So, I’ve just finished a binge-fest on Emily in Paris. This was my second excursion around this fabulous Netflix production right through to the end of Season 4. Like millions of others, I first started watching in 2000, when we were all cowering on the sofa under the cloud that was Covid.
Second time around, it has lost none of its charm and, for my money, was even more sassy and funny. The characters and the acting is spot-on; the ‘fashions’ are outrageous and gorgeous; and the locations are stunning. For my money, it’s just the best escapism for this lover of romance and rom-coms.
Right now, I can’t wait for season five to hit the screens on December 18th. So what’s going to happen, I wonder, and who will get the girl?
Well, in the first flush of love for the series, I was rooting for Gabriel and Emily to deliver the much yearned for Happily Ever After ending. But, d’you know what? Second time around, my thoughts have changed.
Here’s my five pen’orth, for what it’s worth….
Gabriel
He’s hot, in or out of the cuisine, with those dreamy blue eyes. And he can cook like a pro. Serve me up anything in Café de Paris butter, and I’m yours. The chemistry between him and Emily is on a long, rolling simmer at the start but…
He is kinda wet, isn’t he? I mean, He’s spent eight years with the bland and humorless, covert-narcissist that is Camille, which is surely an indication of his lack of personality. Emily is dazzling by comparison, isn’t she?
As for the surprise pregnancy – he just took her word for it? He didn’t say, ‘Let’s do another test together.’ Hadn’t they signed up for ante-natal care?
But, the last straw was his hacking down the mountain after the pouting and manipulative Camille, abandoning our poor, inexperienced skier, Emily, to a white-out on what looked more like an Olympic downhill run than a nursery slope.
Nah, he doesn’t really know what he wants. Which brings me on to…
Alfie
What a contrast.
I fell in love with Alfie the moment he called her ‘Cooper’. Maybe it’s his Englishness that I ‘get’ more than I get Gabriel. He’s cheeky, he’s hot, and he’s nuts about Emily.
What’s more, he’s man enough to know when his woman isn’t quite as into him as he’d like her to be, and he isn’t going to hang around so she can settle for him. Quite right too. He deserves more.
And, despite his apparent laissez-faire attitude, the truth is that losing her to Gabriel has broken his heart. Alfie loves Emily. He even tells Gabriel: “You’re letting pride and misunderstanding get in the way of the greatest girl in the world.” Because Gabriel is too wet to see it for himself!
However… and I apologise for the cliché, Alfie IS a banker, which is a glorified accountant and, let’s face it, accountants are typically on the boring side. (I dated one briefly – after a Vicars & Tarts party, which is a story for another day…) Does Alfie have the creativity to keep Emily interested? I wonder. Then again, perhaps what she needs his down-to-earth approach in life to keep her grounded.
Hmmm…so, onto…
Marcello
What have we here? A tall, dark, handsome – nay – rich Italian. Don’t they claim to be the most passionate men in Europe? Lucky Emily.
And what heroism, rescuing her from the Olympic downhill disaster and saying, quite rightly: “What kind of man would I be if I left a beautiful woman stranded?”
Exactly. A better man than Gabriel, that’s for sure.
And he’s clearly a family man; he works in the family business which is central to the community of a beautiful Italian villagio; he’s told his mother he let the most beautiful girl get away and she’s told him that if it’s meant to be, Fate will bring them together.
Oh, but wait, is he perhaps a Mummy’s Boy? She definitely seem to be calling the shots there on the old goat farm.
And what about his over-reaction every time he believes Emily has wronged him – as he struts off and calls ‘time’ on their fledgling affair? What a regina del dramma!
So who will it be?
Marcello is just too Mills & Boonsy for my taste.
If I were playing matchmaker, right now, I’d choose Alfie for Emily, because, let’s face it, if Gabriel is going to win Emily over, he needs to grow a bigger pair of coquilles.
Now, onto Season 5….
