Emily in Paris Season 4 Episode 1 Review: Love is in the Air
Welcome, My darling! Sure, the 2024 Olympics have officially left Paris, but we are still in France (at least mentally), because Emily in Paris Season 4 has been released on Netflix with the first five episodes (the final five episodes will be released on Thursday, September 12).
We last saw Emily Cooper (Lily Collins) in the Emily in Paris In the season three finale, she had just witnessed Camille (Camille Razat) calling off her wedding to Gabriel (Lucas Bravo) because she rightly suspected that the French chef actually had feelings for Emily, a revelation that also caused Alfie (Lucien Laviscount) to leave our title heroine. And that’s not even mentioning all the professional drama surrounding Sylvie (Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu) and the rest of the Agence Grateau team.
A lot has happened in the last season, so without further ado, let’s take a look back at our oh-so-fashionable friends in France.
Three days after the wedding that never happened, Emily has gone viral—for all the wrong reasons. Camille’s brother Timothée (Victor Meutelet) has taken TikTok by storm with his animated retelling of how Mademoiselle Cooper “ruined” his sister’s big day, detailing all the romantic details between Emily, Gabriel and Alfie. Sure, it’s a handy refresher for viewers on all the bridal chaos, but it’s also a PR nightmare for Agence Grateau, as Sylvie watches in horror as Emily’s personal life ruins her business once again. (Luc (Bruno Gouery), for his part, loves the social media series.)
The problem is that Julien’s (Samuel Arnold) client, AMI, has already approved an entire “Love is in the Air” campaign based on Emily and Alfie’s real-life love story, which is now significantly more complicated after the whole viral breakup story. AMI wants the estranged couple to personally recreate the romantic kiss from the ad. Camera, Bisou (also known as the Kiss Cam) at Roland-Garros the next day. But not only has Alfie not written back to Emily, he’s deleted her from Instagram. How will Emily sort out this personal and professional mess?
Two people are a company, three people are a crowd
Although Emily tells her best friend Mindy Chen (Ashley Park) that she is not interested in exploring the “beautiful little path” that Camille has cleared for her to Gabriel, it seems that this little something There is still a big gap between the marketing expert and the French chef.
When she meets Gabriel at her apartment building, she notices that he has burned his hand while cooking at the restaurant. She helps him with the groceries and cooks some eggs for the injured chef. He tells her (and us) about what’s going on with Camille – she’s staying at her family’s castle in the south and seems to be avoiding him – and announces that he wants to make things right between her and Alfie. “Alfie is not your problem, Gabriel, and Camille is not mine,” she reminds him.
However, that doesn’t stop Alfie from turning up at L’Esprit de Gigi to clear things up with the chef and owner. “You told me you were my boyfriend. And then you lied to my face,” Alfie confronts him. However, Gabriel assures the Brit that nothing unpleasant happened between him and Emily when she was still Alfie and that his feelings for her are irrelevant: “I’m not going to get in the way. End of discussion.”
After being admonished by Sylvie to mix work and pleasure, Alfie shows up at the last minute at Roland-Garros and ends up saving the AMI campaign. But the kiss he shares with Emily on camera – which Gabriel, of course, watches while playing tennis in the restaurant – is not a kiss of love, but a kind of goodbye. Although she promises him that their relationship is real, he tells her that he cannot shake off his worries: “I will always be waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
Mindy’s shine cannot be tarnished
Mindy and her always colorfully dressed bandmates Etienne (Jin Xuan Mao) and Benoit (Kevin Dias) meet with a Eurovision Song Contest representative to discuss their being chosen as the French delegation to the song contest. (For “Mon Soleil,” remember?) It’s exciting news until the trio is brutally informed that budget cuts mean they’ll have to pay for their own recording sessions, choreographers and dancers, and even pyrotechnics experts. (“No help from the government? What’s up with this, America?!”) Benoit suggests they go back to busking every night to make money, but Etienne wants Mindy to try to get the money from her rich boyfriend, JVMA heir Nicolas de Léon (Paul Forman).
Relationship-wise, things are looking up for Mindy and Nicolas: He’s invited her to join him and his family in the JVMA suite at Roland-Garros, and even gifted her an expensive couture outfit for the festivities. During the match, however, Mindy overhears Nicolas’ father, Louis de Léon (Pierre Deny), speaking disparagingly in French about Mindy’s clothes. She confronts Nicolas afterward: “Did you give me this outfit to make me more likable to your father?” He confesses that his father is obsessed with creating the perfect family image, but Mindy is furious that Nicolas didn’t stand up for her. She storms out – “You don’t want me to stay with so much anger and free booze” – but not before saying goodbye to Louis in perfect French.
Mindy, however, has the last laugh: she takes the couture outfit to a collector of luxury items and sells it for 3,000 euros to finance the band’s Eurovision dreams.
Sylvie’s not so pleasant life
We already know that the feud between Sylvie Grateau and Louis de Léon runs deep, although we don’t know exactly why – but it looks like we’ll get answers this season. After all, Sylvie’s husband Laurent G (Arnaud Binard) is already in business with Louis and is opening a picturesque yacht club right on the Seine together, so the rivals will be forced to socialize.
A typical example: Sylvie reluctantly agrees to accompany her husband to the JVMA suite at Louis se Léon. There, however, she witnesses a private conversation between Nicolas and Julien. Is Nicolas the one Julien secretly texted at the end of the third season about a possible role? Yes, her employee admits. However, he is not exactly happy when he hears that Sylvie believes that Louis is not trying to poach him for his own talent, but only to hire him to take revenge on her for the chaos with Pierre Cadault in the last season. Insulted, Julien quits on the spot.
The drama continues at home when Sylvie receives a voicemail from a reporter. The World who is researching Louis de Léon and rumors of sexual misconduct within the JVMA. She wants to ask Sylvie about her experiences with Louie – will Sylvie tell everything?
Of course a cliffhanger
As Emily is walking home after her successful day at Roland-Garros, she finds a worried Gabriel outside L’Esprit de Gigi. He has just spoken to Camille’s mother, who is freaking out because no one has seen Camille since the wedding three days ago. “Camille has disappeared,” explains a distraught Gabriel, just before the credits roll. Sacré bleu!
All five episodes of Emily in Paris Season 4, Part 1 is now available to stream on Netflix.
