Emily in Paris
エミリー、パリへ行く
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
The romance-as-tourism series; useful as the control sample for what a 'love' show looks like with nothing at stake.
Emily Cooper, a marketing executive from Chicago, goes to Paris in her pregnant boss's place to bring an American view of social media to Savoir, a Paris agency. She speaks no French. Her boss, Sylvie Grateau, and colleagues Julien and Luc resent her, but her Instagram account, renamed @emilyinparis, starts winning clients. She walks into the wrong apartment and meets Gabriel, the chef who lives downstairs. She befriends Mindy Chen, a nanny and would-be singer estranged from her rich Shanghai family, and Camille, a gallerist from a champagne family who turns out to be Gabriel's girlfriend. The first season ends with Emily sleeping with Gabriel on what seems his last night in Paris, before Antoine, Sylvie's married lover, backs a restaurant for him.
In the second season Emily and Camille promise each other not to pursue Gabriel, who goes back to Camille, and Emily dates Alfie, a British banker from her French class. Sylvie walks out of Savoir to found her own agency, and in the third season Emily, caught working for both firms, chooses Sylvie and Paris. Camille, secretly seeing a Greek artist, Sofia, agrees to marry Gabriel, then stops the wedding in the middle of his vows to say he loves Emily. Alfie, unwilling to be second choice, leaves, and Gabriel tells Emily that Camille is pregnant.
In the fourth season Emily and Gabriel are together while he prepares for fatherhood. Camille learns she is not pregnant and keeps it to herself. On a Christmas ski trip Gabriel leaves Emily to watch over Camille; Emily falls, is helped down the slope by an Italian, Marcello, whose family makes cashmere, and ends it with Gabriel. Camille finally tells Gabriel the truth and moves away. His restaurant wins a Michelin star, and Sylvie opens a Rome office for the Muratori account with Emily in charge.
In the fifth season Emily is fired by Marcello's mother and quarrels with him, and Sylvie closes the Rome office. Back in Paris, Mindy, secretly involved with Alfie, returns to her old boyfriend, Nicolas; Gabriel leaves to cook on a yacht. Marcello follows her, breaks with the family firm to design under his own name, and his Venice show survives a flood tide; his mother drops her lawsuit and names him her successor. On a gondola he takes out a ring and Emily refuses before he can speak. It is Nicolas's, for Mindy, who accepts. But Emily meant it: she will not leave Paris, he belongs in Italy, and they part. Sylvie, liable for her husband's debts, saves the agency with a new partner, and Gabriel sends Emily a postcard asking her to meet him in Greece.
Starring
Lily Collinsas Emily Cooper
A twenty-nine-year-old marketer from Chicago posted to a Paris agency, whose confidence, Instagram and love life keep colliding with French ways.
Emily Cooper’s story
Emily soon chooses Paris over the boyfriend who wants her home. She kisses Gabriel before learning he is Camille's boyfriend, sleeps with him on what seems his last night in Paris, and loses Camille's trust. She dates Alfie, and when Sylvie founds her own agency, Emily quits the Chicago firm to stay with her. Camille halts her wedding to say that Gabriel loves Emily, and Alfie leaves. Emily and Gabriel become a couple until, on a ski trip, he leaves her to watch over Camille, and she ends it. She runs Sylvie's Rome office, falls for Marcello and loses the account; in Venice she turns down a ring she thinks is his, because her life is in Paris. The series leaves her there, with Gabriel's postcard asking her to meet him in Greece.
Philippine Leroy-Beaulieuas Sylvie Grateau
Emily's formidable boss, who leaves Savoir to found her own agency and lives between a husband and a married lover.
Sylvie Grateau’s story
Sylvie runs Savoir's Paris office and wants nothing to do with the American sent to modernise it; when Emily chats with Antoine, the married client who is Sylvie's lover, she punishes her with the least glamorous account going. Slowly she learns to use Emily's ideas. When the Chicago owners pry into the books, she walks out with her team, founds her own agency with her husband Laurent's money, and fights to keep Emily. She exposes a former boss's sexual harassment of the women who worked for him, at the cost of Laurent's business. She ends a Roman fling to choose Laurent, then learns he has run two nightclubs into the ground and borrowed against her mother's property. She asks for a divorce, saves the agency with a new partner, and tells Gabriel that Emily is free.
Ashley Parkas Mindy Chen
Emily's first friend in Paris, a nanny and singer who has walked away from her wealthy family in Shanghai.
Lucas Bravoas Gabriel
The chef who lives one floor below Emily, Camille's boyfriend and the man Emily keeps coming back to.
Gabriel’s story
Gabriel dreams of a restaurant of his own. On what he believes is his last night in Paris he sleeps with Emily, and Antoine's money keeps him there. He opens his restaurant, goes back to Camille and proposes, but at the wedding she stops his vows to say he loves Emily, then tells him she is pregnant. He and Emily get together, yet on a ski slope he chooses to watch over Camille, and Emily ends it. Camille admits there is no baby, and his restaurant wins a Michelin star. He follows Emily to Rome, sees her kiss Marcello and keeps it to himself for months. Then he quits to cook on a client's yacht, and from the sea he sends Emily a postcard asking her to meet him in Greece.
Camille Razatas Camille
A gallerist from a champagne-making family who becomes Emily's friend and her rival for Gabriel.
Lucien Laviscountas Alfie
A London banker from Emily's French class who falls for her and refuses to be her second choice.
Why it matters
Emily in Paris is a fantasy about arriving: a woman moves to a city whose language she does not speak, and the city, rather than she, adjusts. That is the issue it raises almost in spite of itself. French critics objected to its Parisians, lazy, flirtatious and late for work, and in The Atlantic Megan Garber noted that the people around Emily change while she does not. Its love stories run the same way: choices between attractive men in beautiful rooms. Yet it is also a story about work, about a young woman whose ambition is the one constant, and whose romances are asked to fit around a job and a city she will not give up. A 2024 survey by France's national film centre found that 38 per cent of tourists named it as a reason to visit Paris. It leaves a question for any romance built on looking good: what, in this life, is actually at risk.