Emily in Paris Season 4 Part 1 review: Fashion trash strikes again

Emily? Tick. In Paris? Tick. Enough melodrama to sustain a tabloid? You bet. Season 4 Part 1 is comfortingly dependable… but perhaps that’s not the best thing.

To the untrained eye, all seasons of Emily in Paris – nay, any show on Netflix that follows the same romantic pattern – are indistinguishable from one another. With little in the way other than passion and heartbreak to tell storylines apart, Emily in Paris Season 4 Part 1 feels much the same. But that’s why we love it.

When the world is a hectic and heavy place, sometimes the best metaphorical comfort blanket is investing in someone else’s drama. It’s even better when the gossip doesn’t affect you and also doesn’t really endanger those it’s happening to. The Lily Collins-led cast gives us the best possible antidote – none of what’s happening matters or is even memorable after an hour of heavily investing in it.

Picking up right where Season 3 left off, Emily (Collins) once again is left reeling from Gabriel’s (Lucas Bravo) baby bombshell and her impromptu rift with Alife (Lucien Laviscount). It’s all a very superficial, stereotypical first-world problem, just with really nice outfits. What’s more, the streaming service hasn’t given us a good enough reason why the series is split into two.

We’re not looking at stellar telly when Emily hits Paris

What can be said about Emily in Paris that hasn’t already been thought of? In honest truth, probably not much. Aside from attending a masquerade ball dressed as The Hamburglar from 90s McDonalds commercials and falling out of a boat, there isn’t too much character development when it comes to Emily herself.

For our leading lady, life, and her future, are heading in exactly the direction we know it will. When it comes to her love life, we already know who will come out on top. When it comes to her job, we already know that she will save the day. Emily relies on predictability, which is both a blessing and a curse.

Rather than taking the TV show in a new direction, Season 4 Part 1 faithfully treads on old ground, moving the storylines around in circles. Nobody is really learning any lessons or growing as a person – and in the bigger picture, that’s an issue. How can we invest in something long-term when there are no guaranteed payoffs?

There’s an exception to the rule here with Sylvie (Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu), who is publicly opening up about less-than-savoury experiences in her past. Despite this, the tonal shift between frivolous and serious is jarring, to say the least, with other storylines – which amazingly include the Eurovision Song Contest – forgotten about to shoehorn Sylvie’s vulnerability in.

As for the rest of them, it’s chaos as usual. There are uneasy living arrangements, spontaneous rooftop sex, and a pastry chef who was probably worthy of his own starring role. The stereotyped American ignorance well and truly lives on – you either have to roll with it or enjoy that it annoys you.

Netflix… why two parts?

As Emily in Paris Season 4 Part 1 draws to a close after its five-episode stint, the biggest question of them all comes to the fore. Why has Netflix split the season into two? There’s no soap opera-level cliffhanger at the end, nor any storyline that needs immediate resolve. For the moment, everything seems stable, and that’s never interesting.

Really, the blame for this can’t be laid at Emily’s Parisian apartment door. This is an issue with Netflix itself, whose release model becomes more unsatisfying the longer it continues. There’s a high chance that come September, fewer people are tuning back in for Part 2, and you can’t really blame them.

But while we have her, Emily is mind-numbingly effective. Her constant blasé attitude and inability to avoid catastrophe mean we forget about our own horrible and feckless lives completely. You might not want to wear all her outfits, but you might convince yourself you want to trade places.

Emily in Paris Season 4 Part 1 review score: 3/5

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it – though Emily in Paris Season 4 Part 1 is taking this a little too literally. Emily is a girl for the moment, not the future, and we’re all best off only seeing her that way too.

The first half of Emily in Paris Season 4 is on Netflix now. For more Netflix updates, check out Virgin River Season 6, Stranger Things Season 5, and Heartstopper Season 3. You can also find new TV shows streaming this month.