Emily in Paris

Masquerade

Season 4

Episode 3

Editor’s Rating

2 stars

**

Photo: Stephanie Branchu/Netflix

Emily goes for a run—you may remember, that’s how the show started!—and discovers something exciting: Paris is full of hot men. DON’T LET THIS FILL YOU WITH HOPE. I know what you’re thinking: Is this show finally going to do something fun and crazy, like allow its heroine to be a single girl living the high life in the City of Lights?! The answer is no. Emily is determined to be boring and obvious. I think it was QUITE misleading to use this clip in the trailer for this season and promise us that Emily would date other people and live the high life when she does nothing of the sort.

Also, her terrible dressing sense is visible everywhere; that’s the only explanation I can find for what Camille is wearing: an unholy combination of office wear and lingerie, a miniskirt with lace trim and a hem that goes up in the middle? What kind of SHAPE is that? Emily meets Camille because Camille and Sofia are staying with Gabriel. Emily hysterically asks about their sleeping arrangements. What audacity this girl has!! Let people LIVE. She learns that Gabriel has been relegated to his own couch while the girlfriends share his bed. They all know how I feel about Gabriel, so I’m not mad that he has to suffer; it just annoys me that all these French people are so fixated on living boring, fun-free lives when they’re all so young and beautiful.

Gabriel is actually staying with Emily and Mindy because he can’t get a spot in his own shower. So when Emily arrives and babbles on and on about how shocked she is at the “polygamy” downstairs (WAKE UP EMILY, people can be poly, get over it, my God) and how turned on she is by the gorgeous men of Paris she’s seen on her run, He is the one she tells everything to. Gabriel sticks his head out of the shower to confirm that Emily is no longer with Alfie.

The big event of the episode is a launch party for the perfume Heartbreak, the bottle of which has already shattered like the Liberty Bell. At the meeting to discuss the evening’s plans, Emily wears this half-finished floral harness made of exploding fabric. above her normal outfit. It is very Blake Lively-It–Ends-with-us Press tour (pejorative). The Heartbreak Ball is a masquerade. Alfie shows up to the meeting to act like a fool at work, but Emily miraculously remains professional and explains the subject matter he deliberately doesn’t understand. It’s pretty much what you’d expect: masks give you the freedom to be someone you’re not.

Camille meets Alfie outside the office and apologizes for ruining his and Emily’s relationship, but Alfie assures her that they were doomed anyway, as Gabriel and Emily have feelings for each other. “But they could have met for some time and they didn’t,” says Camille. “What does that mean? The tell you?” I write: That Gabriel is a fuckboy and Emily is an idiot. Nothing we don’t already know!! Alfie, of course, sees things differently and is already getting his hopes up. That’s because he didn’t read the first paragraph of this summary. If he had, he would know that we’re busy managing expectations here.

Emily has made it her mission to ruin every part of French culture she can get her hands on. Her latest target: the joyful, regular consumption of alcohol. What if there was a non-alcoholic option for Kir Royale? Sylvie says, “Sobriety is the opposite of French culture,” and Emily uses this opportunity to denounce Camille’s pregnancy AGAIN. Later, at dinner with Mindy, Emily announces her plans to…not date anyone? Didn’t she literally JUST SAID she was inspired by all the hot guys on her running route?! Which would suggest she’s interested in casually dating some of those men she’s been overlooking all this time. DOES ANYONE WHO WRITES THIS SHOW EVEN WATCH IT? Mindy warns her that a “cock embargo” will have the opposite effect; it will “rain cocks.” I wish this series was this entertaining, but somehow I doubt that’s where we’re headed!

The Le Monde reporter is very persistent with Sylvie, who decides to tell Laurent why she doesn’t trust Louis. She believes that he is trying to buy her silence by investing in Laurent’s yacht club. She tells Laurent that she doesn’t think Le Monde has a story without her.

Elsewhere on the ranch, Gabriel’s loud “WOW, thank you for your MICHELIN STAR CONNECTION helping my restaurant!” causes problems for Luc, who wants his relationship with Marianne, the distributor of said stars, to work. “My anonymity is of utmost importanceshe screams, wearing a bright red coat over a bright red dress in broad daylight. “I can’t be seen with you anymore.” Later, she appears at the ball wearing a mask that is basically just glasses and doesn’t cover her face. Luc invites her to stay with him. Convinced by this promise, she tells Gabriel that he really needs a first-class pastry chef if he wants the Michelin star.

