You wanted the best? You got the best! The hottest special-ops band in the land: Lioness! That’s right, folks: The world is a sunspot on one of Taylor Sheridan’s ranch-tanned, rippling biceps, and we’re just living in it. Hey, cool with me. The future was uncertain for this little Sheridan side project that could’ve been at the close after its first season. But with an apparently sizable audience on Paramount+ and the will to make it happen on the part of Sheridan, the exceptionally stacked cast, and everyone else involved, old Father Duty’s callin’ again for Joe (Zoe Saldaña) and the Lioness crew.
The last we saw of our ragtag CIA operatives, they’d successfully assassinated an Iranian-backed terrorist leader. Their lioness, Cruz Manuelos (Laysla De Oliveira), ended the mission alive but in spiritual tatters — unswayed by Joe’s reassurances that the operation saved lives. “All we did was change oil prices,” Cruz had said on her emotional way out of the Lioness program. As the search for her replacement kicks off in season two, the specter looming over the proceedings is how right she was.
As for the big question: Who’s the new lioness? We’ll get acquainted with her in the second episode of our two-episode premiere night. Our first episode is all about setting off the bloody inciting incident, reorienting us in the world and rules of the show, and some imperial dudes-rock, Sicario-style action for your trouble.
The cold open rips — and rips hard. A U.S. congresswoman is kidnapped by a cartel, and her family is murdered in their sleep. Joe is enjoying an impromptu breakfast at Waffle House with the family when she gets the news from the TV. Meanwhile, everyone’s favorite CIA fuckboy, Kyle (Thad Luckinbill), is swinging his dick around the crime scene, getting a lay of the land. At HQ in D.C., the usual suspects at the levers of power are gathering to plot the next moves. They’re back, folks. They’re all back: Byron Westfield (Michael Kelly), Mason (Jennifer Ehle) and Hollar (Bruce McGill), and Kaitlyn Meade (Nicole Kidman) — all riveting stars and standout character actors contributing their signature rhythms and verbal notes to the simmering espionage plan-making patter, all while Morgan Freeman as Secretary of State Mullins holds down the fort with some well-placed, occasionally F-bomb-accented mic-drop moments.
Joe arrives late to the meeting, just in time to get the crux of the debrief and her call to action. Conveniently, and somehow undetected even as she’s ripped from her house in the middle of the night, Congresswoman Hernandez (Czarina Mireles) kept a tracker on her, so they know she’s being held at a house in Ojinaga, just across the border. They want an extraction that’s messy enough to make a scene, but sending an official strike team across the southern border is against treaty protocols with Mexico. In a classic manifestation of what I like to call a “Dum Clancy” plot device, they justify the action by speculating that there has to be another major world power behind this abduction, and right now they figure it’s China. They are trying to move the global political board in a big way so they can invade Taiwan or something. Regardless, the threat of a geopolitical status quo knocking loose is established per the espionage genre’s wont. In the meantime, this gang of U.S. intelligence ghouls is aiming for a loud but successful extraction, followed by an “increased CIA presence in Mexico” — seek justice against this cartel and liquidate the potentially bigger threat behind it.
And they want a lioness on the ground. Joe’s unsurprisingly put out by the task of training a new lioness in weeks when months are required. They can eliminate the Los Tigres cartel leader, but intelligence-gathering isn’t part of their purview after that. Here’s where Freeman gets his first big shot of the season: “All right, after you kill the guy, could you be so kind as to grab his fucking phones and computers and anything else that might have some fucking intelligence?” C’mon, girl — even when we’re heisting some intel, we do it the cowboy way. You should know that. Kaitlyn chimes in: They can handle the job.
So the stage is set. Suit up, everyone; it’s time for the extraction — an extended, multipart, vaguely sepia-toned car chase–shoot-out in Mexico. Some serious “cowboy shit” organized by, of course, fucking Kyle. If hangin’ with the inglorious bastards of the Lioness crew was as core to your enjoyment of season one as it was mine, the delay in getting back with the team in full will prove a letdown here. But, hey — instead, we get the man, the myth, the legend in front of the camera. That’s right: Just when you thought Sheridan had stunted enough by writing the whole show himself (as he claims to have done with all 17,000 of his shows currently running) and directing the first two episodes of the season, our guy casts himself — in all his chiseled, hunky-leathery glory — as the titular “old soldier” Cody.
Joe knows Cody from way back, just as she knows all the guys from way back; such a guy’s gal, our Joe. Anyway, she’s not too sure about long-in-the-tooth Cody running point on this extraction, even in the company of his two wingmen, Tracer and Dean (what, are we about to play Overwatch here with these names?), which one can only take as extra assurances that Cody’s gonna badass the shit out of this mission. Indulgent as hell on Sheridan’s part, and seeing how I didn’t think we’d get another season of this madness to begin with, I’m 100 percent here for it. In for a penny, in for a pound and all that.
Once they’ve retrieved the missing congresswoman from an enemy vehicle and gotten her safely back on U.S. territory (via car-jump into an open river and one final Apocalypse Now “Ride of the Valkyries”–style blast of defensive gunfire from an air-support helicopter), Joe promises to personally carry out some extrajudicial retribution on Los Tigres. “Justice is a different agency,” she says. “My agency doesn’t do courtrooms.” A Clint-fucking-Eastwood badass line if I’ve ever heard one. And Saldaña delivers it with that familiar wired, short-fused muscularity, telling us Joe is ready to go all the way with this one.
Having sufficiently reamed Kyle for getting her team involved in some hyper-risky “cowboy shit” again (not sure what else she expected from this “ol’ spy Barbie,” as Cody calls him, seeing how his entire track record as an agent is setting up all-American carnage like this no matter where he gets called in, wound up, and set off), Joe steps away to call her sexy house husband Dr. Neal (Dave Annable) and two daughters. The turmoil that followed her family in her professional absence seems to have largely (and a little too conveniently) subsided since season one. So have her most pressing feelings of disconnect and occasional trauma-induced disinterest in family life, it seems. This bodes well for any of us who felt Joe’s family stuff was overwrought and at least partially unnecessary, getting us ready for a less melodramatic push-and-pull between the innocence of family and the looming corruption of the mission as the new season progresses.
As for the new lioness, hang on to your butts ’cause she’s comin’ in hot in the next episode!
Early in the first season of Shrinking, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the show’s premise. It’s one thing to follow a therapist with unconventional methods, but Jimmy’s way of doing things was clearly unethical, and the show knew it. How sustainable could that be as a plot engine for a comedy like this one? By the halfway point of the season, though, the show had moved away a bit from that central hook, transforming (like so many of Bill Lawrence’s other shows) into a more low-concept hangout sitcom about a group of characters. Then, we got that literal cliffhanger of a final scene: Grace, one of Jimmy’s biggest success stories, pushed her husband off a cliff.
