Emmy Catch-Up: Emily in Paris

Every year, I watch the six submitted episodes of every series I don’t regularly watch that’s up for one of the Emmy series prizes. Last year, I started watching the entire season of each show to get a better idea of the quality I missed, and I’ve decided to continue that this year.

Emily in Paris: Season 1, Episode 2 “Masculin Féminin” (B)

Now here’s a show that I didn’t keep watching after it premiered last October, but one that I’m now going to make my way through given its relatively surprising inclusion in the Emmy list for Best Comedy Series. I never had a problem with this show, which I found to be very light but pleasant entertainment when I watched the pilot, and this second installment only underlines that tendency. I do like that Emily has all these followers on social media who love her posts but that doesn’t translate to any easier of a time adapting to French culture, particularly when she continually steps in it by doing the wrong thing. I am intrigued by the fact that she got into trouble for flirting with a married man whose mistress happens to be her boss, a very complicated love quadrangle that’s only going to make Sylvie like her even less than she does. Tweeting about how the word “vagina” is masculine in the French language made her a bigger celebrity thanks to Brigitte Macron’s endorsement of it, but it’s just going to make her seem like she’s constantly going around her direct supervisors to get special attention and treatment. Sending the steak back to the chef who turned out to be Gabriel was an entertaining moment that proved that she was wrong, and I enjoyed just how much Mindy had fun watching it all happen. Doug essentially breaking up with Emily because he didn’t want to come to Paris wasn’t a positive development but clearly a necessary one, and while I don’t think this is the last we’ll hear of him, it certainly frees Emily up to be considerably more open-minded about her opportunities in Paris than she previously was.