’s fucking Sylvie.)
Emily meets up with Mindy to bemoan not only this professional quandary, but also a persistent problem connecting to the Frenchies. Mindy offers to throw her a party — to which Emily subsequently invites Sylvie. But Sylvie is not interested: “After a year of food and sex and wine and maybe some culture, you’ll go back from where you came. So — perhaps we’ll work together. But we won’t be friends.”
The party itself is equally disappointing: First, one friendly Parisienne breaks off a getting-to-know-you convo with Emily to low-level gossip with a friend, in a familiar French that Emily is minimum two years away from understanding. Then she connects with a French painter (of bâtiments, not canvases), who promptly informs her that he likes her neck, and her lips, and her “American p****”. (Lots of European guys think American girls are low-challenge, so this checks out, even if that morning run did not and never will.)
Emily goes home, alone — or almost. She stops by Gabriel’s restaurant to kvetch. “I like Paris, but I’m not really sure Paris likes me,” she says. “I’ve spent my entire life trying to be liked.”
“That’s a pretty miserable goal,” Gabriel says. He assures her that he likes her, even if no one else in the nation of France does.
Emily vows to “give up trying,” though we know she’ll give up Instagram first. And by the episode’s end, we see her going in two directions at once: buoyed by good professional news (Buzzfeed and Jezebel, among others, took notice of her sexy/sexist poll) but dismayed to discover a package from La Perla on her desk — from Antoine.
(“Who’s that from?” Sylvie says within milliseconds of its discovery.)
Emily in Paris season 1, episode 3 recap recap:
Emily is not fitting in because she doesn’t speak the language and is culturally at odds with the nation of France, which isn’t entirely her fault (it is tragically underemphasized here that Emily’s only in Paris instead of Madeleine because of the latter’s unexpected pregnancy.) Antoine is trying to sex her up, right under Sylvie’s nose. Mindy throws great parties but is not a responsible host, and Gabriel does basically nothing but charm various franco- (the repairman) and anglophones (Emily). Her jogging is a lie.
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