It was a reminder that therapists often have quite a lot of power when it comes to their patients, and wielding that power irresponsibly can have serious consequences. But it was also a return to a story line that the show had mostly moved past. As much as I enjoyed how the season ended, I wondered what tack the next season would take.
This premiere suggests that Jimmy quitting his usual offbeat techniques could be difficult; Jimmying his patients has become something like an addiction, filling the void left by all the liquor and drugs he once used to cope with his wife Tia’s death. Season one also suggested this idea early on as we saw Jimmy come back to life after a year of grief, reinvesting his energy into his work life while working hard to make up for lost time with his daughter. But I do hope that if the season sticks with this conflict (rather than dropping the quirky therapy and reverting back to a more general therapist-led hangout sitcom), we’ll learn more about why exactly Jimmy relies on this so much.
Still, I like that this episode continues to acknowledge the harmful effects of that type of therapy. Grace is the most obvious example: As a result of Jimmy’s overly explicit advice, she’s in jail, facing a potential life sentence for the attempted murder of her husband. (He did survive, but he might never walk again.) Jimmy tries to justify this to Paul as “pattern interruption,” a familiar term in normal therapy that means exactly what it sounds like. But there’s really no way to see this as a win; Grace even points out that she’d rather have a shitty husband than spend her life in prison.
Perhaps the bigger problem is that Jimmy just cares too much about his patients, letting them live in his head rent-free while he’s off the clock. The dream version of Paul draws an insightful contrast between their respective relationships with their patients: Jimmy would come undone if one of his patients didn’t turn out okay, while Paul can separate himself.
During Jimmy’s real-life talk with Paul about this subject, his mentor reassures him that he didn’t necessarily fuck up, though he should probably stick to conventional therapy for a while. But his efforts are short-lived, especially when Alice inadvertently gets him to promise to keep committing therapist malpractice. She’s worried about the possibility of him regressing, especially because his assurance that he’s “good” doesn’t sound any different from the lies he told her when he decidedly wasn’t good. Still, though, I have to wonder why Jimmying is so, well, therapeutic to him. There must have been years prior to Tia’s death where he was more comfortable with traditional therapy. Why can’t he find his way back there now?
Regardless, it’s clear that Jimmy is as fragile as Alice and Paul say, based on his explosive reaction to the (conveniently timed) appearance of the drunk driver responsible for Tia’s death in the final scene. (That’s Ted Lasso co-star and Shrinking co-creator Brett Goldstein, startlingly clean-shaven.) That fragility is affecting his relationships with his family and friends, including Paul, who was forced to assuage Jimmy’s earlier fears about messing up with his patients. But it’s also affecting his patients themselves, including Sean, who’s too afraid of disappointing Jimmy to be open about any personal failure.
Sean is in a pretty good place overall, especially now that his and Liz’s food truck is up and running. But he’s still uncomfortable with reminders of his past. When an old army friend comes to town, he’s tempted to flake, even after Jimmy gets in the ring to challenge him to a fight in his latest Jimmying relapse. (It goes about as well as you’d expect.) Sean is more inspired by Jimmy’s confidence in him than his goofy antics, so he decides to go through with the hang at first — but in the end, he pulls out at the last second, walking right past the door of the spot.
Sean’s continual lack of friends outside his therapist’s circle perfectly proves Paul’s point about their confusing dual relationship, especially with his lie about how it went with the army buddy. So for his next appointment, Sean goes to Paul instead of Jimmy. Their little hello feels a bit bittersweet, but it’s for the best. Besides, they do literally live together, so it’s not like these two are out of each other’s lives. At most, he’ll probably see Jimmy 50 minutes less per week from now on.
Jimmy is dealing with a lot right now, so turning his casual sexual arrangement with Gaby into a real relationship isn’t front of mind. Maybe one day Jimmy will be ready to get serious, but today is not that day, and Gaby is aware of that. It’s an “uneven dynamic,” she points out to Liz, and the longer she keeps sleeping with him despite that, the more likely her feelings will get hurt. And yet like Jimmy, Gaby needs this release now, stressed as she is with moving, teaching a class, mediating an ongoing fight between her mom and sister, and dealing with her regular patients. She tries to quit Jimmy, but she just can’t — as a “pathological caretaker,” she’s still holding out hope he’ll give her a real shot eventually.
Liz takes it upon herself to interfere, as usual, leading to some classic Gaby-and-Liz fighting. This one doesn’t get too intense, though. Liz enlists her husband and Brian to unpack all of Gaby’s stuff while she’s away, and all is forgiven. (Gaby’s probably going to rearrange all that after they’re gone, though, right?)
The light C-plot of the episode belongs to Paul, who is starting to reluctantly come to terms with the fact that he is deeply in love with his doctor girlfriend, Julie. They’re not just “roomies with bennies”; they have regular morning dance sessions in their living room, and they even watch sports together. Paul is a stubborn guy who often struggles to be open about his emotions, so at first he goes the opposite way, suggesting they see too much of each other. But a night away from Julie is enough to remind him how much he likes spending time with her, so he marches over to her place and does the mature thing by telling her he loves her. (She says it back, of course.)
So much of Shrinking is about that need for communication and connection, about having an open and honest heart. So when Jimmy pulls back out his old recurring lie at the end of the episode — telling Alice that his day was great — there’s real cause for concern. Sometimes, you think everything’s fine until the past comes roaring back.
• Liz and Derek’s son, Connor, is still pretty into Alice, and for some reason, he seems incapable of talking to her despite their history (they lost their virginities to each other).
• Gotta love Harrison Ford’s grin when Jimmy says Paul pushed him off a cliff in his dream.
• Not a ton for Brian to do yet, but he’s taking on Grace’s case pro bono, so that should help keep him involved.
• Gaby’s student Keisha seems like a fun new character.
• Not really a fan of teeth humor, so I was more amused by Jimmy’s initial effort to hide what happened (the leaking blood was pretty good) than the actual visuals of his fucked-up teeth.
• “I don’t need to numb myself by snorting molly off of some stripper named Ecstasy … I might have been snorting ecstasy off a stripper named Molly.”
• “After Mom died, one day you were my dad, and the next I was getting a ride to school from a sex worker.” “She was also a Lyft driver. She did both.”
Summer is firmly over, and few things ring in the transition into autumn like new episodes of Abbott Elementary. Coming off a strike-impacted third season that coincided with more buzz than ever surrounding the show, Abbott gifts us a solid premiere episode, signifying how ready the cast and crew are for the new season. The show is no longer television’s Rookie of the Year; Abbott is now established in the industry, and with a whopping 22-episode season, the writers and actors have room to breathe and really flesh out story lines in true sitcom fashion. We’re even getting a crossover with It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, so it’s safe to say real television is back, baby.
