Emily in Paris Season 1 Episode 5 Recap: Polycules

Welcome to our Emily in Paris: Season 1, Episode 5 recap! Welcome to the cringiest polycule this side of the Seine!

It is (presumably) the morning after: an errant kiss, a newfound girlfriend. Camille is dating Gabriel, and Emily hates it (see expression above. “I really wish Gabriel had told me he had a girlfriend before I thanked him with my mouth,” Emily tells Mindy, during an early morning croissant event. (Is this the first episode that hasn’t opened with Emily running? I think it is!) Mindy is there to give us the expected double-take, which returns a few seconds later when Emily asks the waiter for “un croissant avec un préservatif” — a sentence that has been constructed only for the medium-warm pleasures of having Emily embarrass herself once again, by ordering a croissant with a side of condom. Préservatif does not mean preservatives. It means condom. (COME ON: She would obviously just ask for jam!! Ou marmalade, whatever! There are plenty of near misses out there, language wise, but this one is not credible.)

Mindy, undaunted, schools Emily on some additional faux amis: un médecin is a doctor, not medicine, un crayon is a pencil, not a crayon. She also finds a wider application for the concept of a false friend: Camille, and Emily: “You’re going to be friends with her but just so you can stay hot to her hot, hot boyfriend,” she suggests. Camille stops by (see photo at top) for an ill-timed selfie.

While Emily’s love life is sputtering, her vie d’influence is humming right along, and with thanks to her 20K followers, she receives an invite for an event at the Hotel d’Evreux, sponsored by Durée. Emily is delighted, and she tells Julien that the brand made “the first lip gloss I ever bought — well, not actually bought, my friend Sydney stole it from Target. She’s a teacher now.” Of added intrigue: Durée, she discovers, was one a client of Savoir. Might she be able to seduce them back into the fold?

It’s all very inane, and the other invitees are rude and vacuous — which I personally find appalling. “Influencing” is derided in part because it is predominantly women’s work — I’ve worked alongside many influencers, and most of them are extremely hardworking and serious. This show hates Emily, or at least it seems to think quite little of women like her, and I do not like that about it. Emily makes the dumbest little video about Durée (“smudge-proof, even when you’re berry hungry!!!!!”), exhibiting the absolute bare minimum of product knowledge, but it’s enough to draw the approval of the brand’s CMO, Olivia Thompson, who for some unknown reason is sitting in a little parlor with her unpleasant assistant, swiping through all the new creative being produced next door. “I like her — she’s clever!” Puh-lease.

Emily is pulled into the side chamber for an impromptu work session(??): “You created a meme using the Vajajeune post. You got Brigitte Macron to retweet you.”

“The Daily Mail called it a ‘re-twat,'” Emily says, because she has a masters in marketing.

Emily is summoned for a follow-up meeting the following day — but she has more last-minute social plans on the horizon. On returning home, she crosses paths with Camille and Gabriel — the former of whom “will not take no for an answer” when she asks Emily to hit the town with them. They try on hats. They drink wine. They assault the flower stands of rue Montorgueil. They see the Starry Night show at the Atelier des Lumières, one of those immersive audio/video spaces. There’s a very cringey exchange about the last time Gabriel and Camille slept “under the stars”. (“We didn’t sleep!” Camille says). (“So you guys are campers…” Emily says.)

Camille is momentarily pulled away when she greets two friends in the gallery, giving Gabriel and Emily a chance to debrief and deescalate. “I just thought that you felt — it doesn’t matter now. Clearly it was just me and I made it all up in my head.” This is exactly her face as she says this:

Emily says to forget it. “We’ll just go back to being neighbors who never kissed,” Gabriel agrees. Emily is dissatisfied.

All along, we’ve been a party to the work plot, which revolves around Hastens, a real-life Swedish mattress company. (Very high end!) Sylvie pitches them a promotion where models would sleep on the bed on the Champs Élysées so passersby could watch; after this suggestion ends with a pass, Emily reframes it: Make it a social campaign, and have fans of the brand (not just models — égalité!) post pictures of themselves in the bed in a charming spot. Clara, the Hastens rep, goes for it. This, of course, irritates Sylvie, who unloads such a nasty, venomous rant — here it is in part: If you’re their new arbiter of taste we want nothing to do with them. Companies hire Savoir to raise their standards — not lower them. You are the enemy of luxury.” It’s ridiculous. I have worked in some very toxic workplaces (with similarly luxe vibes) and — what is the point of this? What does Sylvie get by expending her energy on this little speech? A real hater wouldn’t even pay Emily five minutes’ of attention; it’s just villainy. The coup de grâce: Sylvie knows all about Emily’s trip to the Durée influencer event (on work time, no less) — and it doesn’t matter that Emily is trying to win them back to Savoir: “Delete your account,” Sylvie says. 

Emily complies — but not before going on one last Story-spree with Mindy, cavorting in Montmartre. This, somehow, catches Klara’s attention — and the next morning, Sylvie relays Klara’s new wish that Emily lead the campaign, with her influencer account intact, and post the first image herself. So somehow Emily ends up on a Hastens bed on place Dalida, on the backside of Montmartre, iPhone in hand. This all seems a very roundabout way of getting Camille (who, unbelievably(!!!!) stops by, once more, at an Emily Event) in bed with Emily. Obvs, they take a picture together. Obvs, they post it to Insta, with the hashtag  and whatever payoff they expected from this three-part joke:

OK, it’s kind of funny! Lucas Bravo (and the rest of the actors) are too good for the shoddy way this show often treats its characters. Bring on the polycule!

Cultural notes!

• If you Google Place Dalida, like I just did, you will indeed find a small square with a view of Sacre Coeur, but you will also (top results!) find a number of Emily in Paris tours.
• “Get in bed with us” translates (as above) to “Couche toi avec nous.”