Emily in Paris is known for its cringe-worthy storylines full of clichés, cheese, and unrealistic portrayals of life. Emily’s love life is busier than an In & Out drive-through and her ability to fix any work disaster with the snap of her fingers has marketing companies around the globe rolling their eyes. And yet, it’s the show everyone loves to hate.
Renewed for a fifth season, Emily will continue her adventures in Rome where audiences can expect more awkward and embarrassing experiences from Emily and company beneath the Italian sky. Until then, here are some of the most memorable moments from Season 4 that made audiences want to crawl under a rock.
10. Luc’s Earbud Presentation
In the second episode of the season, Luc is designated to run point on the Bucheron presentation even though he insists he isn’t “haute” enough. It really shouldn’t be that big of a crisis considering Luc had been working on the event for months. However, Luc insists that his jurisdiction is logistics, not the details. Alas, Luc not only needs to be briefed but must be fed, line by line, on what to say by Julien. With no discretion whatsoever, he shows up to present with an AirPod blatantly hanging out of his ear.
Amateur Hour
The man is an aged professional, so Luc’s inability to get the job done seems unrealistic at a company as reputable as Agence Grateau – especially under Sylvie’s watch. Repeating exactly what Julien says, he speaks in nonsensical broken sentences in a presentation that makes your skin crawl. At one point, Luc even addresses the clients as idiots. It’s so awkward that it’s hard to imagine why the clients didn’t get up and leave as most people watching would have liked to. Shame on you, Luc.
9. Emily’s Terrible French
Miss Cooper has now been in France for almost a year, and she still speaks the language as if she’s a tourist on holiday. Sylvie’s mother calls it out in the Agence Grateau waiting room when Emily asks if she can help her. It appears the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree when Sylvie’s mother responds, “You can start by speaking French.” For the love of the Eiffel Tower, Emily, please parle françois.
Les Incompétents
Emily’s sparse French is mediocre at best and that’s a compliment. Not only can she not speak it, but she can’t understand it either, causing one of the biggest problems of the season when Genevieve intentionally translates Gabriel’s breakup speech inaccurately to deepen the wedge between the two. You would think a girl who is working and living in France would make it a priority, or get Duo Lingo at the very least – not to mention she’s falling for a Frenchman.
There is a lot Emily doesn’t understand about Paris. If only she put as much effort into learning the native tongue, outside of romantic entanglements, as she did their fashion.
8. Emily and Alfie’s Public Goodbye Kiss
Emily has a very bad habit of mixing business and pleasure. After debuting their relationship in a hot-air balloon ad for Ami last season, this season opens with Emily begging poor Alfie to meet her at the French Open for another Ami marketing campaign involving a public smooch. Emily is relieved when he actually shows up with seconds to spare, but is devastated moments later when he tells her he’s always been looking over his shoulder throughout their relationship when it comes to Gabriel. The crowd cheers as the couple shares their last kiss.
Jumbotron Gone Wrong
While kiss-cams, in general, are a major cringe for many, the fact that Emily has to share her last kiss with Alfie in such a manner takes it to an entirely new level of awful. It’s hard to imagine anything worse than a crowd cheering for you as your heart is breaking. Not to mention their ad is plastered all over the town as a constant reminder of what could have been. Talk about a dagger to the heart. This is so many levels of embarrassing that it almost makes you wish he hadn’t shown up at all. As far as breakups, Emily wins the trophy for public displays of devastation.
7. Camille’s Flailing Life
Outside of her fashion – and some may even question that – Cami is all over the place this season. She finds out she was never pregnant but keeps up the ruse that she is, creating mayhem between Gabriel and Emily even though she’s apparently in a relationship with Sofia. From her wavering love life to her eye-raising life decisions, Cami’s selfish unpredictability is a constant headache nobody wants in Darren Star’s romantic comedy.
Quarter-Life Crisis
Considering Cami is the one who called off the wedding, her desperate attempts to get Gabriel back into her life are equal parts shameful and appalling. It’s extremely hard to watch a character who wants to have her cake and eat it too – very Marie Antoinette of her. This season, audiences watch as Cami leaves Paris after losing a baby, Sofia, and a future with Gabriel. Talk about a trifecta of yikes. If that’s the last the show sees of Gabriel’s ex, you can’t exactly blame her for wanting to run away forever.
6. Emily’s Christmas Sweater
Emily’s fashion has taken a drastic turn since Season 1 as she’s embraced the avant-garde runway that is Paris. So when her flight to Chicago is canceled and she ends up spending the holidays with Gabriel, Cami, and Cami’s family in Megève – a high-end village in the French Alps – you’d think she would keep her family tradition of ugly Christmas sweaters in her suitcase. But of course she doesn’t and it’s a problem.
Fashion Faux Pas
Emily’s debut of the sweater was written to be cringe, and it was executed flawlessly. Everyone stares at her in disgust – the absolute horror of a Rudolph Christmas sweater in a villa is visceral. It’s hideous, it lights up, it’s distracting, and so very obnoxious. It has everyone begging to make it stop.