Not much has changed in the halls of Abbott Elementary: Jacob still hates Mr. Morton, Ava avoids work at all costs (she declares that action is her least favorite thing to take), the teachers remind the kids how much better they are than New Jersey, and Janine shares stolen glances with Gregory over their students’ heads. However, these stolen glances are no longer of the will-they, won’t-they variety. Following last season’s finale, which culminated in a Janine-and-Gregory kiss, the pair have moved forward with their connection and are testing the waters romantically. Here is an example of the delicate yet exciting place Abbott finds itself in four seasons in; the choices made now will determine if it makes it through the gauntlet to legacy-sitcom status. I’m particularly interested in how Janine and Gregory move forward since fan reception to romantic relationships can be particularly precarious depending on which way the wind blows. Some fans were already sick of the will-they, won’t-they tension after a mere two seasons, while others, like myself, reveled in the tension. Now, we get to find out if this relationship is in it for the long haul, like The Office’s Jim and Pam, or merely a blip, like Parks and Recreation’s Ann and Andy. Or could this be a classic breakup-to-make-up situation, like New Girl’s Jess and Nick? There are many possible avenues, and watching it unfold in real time is what makes television so entertaining.
For now, we have no idea what Janine and Gregory’s future holds, which is perfectly fine because we get to have fun living in the moment of the early days of their romance. We get cute moments that play on their idiosyncracies, like Janine telling Gregory she would never take him somewhere without buttered noodles and Gregory uncharacteristically wearing Janine’s lipstick kiss on his cheek. They’re adorable as they try to play coy at work despite everyone already knowing the advancement in their relationship, with Ava considering the sneaking around an affront to their intelligence. Their co-workers have no problem humoring them, but once the students start to pick up on the vibes, Ava puts pressure on them to go public so she won’t get in trouble by bringing an HR representative (Warren, one of Janine’s opps from the district) to the school in hopes of forcing their hand. True to their personalities, Janine advocates for keeping things under wraps, while Gregory wants to come clean, noting there’s nothing professionally wrong with what they’re doing as long as they’re honest about it.
After Janine awkwardly avoids a conversation with Warren, Gregory begins to worry that she has cold feet regarding her feelings. Jacob assures him that Janine is deeply in “like” with him, so he shouldn’t have anything to worry about. So when Janine realizes she forgot her presentation for the back-to-school staff meeting (which is very important as she’s pitching a field trip to the aquarium, and “if the kids don’t go to the aquarium, they fail the SATs”), Gregory plays the perfect boyfriend and runs to her apartment to retrieve it during his free period. He barely makes it back in time before bursting into the meeting right as Janine runs out of stalling time and handing her back her keys. The staff starts grilling them with questions about their evident closeness, including coming to and from work together with their overnight duffel bags in tow, until they break under pressure — the pressure being Mr. Morton’s accusation that the duffel bags were being used to sell drugs. Janine blurts out that they’re having sex, officially letting the cat out of the bag.
Janine immediately tries to stuff the cat back in the bag, causing Gregory to initiate an honest conversation about why she wants to keep things private. She admits that she’s fearful because it wasn’t successful the last time she made something official (I can’t wait for Tariq’s first cameo of the season), and she really wants things to work out this time. Gregory pulls Janine into his arms, soothing her anxiety by reminding her that this time is different. They decide to come clean with HR, this time leaving out the sex portion, thankfully. Gregory and Janine finally sit down with Warren and Ava to spill the details of their coupling. Janine treats it like a therapy session, omitting anything about sex but oversharing to the point where she tries to bring the conversation to when she hit puberty in 11th grade, prompting a fantastic Tyler James Williams deadpan. Warren stops her there, saying all he needs to know is their current relationship status. For the first time, Janine and Gregory publicly declare that they are boyfriend and girlfriend. With everything on the table, Warren makes a record of the relationship, giving a backhanded blessing (I love this rivalry) and allowing them to move forward with the romance.
While Janine and Gregory formalize their relationship, the staff deals with the repercussions of a PGA golf course currently under construction a few blocks from Abbott, the first sign of which being a new white student that Ava mistakes for a Victorian-era ghost at the West Philly school. Apart from the influx of white people in the neighborhood eager to live near the course, the siphoning of resources that are necessary to build such a project immediately affects the school. A water pipe bursts, traffic is unbearable, the power is faulty, and the gas shuts off as construction ensues. Ava deflects complaints, claiming there’s nothing she can do since it’s a city-backed project.
When a student’s tooth falls out while they’re trying to chew a frozen chicken nugget since the cafeteria couldn’t heat them without gas, Melissa puts her connections to use to try and improve conditions. Her construction-worker cousin, Tommy, tells her that the golf course is cutting corners by using nonunion workers. She proposes to tattle to the city or have her cousin kill all their pets. Obviously, they choose the former. With word of Abbott’s discontent rumbling, an attorney representing the golf course makes an appearance at the school. He apologizes with the timbre of a politician, persuading them of the value the golf course will add before giving out gift cards, ergonomic chairs, and new computers. Then he promises that the workers will be unionized by the following week. I know when something feels too good to be true, and it seems as though Abbott has introduced a new villain.
• I love this “Jacob can’t read” conspiracy theory. I hope it becomes a running gag along with his hatred for Morton. Speaking of: Watching him take the beef to HR was hilarious, but Mr. Johnson accusing Melissa of flirting via lunch takeout menus takes the cake.
• I’m very biased, as I live next to one, but I’m happy Abbott Elementary is shedding light on how golf courses use an inordinate amount of resources.
• Finally, here are my favorite lines of the episode:
Ava on Janine and Gregory: “We know what two people look like when they’re hunching hard.” I never thought I would hear hunching on network TV, so thank you, Janelle James, for that amazing delivery.
Mr. Johnson after Janine admits that she’s having sex with Gregory — not that she’s a drug dealer: “This is even worse than I thought. What people won’t do for money.”
Barbara, squaring up to the golf-course lawyer: “Your little construction project has put quite a strain on our lives. We got a white child now. You wanna get his parents involved?”
Ava when Warren says she can’t sell jewelry the students make on Etsy because of child-labor laws: “Is it really work if they love what they do?”
