Ever since we broke the news that Emily Cooper might be coming to London for season five, we’ve been wondering: just what would Netflix’s favourite American marketing executive get up to in the Big Smoke?
In the last episode of Emily in Paris, Sylvie Grateau puts it thus. “Some women get botox” – a nod to her bête noire, the Americans – “and other women study cinema in Rome”. It was a singular flirting tactic to woo and entice a younger man and the sort of extremely chic f*ck you to good taste which Sylvie is adored for. It’s also the sort of f*ck you which Emily is yet to master – though not for want of trying.
Emily appeared to thrive in Rome, where she travelled for the second half of season four and where American tourists endure just a tad less loathing than they do in Paris. Still, something tells me she would struggle with the sort of cinema I imagine Sylvie to be studying – Fellini’s Satyricon and Pasolini’s 120 Days of Sodom. Perhaps she would feel more at home in London, where the first films that come to mind at Notting Hill and Paddington Two. That’s where Emily wants to go next, anyway: Collins told me as much last week when I spoke to her after her star turn in Bess Wohl’s new play, Barcelona.
Emily wants to see Big Ben, apparently – but let’s talk practicalities for a minute. Where would she live, dine, and date in the capital; and what might an episode of Emily in London actually look like?
Well, there would have to be a storyline involving Brexit. Maybe Mindy’s hopeless band could represent the UK in Eurovision and hit a brick wall when they can’t get a Visa for Etienne or Benoit. The series would need to cycle through every stereotype about the British (emotionally destitute, poor dental hygiene, crimes against gastronomical humanity) and debunk them all (Emily would meet a man who communicates via therapy-speak – played by Andrew Garfield, perhaps – and has an excellent set of teeth which come in handy when he takes her to the capital’s best restaurants, all of which will have been recommended by TopJaw). And of course, it would need to involve some kind of reunion with Alfie, one of Emily’s major love interests played by Lucien Laviscount. Who is now technically with another woman, and still in Paris – but you know, details.
My proposal is as follows: Netflix, take it or leave it.
She’d live in…
A one-bed flat in Notting Hill with Mindy. She’d repeat the same mistake she made in Paris of confusing the first floor for the ground floor, and accidentally walk in on a member of the Freud family, naked.
She’d dine in…
Soho. At one of the seemingly-impossible-to-get-a-reservation-for restaurants, like Mountain. Obviously, she’d breeze right in.
She’d get her phone swiped in…
Soho, as well. By someone on a Moped. You’re not a real Londoner until this has happened to you.
She’d find love in…
Redemption Roasters coffee shop in Hampstead (which, for the intents and purposes of this show, will be portrayed as walking distance from W11). He’ll be reading a tattered copy of a Dickens or a Conrad and wearing a beanie.
She’d be working with…
Burberry. Naturally, she’d make besties with creative director Daniel Lee and suggest something along the lines of, “Instead of dressing people in tartan, why don’t we dress… buses?” “Omfg Emily, that’s genius,” Lee would reply.
She’d go shopping on…
The King’s Road to begin with, but then her coffee shop boyfriend would take her to Broadway Market and she’d lose her mind.
She’d go swimming in…
London Fields Lido. Hampstead ponds feel like *just* too much of a stretch for Mademoiselle Chicago. This is where she’d bump into Alfie (because that means Alfie will be topless and that’s what the people want, Netflix!).
She’d make friends with…
Raven Smith over dinner at Quo Vadis and Princess Beatrice, who’d be asked to walk in the Burberry show and fall like Carrie Bradshaw mid-runway. “Omfg Emily,” Lee would shriek, “she’s fashion roadkill!”