The masked ball is Also a black and white ball. (The reason for this or the fact that this is the dress code is never made clear, but somehow everyone knows what to wear. Sure!) Emily wears the biggest hat I have ever seen and a cape that has a huge Merry Christmas from Toyota-big bow. Gabriel finally says what we all should know he’s been thinking: He still has feelings for Emily. Because he’s a fuckboy, he hasn’t thought out a well-thought-out plan for how to approach their relationship, like whether he and Camille will share custody and/or live together when the baby is born, or what kind of relationship he actually wants to have with Emily. You know, normal adult stuff, but he doesn’t make a point of it and can only say he likes her. Emily says this situation could only work if they were two different people.

So Emily takes her complicated feelings to the Heartbreak Ball, where she wears a black and white striped body suit that is… really striking! The hat still seems over the top to her. We see that the woman from Baccarat is wearing the exact same outfit as Emily, and I write in my notes that I am sure that this will not cause any complications at all. I’m sorry to tell you that the situation with the right outfit plays out in the craziest way imaginable. But more on that in a moment.

Alfie is here to look good in a tuxedo—thanks for your service, Alfie!—and to claim to be a great dancer. But… can they dance well together? If you’re going to make this a plot point, I think the dance should look sleek and sultry, not whatever this is. Ideally, we’d see something more in the style of Midge and Lenny’s dance in The wonderful Mrs. Maiselright? Before I can get too into it, Gabriel arrives, also wearing a mask. Given the option of choosing literally any fake name he wants (and he had the whole drive to the ball to decide!), he chooses… David Guetta. Right. What a timely and relevant pop culture reference. Emily decides she wants to be Anna, the math teacher. God. Maybe they deserve each other?

Mindy arrives and she and Emily discuss the same topic they always discuss: Emily has to choose between Gabriel and Alfie. To be honest, it doesn’t seem like much of a choice to me, because Emily has been with Alfie before and it didn’t work out because she liked Gabriel. But she’s going to have to agonize a bit more, as is her usual modus operandi.

Sylvie gets the preview link to the Le Monde story on Louis, where Sylvie is the main picture and describes Louis’ “long history of promising promotions in exchange for sexual favors.” She takes a cigarette break and bumps into Mindy, who thanks her for telling Emily about the JVMA hideout. Mindy gets a text from Nicolas and leaves the party to measure up to her boyfriend, knowing what’s going on. When she gets there, Nicolas predictably says it’s all a lie by opportunistic people attacking his family. But Mindy stands firm: the story is true, and hey, “sometimes our fathers disappoint us.” She promises to be on his side “as long as you’re on the right side,” which… isn’t the most elegant phrasing in the world, but I appreciate the sentiment.

Without her mask, Emily approaches Gabriel so they can slow dance and imagine they’re alone in the room. Do we believe their chemistry? It feels like quite a camera trick to get me to believe in something that just doesn’t feel very real. Sorry!

But that brings us to the most offensive part of the episode: Alfie confesses his true feelings for Emily to the Baccarat girl and even kisses her before realizing he told the wrong person and storms out in anger. This is literally the exact same plot as gossip Girluntil the kiss! Except on Gossip Girl, The characters that were confused (Serena, Jenny) were both at the center of the story and therefore the consequences of this mistake were all the more interesting. AND The kisser (Nate) only realized later that he had kissed the wrong person, which Also made the story more interesting! So this is basically just a copy and paste version of events made worse and less convincing. Why am I watching the shein version of a CW show? Did they think we wouldn’t notice? Or that we just wouldn’t care? I feel so insulted by this! I know they think we’re all on our phones and the show is on in the background, but do they really think we’re not watching? at all?

Anyway, back to the party: Julien and Sylvie reconcile. She assures him that he is family and can come back anytime, and warns him about the article that will soon be published. She also sends the story to Laurent and asks for his forgiveness. Antoine tells her that he saw it, and he thinks she did the right thing. Sylvie leaves the party with her mask on, while gossip swirls around her.

Gabriel and Emily leave in a carriage. I need to know if any of you are rooting for them because I find them both so annoying, but maybe you’re a fan of these two? Gabriel’s suggestion is “Let’s forget about reality for one night,” which, if I remember correctly, is pretty much what he said the last (only?) time they had sex.