Listen, I’m all for Joanne and Noah having to face the disdain of youths at camp — a true test for any budding relationship — but the contrivances made to get those two into that situation are ridiculous. In what world would the woman who has repeatedly made sure people understand that her podcast is important and deep and empowering, the woman who has vehemently disagreed with her sister’s interpretation of what they do, the woman who has placed all of her career eggs in one basket and might finally see it pay off, blow off what is possibly the biggest meeting of her life to go away with her new boyfriend? And, like, not even a good away! To a Jewish camp in Ojai full of teenagers where her boyfriend has to work and there aren’t even plush bathrobes? It’s not like they booked some lavish vacation they can’t reschedule. You can reschedule this! Sure, Joanne comes to the conclusion that she is being cuckoo for coconuts here eventually, but it takes way too long to be believable. And it’s not just Joanne, either. Both she and Noah make some choices in “My Friend Joanne” that feel out of step with their characters thus far.
What Nobody Wants This wants us to believe is that Joanne is so wrapped up in this honeymoon phase of her relationship that she doesn’t mind bailing on work. Sure, she and Noah are very cute in the little montage we get of them at the top of the episode in which they cannot seem to get out of bed or remove their lips from one another. I would, admittedly, watch an entire 30 minutes of this. And yes, we’ve established that Joanne can become obsessive, but wouldn’t she also be obsessive about her work? They still haven’t closed the deal with Spotify, so when Ashley reiterates how important this meeting is, even if the two execs are lower level, you’d think Joanne, someone who Morgan says never lets her bail on work, would focus on the big picture. At the very least, Morgan being so adamant that she wants to do this on her own might give Joanne pause; she has shown us she has very little faith in her sister, especially when it comes to work.
There are so many questions related to this that boggle the mind: why doesn’t Ashley fight harder for Joanne to make this a priority? Can’t she both go to camp and come back for dinner? Drive two cars! And why does not one person bring up that their romantic weekend away got changed to youth camp because it was important for Noah’s job? Where’s your female empowerment now, Joanne?! Characters are allowed to make bad choices, but at least let those bad choices have some internal logic. Nevertheless, there are a few great moments at Camp Haverim. The whole reason Noah was cool with bringing Joanne along while he filled in for his boss, Rabbi Cohen, was because no one remotely related to his temple would be there, so he and Joanne could freely walk around without him worrying if word would spread as to who he’s dating. This doesn’t stop him from introducing Joanne as his “friend” when his old camp counselor, Rabbi Shira (a great Leslie Grossman — seriously, the casting on this show is so good), appears. Shira couldn’t care less and she and Joanne actually seem to hit it off. While the “friend” moniker doesn’t seem to bother Joanne much at first glance, when a whole gaggle of teenage girls — teenage girls who refer to Noah as Hot Rabbi because they know what’s up — make it crystal clear that even they can see Noah is trying to hide her, it plants a seed.
Noah spends a lot of time recounting his glory days as the camp stud around here. Sure, he was super into Beanie Babies, but he also landed a girlfriend by the end of every summer, which was of the utmost importance. Joanne is lapping it up. When Morgan calls to tell her that now the director of the podcast department — the top guy — will be at this meeting but it’ll be totally cool and fine, Joanne is panicked enough to write up some additional notes for her sister but not panicked enough to head home to ensure the future of her career is safe. Again, they literally could go on a much nicer weekend getaway next weekend. Why torture yourself?!
Things go downhill from there: Just as Noah is gathering up some food for a romantic picnic, Rabbi Cohen appears; his schedule changed and he thought he’d come up to see Noah’s Torah study. Noah gets real weird real fast, and as he’s closing the curtains, trying to sell the idea of an indoor picnic, and explaining that Rabbi Cohen holds the future of Noah’s career in his hands, it doesn’t take too long for Joanne to realize that it would be a problem for Rabbi Cohen to see her and Noah together because she’s not Jewish.
With a bagel in each hand, Joanne resumes her favorite pastime of emotionally spiraling. She runs into Rabbi Shira, who’s making Shabbat candles for that evening and can see this woman is going through it. Shira is so calming and very cool. More of her, please. And yet it’s actually the mean gaggle of teen girls that put a few things into perspective for her while she makes her own candles. “Joanne’s like 50 and she’s being a pick-me girl,” says one, noting that when she’s middle-aged she wants to be “empowered and confident,” not sad and pathetic like Joanne. And then Joanne finally remembers that “empowered and confident” is supposed to be her “whole brand.” “Wow, you girls harshly judging me really helped,” she tells them before she heads home to take care of business.
The first thing Joanne notices when she rolls up to the big Spotify meeting is that it’s going extremely well. Morgan is crushing it. And of course she is — she got valuable advice from none other than Sasha (he had to let her into Noah’s place to grab Joanne’s computer). Sasha informed Morgan, who talked a big game to her sister but is surprisingly open with Sasha about being nervous, that a hostage negotiator — not a typo — once taught him the “mirroring” technique, in which you repeat the last few words of whatever the person you’re speaking with said to you as if they’re really smart or interesting and it keeps that person talking. It works! It works with Sasha, who doesn’t even realize Morgan’s using it on him for a while, and it works with the Spotify execs. Sasha does mention one other rather perceptive thing to Morgan: He refers to the two of them as “the loser siblings.” Morgan denies it, but something tells me it actually cuts to her core. Sasha is as confused as she is about how that happened with her since Morgan is “a smokeshow” with a “hot Mother Earth vibe,” and Joanne is way too short, but he can tell it’s the truth, and he gets it. I love this budding weirdo friendship.
Back at the meeting, Joanne realizes she has nothing to worry about with Morgan, and she (poorly) attempts to apologize in a subtle way. It leads to the two of them bickering, but it’s Morgan who pulls the squabble back and uses it as more evidence of why their podcast works so well. Then there’s one other distraction: Noah shows up.
Can you believe this man? Okay, this is supposed to be very swoony and romantic, but I’m sorry, this is outrageous. The mean teens at camp are the ones who inform Noah that Joanne left because he’s sus and “treating her like a slam piece,” and she obviously doesn’t want to be his friend; she wants to be his girlfriend. “Are all guys medically stupid?” one of them asks. I worship her now. This tear-down is paired with a very lovely conversation with Shira. Noah fills her in on the whole situation and wonders if he could ever be promoted to head rabbi if he were with a non-Jew. She thinks he’s asking the wrong question; instead, he should be asking how Joanne makes him feel. “Honestly, I’ve never felt like this in my entire life,” he says, and admittedly, I did put my hand on my heart. Well, there’s his answer. You don’t give up on something great just because it’s difficult, she tells him, reminding him that nothing is set in stone, and sure, “change is a process” — and maybe one of them changes, or maybe both wind up changing to make it work, but you don’t give up. It’s a great speech, and I understand Noah’s impetus to find Joanne and apologize for treating her the way he did as soon as possible, but … could he not have waited until after her super-important meeting?
