Remember in the last recap when I told you I wouldn’t get caught up in silly things like this show “making sense†or Emily’s actions “having consequences� I’m sorry, but I lied. I have just to get this out there: Why on earth would Emily be the person spearheading the search for Camille? Emily, who is reviled by Camille’s entire family. Emily, subject of the supposedly viral TikTok I guess we’ll never hear about again, rather than the far more interesting option, which would be having it actually alter the trajectory of Emily’s life in any meaningful way — e.g., changing the way Gabriel sees her; getting her booted off the AMI account because the “face†of their “love is in the air†campaign cannot be someone who has gotten milkshake-ducked for being a relationship wrecker; even bringing her some run-of-the-mill mistreatment or street harassment from randos at cafés. And it’s not like the show hasn’t acknowledged Camille’s family before. Her parents are recurring characters! So where are they?
But no, it is Emily, Meddler-in-Chief, involving herself in a situation that has nothing to do with her and spewing everyone’s secrets everywhere: Telling Gabriel that Camille had a secret girlfriend literally minutes after Mindy advises her against doing so until she knows what’s going on. Gabriel is so worked up that he’s been calling hospitals. Again, it has been less than a week; Camille is a grown-up who (we will soon learn) has done this sort of thing before; of COURSE she’s screening Gabriel’s calls — he’s the reason she split! Also, Gabriel has the gall to be mad that Camille was running around with Sofia when he has been having this brazen emotional affair with Emily the entire time. No. Also, remember how he didn’t even tell Emily that he had a girlfriend when he met her? He just flirted with her until Camille showed up? Anyway, they scream at each other about secrets and that stupid pact that I chose to forget about on account of it being so stupid.
Mindy, meanwhile, is being courted back by Nicolas while wearing thigh-high metallic-blue boots. I thought they broke up, but I guess it was just an argument. Mindy says he will “really need to work†for her to go back to him, and then she basically just acquiesces the minute he offers her free clothes. And, like, he also didn’t have to pay for the clothes? All the extravagances are big indulgences for her but cost him nothing, so personally, I wouldn’t be so quick to swoon over it, but here we are!
He claims to care more about Mindy than “any of this,†he says, gesturing in the direction of his family business, his trust fund, and the architecture holding up his entire life, including the father he has already admitted he struggles to stand up to for anyone’s sake. As is the law on Emily in Paris, their scenes lack any real spark here, plus they have only been dating for (I think?) a few months, despite having known each other as teenagers; the notion that he is more invested in his girlfriend than his family (and their status, wealth, connections, everything he’s ever known, etc.) is laughable. Still, Mindy has been spending too much time with Emily, and so her critical faculties are softer than they once were.
Also, what is the JVMA aesthetic? In the grand scheme of Emily in Paris problems, this barely ranks; however, it’s impossible to tell from the brand closet what the clothes should look like. And if it is the LVMH of the EIP universe, shouldn’t there still be some coherent sense of who the big brands are under its umbrella? Mindy’s arms are stacked high with (what appears to be) exceptionally tacky and bright designer goods — hardly different from what she buys for herself, so the whole story line where her clothes are “wrong†and she needs a new look to be dating the JVMA scion makes no sense. Not that anything on this show makes sense, but I just want you to know I’m paying attention!
Later on in the episode, we learn even more disturbing information about the brand closet: It is the site of Louis’s sexual misconduct. He makes women in his employ try on clothes in front of him; anyone who refuses is dismissed for not “understanding the fashion business.â€
Julien is thrilled to be at the very swanky JVMA offices where everyone is finally speaking French. (It’s still insane to me that everyone speaks English at Agence Grateau, entirely for Emily’s benefit?) Before the episode ends, he is given an assignment that I’m sure will bring him only misery: working exclusively with Pierre Cadault. At least the office is nice?
Ahh, back to the people I love: Sylvie and Laurent. Laurent wants to have sex before work because his priorities are correct. He also wants Agence Grateau to do the marketing for his club, so he and Sylvie get to work together — he needs her! — but also this means that Sylvie will have to work with Louis, whose as-yet-revealed misdeeds clearly make her uncomfortable. I also think we’re reaching the point where not at least telling Laurent that there are other allegations about Louis in the mix is a dicey business decision: If Louis gets the Ronan Farrow treatment by that reporter at Le Monde, what does that mean for the reputation and viability of Laurent’s new venture?