At one point, during Christmas dinner, Emily is asked to turn off her sweater. The humiliation goes straight over Emily’s head, who isn’t phased in the slightest, unlike everyone watching from home who wants to tackle her straight off the screen like it’s Superbowl Sunday. Read the room, Emily.
5. Mindy’s Ta-Ta Fiasco
After finding out she and her band have to pay their own way to compete in Eurovision – a popular song contest – Mindy takes a job at Crazy Horse – a Parisian cabaret known for topless entertainment. In a culture that embraces burlesque and nudity, Emily agrees that it will be “great exposure.” It all seems like a great idea until Mindy discovers she can’t sing unclothed, setting off a seat-squirming chain of events guaranteed to make everyone uncomfortable.
The Problem With Too Much Exposure
Mindy’s outfits alone suggest she is not tight on money, so the fact that she’s resorting to topless performance gigs for extra cash is more of a stretch than most people can handle. What’s even harder to believe is that her voice cracks the moment her boobs are exposed, making this entire storyline so ridiculous it’s painful to watch.
4. Emily’s Rooftop Regret
Throughout the series, Emily has several sordid affairs with foreign men. Somewhere along the way, the girl who slept with Cami’s underage little brother on their family estate decides that rooftop sex with her boyfriend isn’t who she is – much to the dismay of the Emily in Paris audience…and Gabriel. It’s not even spur-of-the-moment rooftop sex. In fact, Gabriel’s set-up overlooking the Eiffel Tower could not have been more romantic, but apparently, Emily requires a ceiling over her bed.
Emily ‘Yawn’ Cooper
Boundaries and order are important, especially for someone as OCD as Emily. But then there’s downright boring. Emily tells her boyfriend Gabriel that the rooftop sex they shared was a one-time thing because she can’t live in the “gray area” anymore. This is where she draws the line? It’s not that Cami is pregnant with her boyfriend’s baby or that they all live in the same building, it’s their secluded, long-awaited sexy night on the roof? Two thumbs down for this cringe reaction from Emily, making her even more blah than ever.
3. Emily and Camille’s Spat at Giverny
Cami is MIA in the beginning of Season 4. In Episode 2, Emily has tracked her down and of all places to be pouting, Cami is in a rowboat in the middle of a pond in Giverny – because that’s where you go after you cheat on your fiancé, accuse him of being in love with someone else at your wedding, and disappear off the face of the earth. Emily gets in her own rowboat to confront Cami which ends up in an argument where both of the girls fall into the pond like it’s a Real Housewives episode.
Girls Gone Wild
Claude Monet must be rolling in his grave. Beyond the fact that their behavior is childish, Cami and Emily essentially make a mockery of themselves and the entire Impressionist movement with their disrespect of such a breathtaking landmark of France. It was eerily similar to the infamous Monica and Rachel flick-flight in Friends – just add rowboats and a sacred garden. What’s the most cringe about all of this is the assumed astronomical amount Netflix must have dished out to film such an atrocity.
2. Gabriel’s Emotional Dysfunction
The ‘will they, won’t they’ between Gabriel and Emily four seasons deep has almost become unbearable. Cami used to be the problem and now Gabriel is the only thing standing in their way. His feelings are forever wavering between his love for Emily and his love for everything else – so much so that audiences are losing hope for the couple they have been cheering on the entire series. And of course, the second Emily finds happiness and skips off to Rome with her perfect new boyfriend, Gabriel decides that NOW is the time to go win her back.
He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not
The ‘here we go again’ love triangle rollercoaster has reached the cringe ceiling this season. Gabriel’s inability to communicate his feelings with Emily, especially in English, has become laughable. The chef who abandoned Emily on top of a ski slope seems numb to all of it, only making matters worse. Maybe it’s a chef thing because Carmy from The Bear seems to struggle with the same type of self-sabotaging destruction. If only Emily would move back to Chicago for the crossover episode we all deserve.
1. Mindy’s Public Singing Performances
Of course, we can’t get through a season without Mindy having some magical music moment. Mindy Chen is played by Ashley Park, who is a Tony and Grammy-nominated Broadway actress. The girl can sing, there’s no doubt about that. The question is – should she? It’s more tolerable when it falls in line with the show, like when she sings at the Christmas party, but when she breaks into song in the middle of a park for no reason at all, it’s really hard to suspend that willing disbelief.
Mindy in Paris on Broadway
Mindy’s random bursts of singing in public like she’s some sort of Disney Princess are so off-brand and bizarre that it’s hard to take seriously. If there is a piano in a romantic, outdoor setting, Mindy will find it. Crowds will gather. Everyone will be in awe. Meanwhile, viewers at home wonder how they got duped into watching a musical nobody asked for, as Season 4 has really amped up Mindy’s theatrics. And just like that, she goes viral with a song that “doesn’t even have a name yet,” causing global musician outrage for making it look so easy. The cringe is extra crunchy with this one.