Their love is real, I am 100 percent onboard, I cherish it and even I was like, Oh no, sir, please don’t when he interrupts this big dinner. He’s the one who keeps telling her this job is important! He saw how stressed she was about it! Ahhhh! These people are outside of their minds in this episode. It feels very much like something Noah would not do. He’s the kind, considerate one.
Anyway, he does it. And yes, sure, he is romantic as hell here. He doesn’t want to lose her. When she tells him how hurt she was when he called her a friend in front of the teens whose opinion she cares about most, as she puts it, he agrees, “That was sus.” And when she tells him she’s mostly disappointed that all of this means she missed her first Shabbat, he sets up a little makeshift version of the ceremony, a pop-up Shabbat, if you will. And then, like any good camper, he asks Joanne if she would like to be his girlfriend. Yes, okay, he is very cute when he yells out, “She said yes!” I want to be mad at him, but I just can’t do it for very long. Is this how Joanne feels? It’s exhausting!
This season reminds me of an enduring Emily in Paris struggle: We eventually get fun plot lines on this show, but only after we’ve wasted several early-season episodes spinning our wheels over boring stuff. Why must we suffer so en route to the series we crave? This finale feels leagues above the episodes we were watching back in August. Funnier, snappier, more satisfying, more ACTION. More back-baring attire from Sylvie, as God intended!
Emily is aghast that Sylvie even has an appetite after her betrayal. Marcello won’t return her texts. I mean, it’s been about 30 minutes, Emily. Maybe give him an hour? Sylvie says, as if hers is the voice of all reason, that Marcello can’t sell out to JVMA. Emily says that’s Sylvie’s vendetta, not Emily’s. Considering Emily knows Sylvie was sexually harassed by her boss, that’s … certainly one approach! Emily is a feminist if being a feminist starts and ends with taking selfies with Brigitte Macron.
It is incredible to hear Emily, the queen of taking every personal, intimate moment and mining it for #content, declare, “I care about Marcello as a person. Not as a brand that needs saving!” I genuinely did not know if she would ever realize it was better to be a person than a brand and Sylvie is as surprised as I am to hear Emily’s disinterest in “mixing business with pleasure.” Emily announces her intention to follow Marcello to Solitano so she can explain herself. Meanwhile, Sylvie texts a suitor under the table, for Sylvie is an icon who has handsome men in every European city at her beck and call.
Emily jumps in what I assume is one of the priciest Ubers she’s ever taken and somehow finds it in her wounded heart to take pics of the green hills and post them with a comically stupid caption. (“PINE-ing for Italy.” Emily, what does that even MEAN?) En route, she gets a call from Mindy, who laments that she and Nico broke up and that, in a surprisingly strategic vindictive fit, Nico sold Benoit’s song (the sale of which, you may recall, was the reason Benoit and Mindy broke up in the first place; he wanted them to get into Eurovision) to that sunscreen commercial after all, which got the gang disqualified from Eurovision.
Emily swiftly finds a way to make this about her own problem, and Mindy, in return, finds a way to invite herself to Emily’s romantic getaway. It’s very funny to me that Emily thinks that all the men in her life are dumb-dumbs with absolutely no legal or professional counsel beyond their meddling almost-girlfriends.
At least Emily was already dressed for this adventure. I like her mary janes! Upon arrival, Emily meets Marcello’s mom, Antonia. Turns out Antonia has heard all about Emily, the girl Marcello can’t stop talking about. It seems extremely unlikely to me that this traditional Italian mother would be so over the moon about her precious son having fallen so hard for some American girl who doesn’t speak Italian. But Antonia has more important things to do than think critically about Marcello’s romantic choices: She is here to say, with as little subtlety as humanly possible, that the Muratori business is a family. They throw birthday parties for their employees not because the birthday is special but because the employee is special! Everyone who works here is special to them <3 When they’re here, they’re family <3 Did she mention that she cares about family more than anything?
Marcello arrives and seems pretty happy to see Emily, despite everything. He explains that his father, who died years ago, shared his success with the whole village, so everyone who lives here works for them, and every day at 1:00 p.m., they sit down to eat the most glorious lunch that you can possibly imagine.
During this magical lunch, Antonia tells Emily that she is not allowed to post on social media. As a sign of tremendous growth, Emily does not scream in terror and flee the scene. Instead she nods quietly as she is told that Muratori does no advertising. Then, Marcello shows Emily his family’s house and photos of generations of Italians who dwelled there before him. Emily tries to transition into a work conversation, and Marcello humors her for a minute. Still, Emily pushes it too far, not only advising him against aligning with JVMA but pitching Agence Grateau instead. I’ll be honest, I didn’t realize these two were fungible substitutes … isn’t one a multinational company and the other a boutique marketing agency? But Emily insists, and as you might expect, Marcello is not convinced that Emily’s motives are pure, so he sends her back to Rome. Woof, rough end to your dreamy date, Emily! But Antonia is listening in from the doorway and seems to be Team Emily. Again: Do I buy that the protective Italian mom, who hates social media, is charmed by this American influencer? No, but this is a fantasy, and that includes improbable parental energy.
Defeated, Emily returns to her hotel to find Mindy, eating red-sauce room service on top of their white sheets. I would’ve expected Mindy to already be out on the town — surely she’s got Italian hookups of her own from her Swiss boarding school days — but it takes Emily’s arrival to get them out on the streets. Mindy says she still loves Nico, and Emily says that being surrounded by ancient ruins puts all her problems into perspective. Personally if I were heartbroken and someone suggested I just take in the glory of the Colosseum or whatever, I would be a little annoyed. Instead, Mindy is struck with inspiration, instantly incorporating Emily’s “beautiful ruins” comment (which, fwiw, is not exactly an Emily original) into her original song, which she performs on the conveniently-located and perfectly-tuned street piano, drawing quite the crowd. By the morning, a video of this performance taken and posted to TikTok by a random tourist has blown up so much that the producers of Chinese Pop Star want Mindy back as a judge, and also to perform her new single, so Mindy is gone on the next flight to Paris.
Let’s get back to my hero, Sylvie. Sylvie is watching her Italian paramour shoot a commercial starring Debi Mazar!! (Fellow Darren Star Universe followers will remember her from Younger, and of course the real ones know she’s in our Italy episode as a wink to her breakout in Goodfellas.) Turns out Sylvie came to Rome to study filmmaking, though she dismisses this very cool detour as “a middle-aged fantasy.” She confesses that she gave Emily uncharacteristically bad advice “to sacrifice romance for my ambition.” But ever since she started her own agency, she says, her life is all about work. Mentioning her husband makes this guy nervous but she assures him that he’s the only man Laurent was ever jealous of. Anyway, when in Rome you can kiss your Italian lover!