I’m going to mostly skip over the dopey plot at the office, the ridiculous Cyrano situation where Julien is in Luc’s earpiece, which naturally leads to an embarrassing miscommunication with Boucheron, the haute jewelry client they were both working on together when Julien changed jobs. I find it extremely unlikely that all of this mission-critical information wasn’t in some Google Doc somewhere!! And even Luc would not be so idiotic as to repeat the “idiot†part of Julien’s speech out loud. I’m so embarrassed for Sylvie, most of all, who must be present for this entire interaction.
Emily spots Sylvie, Laurent, and Louis at lunch, and so she confides in Sylvie all that she’s learned from Mindy about Louis’s behavior, which Sylvie believed (or, I would bet, just wanted to believe) was a thing of the past. Then it’s time for the Boucheron lunch, where Emily is just spilling all of Camille’s secrets — maybe she doesn’t want your co-workers to know about her pregnancy, Emily! — and where Luc tells Emily a cautionary tale about the Antonioni film L’Avventura, in which a missing woman’s best friend and boyfriend wind up having an affair while attempting to track her down, a movie you “could never make today,†he laments. “We are too connected for good cinema.â€
Everybody take a deep breath because we are about to confront a degree of stupidity in our Emily that is even more enraging than almost all of her moronic exploits before: After (1) calling up Sofia, only to learn that Sofia and Camille haven’t spoken since the wedding, (2) humiliating herself in front of Camille’s actual friends, who, correctly, do not trust her and point out that Emily is universally reviled not because she’s American but because she’s a boyfriend stealer, (3) upending Gabriel’s day and life with all this information, sending him on a wild-goose chase to the one chalet they haven’t checked, and then (4) fucking up her job because she’s busy getting involved in a situation that does not need to involve her, it occurs to Emily that Camille has been SHARING HER LOCATION WITH HER THIS ENTIRE TIME. Sharing! Her! LOCATION! EMILY. Sometimes, I think I’m being too harsh when I say that everyone on this show acts like they’ve suffered blunt head trauma at some point before the series began and/or that they’re all being lobotomized in between scenes. And then something like THIS happens and I realize I’ve actually been too soft.
Sidebar: The Boucheron people want to know the social-media aspect of the campaign, and an Emily-shaped silhouette is beamed against the sky, but no, she cannot return this call; she must fetch Camille herself, rather than, I don’t know, sharing the location with Camille’s parents? Luc pulls an Emily — pitches something ambitious without client approval — and I’m sure everything with their scavenger hunt for a necklace they don’t have the budget to give away will be absolutely fine. (Does France have the same truth-in-advertising laws as the U.S.?)
Emily finds Camille at the House of Monet, where in exactly 72 hours, Camille has managed to become a volunteer with rowboat access. Emily and Camille have a fight across rowboats, which, implausibly but obviously, ends with them both in the water and getting thrown out. Most of what Emily says to Camille is objectively insane (claiming that she, Emily, takes responsibility for things), but Camille eventually admits that she didn’t really want to marry Gabriel, and Emily was a convenient excuse. I don’t mean to be a bitch here, but couldn’t Camille have, like … left a note? Texted the girls’ chat? I feel like her friends from before would have kept her location a secret and then Camille would have had even more time and space with which to figure things out. But again, everyone on this show is recovering from having an anvil plunked on their head like in Looney Tunes. I must be gentler on them!! They’re doing so well, considering!
Sad Gabriel is wearing a hoodie when Sofia arrives from Athens so they can come clean to each other. They are on friendly terms by the time Emily and Camille return. Again, I apologize for caring about this sort of thing, but did Camille run away without even packing a bag? Where has she been sleeping? Why is she also wearing emergency clothes from the Monet gift shop? Am I to believe she fled her life with only the clothes on her back? Just as I am supposed to buy that Emily’s bangs just air-dried like that?
Anyway, Gabriel gives Camille a very big hug and says they don’t have to be married because they’re a family now. Interesting concerns re: commitment, like, personally, I think having a baby with someone is a much bigger commitment than being married to them, but okay!! The best part of all of this is that Sofia and Camille tell each other they love each other and then they kiss hard on the mouth in front of everyone.