In the morning, Marcello calls Emily to say that she got what she wanted: Antonia overheard their chat, and she wants a meeting with Agence Grateau tomorrow at the Rome office, which Emily pretends they have. I love the let’s-pull-off-a-heist spirit of this part of the episode. Sylvie abandons her initial (brilliant) plan of “wandering the city, eating pasta and making love” all day with a man who cleared his calendar for her; it’s time to find an office and get the gang together!
What a great dress on Sylvie, no? Rome looks very good on her. She’s so tan and glowy. Need to know the skin routine. Giorgio, whose design studio she plans to borrow, introduces her to the room as “the last woman I slept with before I started sleeping with men.” He agrees to loan her the space and contribute to her subterfuge. Meanwhile, Luc and Julien hop on a flight to Rome. By the time of the meeting, they still haven’t settled on a tagline — Luc’s terrible idea is “Italians do it better” — but they do, at least, have a sign for the door. As much as I enjoy the energy of the stunt, I can’t believe they really thought they’d get away with it. Do they think it’s not going to raise eyebrows that (for instance) their web presence does not mention this office and it’s not going to show up on Google maps as their address?
In the meeting, Sylvie promises they can have it all: a small, independent company that the world knows is there. Emily’s idea for a stealth marketing campaign — selling the lifestyle, which in turn will sell the clothes — is … actually pretty clever! Is Emily good at her job now? First, Sylvie and Co. are outed by their ally: Giorgio, who also tells Antonia that she was the last woman he slept with before he started sleeping with men (!). Alas, no one fell for Sylvie’s elaborate charade.
Despite all this sneaking around, Antonia confesses she knows they need money. Sylvie makes a hard sell: Give us six months and see what we can do. That is … not a lot of time. Then again, the laws of time don’t really apply in the Emilyverse. Maybe everything will be fine. The business gets a win, but it’s a personal loss for Emily; Marcello is furious.
That evening, to celebrate their success, Sylvie wears this stunning backless red dress with a sexy messy ponytail, a perfect look that inspires me, spiritually and sartorially, to be a better version of myself. Her earrings are also phenomenal. She generously calls Emily a “powerhouse woman” and, as she sends her off for her makeup kiss with Marcello who, what do you know, showed up at this party after all, gets a desperate text from Laurent who is back in Paris, missing her. The way she just texts him, “Back soon, darling,” while falling into the arms of her Rome fling!
Marcello tells Emily that he heard from his mom that Emily requested to have nothing to do with the account. Having proven her love is true, Emily gets to have it all. All the mother figures watch them kiss and give approving smiles from their respective sides of the party.
Back at the office, where Gen is probably bored to fuckin’ TEARS, a phone call comes in: Gabriel got that Michelin star after all. She sprints to the restaurant and somehow thinks it will be meaningful for Gabriel to get this news from her, a woman he met a week ago. All he wants to do is talk to Emily about it. Thus begins the part of the episode that made me want to scream forever.
Genevieve says Gabriel must have a party and celebrate the star so they throw one at the restaurant. Business partners Alfie and Antoine are here. Gabriel claims it’s all empty without Emily. If you ask ME, Gabriel is just realizing that both of the women he took for granted and treated poorly have finally moved on. His pangs of regret have nothing to do with an actual relationship (e.g. the specifics of who Emily is as a person and any real feelings for her) and more to do with his dawning horror that, for the first time since he and Camille got together, he is genuinely single, with no woman to promote from the back burner. Genevieve (whose hair and makeup looks fantastic) is doing drunk girlfriend arm around Gabriel’s neck and so he must pry her off him to say that they are only “friends, neighbors and coworkers.” Her little mischief face suggests she won’t take that lying down.
Gabriel leaves Emily a voicemail about the star, which Emily hears after spending the night with Marcello (!) and promising to make their relationship all about the things that matter: “You and me and pasta.” She jets to a meeting with Sylvie, Luc, and Julien, who (thankfully) have no interest in discussing Gabriel. More important matters are on the table: They need to open an office in Rome. I, for one, was dying to see how they would swing putting Emily in there, seeing as she does not speak the language. Somehow, Sylvie spins this as a positive. “Look at how well Emily did without speaking French in Paris” is the case she makes, though if a person were to look at Emily’s actual professional track record, I think you’d find you could punch some big holes in that argument!
It is Sylvie who will be the one heading up this new outpost, with Emily as her right-hand woman. So much for Luc and Julien’s dreams! (Loved that Julien interned for one of Valentino’s pugs. “Three months of glamour and debasement.”) Antonia closed the deal on the condition that Emily be in residence, so send for your bags, Emily! Time to get set up in a gorgeous apartment you did not have to find for yourself. Mindy promises to join Emily in this perfect housing situation as soon as she’s back from Shanghai. Let’s get some passport stamps, if you know what she means. God, some girls have all the luck.
After this phone call, Mindy passes Gabriel’s restaurant, where Gabriel, Alfie, and Antoine are still coming down from their night of partying. (Sidebar: Has anyone ever been more divorced than Antoine? Out all night with these much younger guys, buying frozen food for dinner, chasing after Sylvie with such unvarnished desperation. Hasn’t he lived in France all his life? Did he lose all his friends to his ex?) The men are talking about expanding Gigi to another city, and Mindy suggests Rome, and I scream NO, MINDY, NO, DO NOT BRING THESE LOSERS WITH YOU. Gabriel is horrified that Emily is leaving.
One could say it’s very big of Alfie to ask Gabriel if he is okay. And then for Alfie to refer to Emily, the woman who couldn’t commit to him, who humiliated him via hot air balloon-slash-billboard advertising in front of not just his family but all the world, as “the greatest girl in the world”?!? WHAT. Buddy, you have a girlfriend now! The one who spent Christmas and Boxing Day with you?! IN WHAT WORLD?
Then Alfie encourages Gabriel to go get Emily back?! WHYYYYY. Gabriel, as usual, is speaking in this sort of dead monotone as if he has never had a feeling in all his life. Does Alfie not know about the abandonment on the mountain that precipitated this breakup? Alfie’s whole deal here is just a sign that the between-scene lobotomizing has been continuing apace for the men of Emily in Paris. If this show wants me to believe that this asshole and Emily (who is no Sylvie but still deserves better than Gabriel) are endgame I will lose what is left of my fragile, tender sanity!!
Emily returns Gabriel’s message with a voicemail in stilted French congratulating him on the star. To me, this was a sign of maturity and grace. To Gabriel, it is a sign that he must return to her. While Gabriel, with the intensity of a serial killer, demands Mindy tell him, “where exactly in Rome is she?” (Mindy be a friend and keep that intel to yourself), Emily settles into her sun-drenched new digs. Very cute callback here to the series premiere with the flung-open shutters and the selfie in the window. Is she officially changing her Instagram handle? Is she officially changing her entire identity?! When this new Emily goes out on the town with Marcello, she leaves her phone behind.
Often, while watching Emily in Paris, I shout at my TV to no avail. Despite my cries, everyone stays committed to traditional monogamy. Emily remains committed to doing whatever she is doing with her hair and to saying, “I have feelings for Gabriel!” or “I’m serious about Alfie!” while treating both men as strangers she just met in the grocery store.
And yet, every now and then, the sun slices through the clouds, and I know, I know: The television can hear me, and Emily in Paris is shouting back.
The first time this happened was in season two: I spent an entire season demanding to know how old Emily was supposed to be and was rewarded for my efforts with an episode all about Emily’s birthday. We are all older now — even Emily, I think? — and so my shouts, lately, have been about the fact that Emily thinks she is the protagonist we’re all rooting for but is, in fact, an anti-heroine in the grand Bradshaw tradition. More often than not, I think of her as the villain of the series. (The hero, of course, is Sylvie.)
This is why it THRILLS me to report that our fourth season begins with a sequence I swear was designed with us in mind. Emily ended season three believing she’d lost her great romance, Gabriel, to impending fatherhood and her actual boyfriend, Alfie, to her emotional investment in Gabriel. But we all know what Emily really cares about, and this season opens with the true love of Emily’s life — social media — turning against her.
Remember Camille’s younger brother, Timothée, who was only 17 when Emily hooked up with him back in season one? He has made a viral TikTok in which he argues, quite compellingly, that Emily is a monster. YES. Emily, he alleges, ruined Camille’s life and has harmed his family before. Preach that gospel, Timothée!
We cut to Emily at the café with Mindy, insisting, “I did nothing wrong here, okay?” A sociopath ’til the end; you almost have to respect it. Emily is doing something this show rarely makes her do: facing the consequences of her shortsighted and careless actions. Alfie won’t text her back, and because we have lost Madeline and her pregnancy, it is extremely difficult to know how much time is passing on this show, but Emily is acting as if it has been some unconscionable interregnum since they last spoke. Later in this episode, we will discover it has been three days.
For the ten thousandth time, Emily has decided that Gabriel isn’t an option; I trust that, like every other time she has done this, she will find the closure she seeks and move forward with her life!! The only person here who is being interesting is, unfortunately but intriguingly, off-screen: Camille, who is still having a baby with Gabriel and is in love with Sofia. FINALLY. How potentially juicy and fun and FRENCH. (I assume … I am American, but I watch a lot of movies.)
What can be said about Mindy in this scene? It’s not her tackiest outfit, but her platform heels are a brat-summer green, and as soon as Emily splits, Mindy watches part two of Camille’s brother’s tirade.
Absolutely hilarious to see Gabriel incapacitated by a hand burn at the restaurant — Emily in Paris does not obey the laws of space or time, but it does recognize the Inviolable Rules of Television Health and Medicine, which decrees that injuries are never deforming but are always, conveniently, just debilitating enough to require assistance from a love interest. Gabriel’s burn leaves Emily no choice but to unpack all his groceries and cook an omelet for him. Wasn’t she just saying it was time to focus on work? Emily is setting a new personal record for how quickly she will go back on her word after saying she will do one correct thing, only to pivot and do some other dumb thing instead.
I recently was on the very fun Enemy in Paris podcast talking about our beloved psychotic show. During this conversation, I explained that characters here behave as if they are being lobotomized in between takes, so no one remembers anything anyone has ever said or done. For instance, here we see Gabriel telling Emily that she is always doing the right thing at the expense of herself; she tells him that he is always doing the same. Have we EVER seen either of them do this?! Gabriel is arguably the only person in this series who is even more selfish than Emily, who is saved only somewhat by her unrelenting delusion that she is A Good Person Who Means Well. It really is always two dumb bitches telling each other “exactlyyyy.”
In frankly shocking news to me, Sylvie has seen Timothée’s TikTok. I thought Sylvie was above that sort of thing. I still love her, but I’m a little disappointed. Fortunately, her response is, “The less we say about it, the better.” On the subject of saying less, Sylvie also instructs Emily to keep her mouth shut during the meeting with AMI because Julien is hanging by a thread, as is his right. I’ll be honest with you: I thought he quit at the end of last season. I got ahead of myself because I thought we were doing, like, actual plot development. That’s on me! I won’t make that mistake again.
As you may recall, Emily and Alfie are the face of this campaign — a campaign that Emily pitched, FULLY KNOWING (1) Alfie’s hesitation about moving forward in their relationship because he’d been burned by “going public” in much lower-stakes ways before by women who weren’t really committed to him and (2) that she was, and is, obsessed with Gabriel (this is in the text and not in their actual performance/chemistry/energy, but we are to believe EMILY believes it, and that’s what matters here). As usual, she is in an absolute shitshow entirely of her own design. Are we supposed to feel bad for her? Emily does a beautiful cultural exchange wherein she teaches the French about the concept of the kiss cam. Then she tries to back out of the whole thing, as it will require her and Alfie, the faces of this campaign, to, you know, kiss. Julien, correctly, says it’s a little late for Emily to “not interfere,” seeing as she inserted herself into the campaign. Sylvie, as we all know, warned Emily about the risks of broadcasting her entire life for public consumption. Meanwhile, Alfie not only blocked Emily’s number but also deleted her on Instagram, which, to Emily, surely hits like a war crime.
Let’s leave the kids’ table for a moment, shall we? Maison Lavaux and Baccarat are collaborating on a perfume by Antoine. They wanted an English name, but Sylvie wisely deems “Crystal Heart” too tacky. She asks what Antoine’s wife thinks. Funny you should ask, Sylvie! Antoine’s wife thinks it’s time for a divorce. No one is surprised, but personally, I am concerned by Antoine’s eagerness because I am rooting for Sylvie and her actual husband, Laurent, to make it work, NOT because I am being conventional and American but because I like him more. Remember him in the tux at the opera? Very swoony, and I really appreciated it. Alfie arrives because he still works for Antoine. Antoine uses Alfie to talk about himself, encouraging this young chap to “stick with it” because “the spark could reignite.” Sylvie is … less interested. I am with Sylvie. Antoine seems so desperate.
Ah, yes, Mindy and her boys, dressed like idiots and pursuing their dreams in a parallel universe that has nothing to do with the show we are watching. They are going to Eurovision for France, which feels sort of against the rules (Mindy isn’t French??), but I am not a Eurovision expert, so I defer to those of you who are. They have to fund this themselves. It’s very we-need-a-talent-show-to-save-the-rec-center in terms of plot devices, but remember what I said three paragraphs ago? I’m NOT falling for the trap of caring about the plot again 🙂 I am content, and my brain is blank, and I am glad Mindy’s bandmate is here to provide cute little quips like, “No help from the government? What is this, America?” Mindy is still dating Nicolas, who was a genuinely interesting foil for Emily but then went full one-dimensional supervillain. He is crazy rich, and the bandmates suggest Mindy ask him for the money, but she refuses. “Just because he’s hot doesn’t mean you can’t date him for his money,” says the non-Benoit bandmate whose name I have not yet committed to memory. “Multitask, bitch!”
Alfie tries to go to the gym, but he is confronted by a gigantic poster of him and Emily. Despite having blocked her number, he calls Emily to beg her to remove it. Everyone on this show is so stupid. He cannot possibly think that’s how that works?! She is not in charge of this! Hot off the insight that the gym is the “only place” Alfie can go to escape from Emily in all of Paris, Emily … shows up in the middle of his boxing session so she can destroy his hard-won peace and distract him mid-round so he gets punched in the head. Yet again, the Inviolable Rules of Television Health and Medicine require Emily to be called upon to tenderly apply ice to Alfie’s face and also for Alfie to be shirtless. “You’re more important to me than any campaign,” Emily says, which is truly hilarious because we KNOW this is a lie. Much like Faye Dunaway in Network, Emily Cooper has one love, and it is CONTENT.
Laurent is opening a sexy yacht club in Paris. Louis de Leon — the guy who engaged in some as-yet-defined inappropriate misconduct with Sylvie when she was young and in his employ; also, Nico’s dad — is the backer. Sylvie has not really told Laurent what happened with Louis; we don’t really know if he would still pursue this business venture if he had that information, and maybe Sylvie doesn’t want to find out.
That evening, Mindy laments to Emily that the gig economy is a scam. (Best line of the episode: “I’d sell feet pics, but there’s something demoralizing about doing a job you did in high school.” I feel like this show is SO close to just letting Mindy be their Alexis, and I say run with that instinct!) Emily has such an idiotic idea of salvaging her disaster — using AI Memoji-type animation? Whatever, it’s not even worth getting into it. Mindy is all, “I can’t believe you did all this for work.” Does ANYONE actually know Emily? Have they met her? Am I alone here, hallucinating this entire series?
Nicolas gifts Mindy a JVMA outfit to wear to tomorrow’s event — all the characters will be attending the French Open — and it’s basically a Pepto Bismol–colored Jackie O-type suit. It is very obvious that the purpose of the outfit is to force Mindy to look appropriate, by Nicolas’s father’s standards, and I thought Mindy was a pretty smart cookie, but it takes her forever to figure this out. (Let’s not even get into the audacity of Nicolas’s dad, who we know engaged in some sort of Me Too misconduct in the workplace, telling a woman that she is being inappropriate based on her attire.)
Meanwhile, Alfie puts on a three-piece suit to confront Gabriel in his empty restaurant. This whole interaction feels so flat and sterile; no one has ever really had chemistry with Emily, and these men don’t really have friends-to-enemies chemistry with each other. In fact, I never really bought them as friends in the first place, did you? Gabriel’s insufferable shtick about being some self-sacrificing knight to support Emily’s relationship with someone I’m fairly certain she’s only been dating for … three months? Is not working for me. Literally, everyone here can break up with whoever they want! It’s not that deep for anyone except Gabriel and Camille, who I’m sure can reach some French understanding!
Naturally, Emily did not solve her problem before the French Open began. This is, objectively, a fireable offense, but of course, she will keep her job, and Julien will bail over her shenanigans. Emily is dressed like she is auditioning for The Music Man. Mindy finds out the reason her boyfriend has her dressed like she’s doing bad First Lady cosplay. I know we are supposed to be on Mindy’s side here because men shouldn’t tell women what to wear, her body her choice, etc. etc., BUT what’s very funny about this to me is that I REMEMBER clocking that the outfit she wore to meet her boyfriend’s dad was particularly salacious, even for Mindy, especially considering she was at a work event. (From that recap: “Mindy is wearing basically nothing but nude figure-skater mesh with three strategically placed black swirls.”) I feel like this all could have been avoided with a normal adult conversation. Surely, the event has a dress code that Mindy could have been made aware of. Anyway, Mindy and Nicolas are obviously a bad match because he wants her to be someone she’s not, but I also think her outfit choices are objectively insane 95 percent of the time. AITA?
Julien gets that job offer with JVMA. Sylvie thinks this is all about punishing her. Her self-absorption at this critical juncture is exactly what Julien needed to hear to feel free to abandon ship. Over in Emily’s court, the whole jankiness of this AMI plan is very grating to me. Obviously, they wouldn’t just swing the camera over to Emily if they hadn’t confirmed Alfie’s attendance! What kind of amateur deal is this? But Alfie arrives at the last moment, looking quite sharp. He is trying to do the vulnerable-adult conversation, but unfortunately for him, he is on Emily in Paris, so it won’t get him anywhere.
Emily says, “Look at us. That’s real,” as she gestures toward the enormous ad with their chemistry-free kiss in it. “You can’t fake that.” IT IS LITERALLY AN ADVERTISEMENT. IT IS FAKE BY DEFINITION. THEY HIRE ACTORS AND MODELS FOR THEM ALL THE TIME!! My brain is melting, and we are only 27 minutes into this new season. Alfie says, wisely, that he cannot move past the Gabriel thing, and therefore, he cannot date her. He politely kisses her for the kiss cam. But it’s a farewell kiss, like the kind from The Godfather: Part II(spoiler if you didn’t know how mafia death kisses work).
Alfie reports to Antoine that he is heartbroken. Imagine being heartbroken over a woman who only loves hashtags. Antoine decides “Heartbreak” is a better English name for his perfume, and Sylvie agrees. But she has bigger issues to face: A journalist is investigating Louis de Leon and wants to talk to her. God, what a chic sweater situation. Every time I see how Sylvie looks when she is just at home by herself, I realize I need to do better. In other sartorial news, Mindy sells her JVMA outfit so she has some cash to fund the Eurovision performance. And I’m sorry to side with the devil here, but look at what Mindy wears when she dresses herself. How many Smurfs had to die for her to get that hat?
After assuring Alfie over and over again that he had nothing to worry about in the Gabriel department, Emily basically sprints to Gabriel’s restaurant as soon as her breakup is through. Gabriel has some news: Nobody has seen Camille since the wedding. Emily fails to register that this is important, so Gabriel spells it out for her: Camille is MISSING. Search Partycrossover?
