‘Emily In Paris’: Creator Darren Star Breaks Down Season 3, Talks Finale Bombshell & Its Fallout, Season 4’s Theme & More
SPOILER ALERT: The story includes details about Season 3 of Netflix’s Emily In Paris Do not read before you have binged all 10 episodes.
Emily In Paris Season 3 started with bangs for our heroine, played by Lily Collins, and ended with a bang, setting major cliffhangers for most characters in the show.
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Camille had a fling with a Greek artist, Sofia, but still got engaged to Gabriel whose career took off. With the help of Alfie, he joined Antoine as a partner at the restaurant, and, thanks in part to his mom’s cooking skills and with an assist from Luc, by the finale, Gabriel was well on his way to a Michelin star.
Camille and Gabriel’s engagement party in the finale turned into a surprise wedding but seconds away from the couple being pronounced husband and wife, Camille backed out, telling Gabriel that she cannot marry him because he and Emily are clearly in love, and yeah, she also broke her no-dating-Gabriel pact with Emily.
Alfie spent the season cautiously learning to trust Emily — who pulled all the stops in trying to convince him that he was the one — only to have his heart broken by Camille’s speech, storming out of the wedding chapel.
Emily’s BFF Mindy got a career break when she was invited to sing (solo) at a night club. She found a new romantic interest in Nico, a guy she’d had a crush on at her Swiss boarding school who happened to be the heir apparent of powerhouse JVMA whom Emily had been courting for a business relationship. Benoît got largely out of the picture until he reappeared triumphantly in the finale, telling Mindy that they are going to Eurovision with the song he’d written for her, “Mon Soleil” (which got a lot of play this season).
As for the big cliffhanger Emily was faced with in the Season 2 finale, whether to stay at Savoir with Madeline or go with Sylvie to her new agency, Emily’s ill-conceived plan to secretly work in both places spectacularly backfired. She stayed at Savoir but, when Madeline decided to shut the branch down and bring Emily back to Chicago with her, Emily chose to stay in Paris and eventually found her way back to Sylvie, Luc and Julien.
In other Season 3 developments, Julien grew frustrated by Emily’s go-getter style to a point where he may have quit the new agency while Sylvie got back together with her estranged husband Laurent G who decided to launch a club in Paris with none other than Sylvie’s nemesis JVMA.
In an interview with Deadline, Emily In Paris creator/executive producer Darren Star discussed the wedding shocker and its repercussions, the relationship between Emily, Gabriel and Camille going forward, Camille and Sofia’s love story, Mindy’s love triangle, Sylvie and Laurent’s love-business relationship, Julien’s future and what happens to Alfie. He revealed the main theme for Season 4 and whether Emily In Paris will be going to Eurovision next season.
Star also spoke about trying to ground the show in Season 3 and whether Season 4 may be its final chapter. Additionally, the Sex and the City creator also revealed whether he is watching the sequel …And Just Like That. At the end of the interview, I brought up the controversial Season 2 storyline involving a Ukrainian woman who taught Emily to shoplift, and to his credit, Star did not skirt the topic and offered his perspective.
DEADLINE: Let’s start with Camille’s decision not to go through with the wedding. She had crossed the line so many times in the past and and now finally she got the prize, a chance to marry Gabriel. What stopped her from claiming it?
STAR: I think there’s a number of aspects. I think ultimately she is a character who would never want to manipulate somebody into marriage. I think there’s so many things that were involved, from making a pact with Emily to feeling that Gabriel would have to marry her out of any sense of obligation to also sensing that they — Gabriel and Emily — have a kind of relationship that she knows she doesn’t have with Gabriel, I think he lights up around Emily in a way that she knows that he doesn’t around her. I think she’s also maybe fallen in love with someone else, although I don’t know that that’s the total reason. And this idea that she’s living out her mother’s life and her mother’s dreams for her and wondering, is she really following her own heart and her own life.
The wedding was a rushed moment. It’s not so difficult to break an engagement and had she had a lot of time to think about it, I think faced with, basically a shotgun wedding, I think she realized she could not at that moment, she just couldn’t make that commitment.
DEADLINE: What about Emily and Gabriel? The first two seasons ended with Emily almost revealing her feelings but something always came in the way. They’re finally open about their feelings — they have to thank Camille for that — but now it’s a new stage in their relationship with Gabriel’s baby on the way that will always tie him to Camille, so it’s a very unusual triangle.
STAR: Yes, they are star-crossed lovers, they really are. And I think that a big question to think about the next season is, Emily didn’t come to Paris for romance, she came for a job, and I think they’re both in a different, more mature place in their lives, Emily and Gabriel, and definitely a more complicated place.
DEADLINE: What can you tease about how the three of them will have to coexist?
STAR: That’s a big question for us to think about in Season 4. I certainly have ideas, but I think they will. They are all involved in each other’s lives, they are friends, they work together. They’re all very much tied together. But I just think there were some big unforeseen complications here, especially for Emily. And perhaps Emily-Gabriel is not meant to be, at least in the immediate future.
DEADLINE: So they are going to stay on different floors in that building?
STAR: For the time being, it’s a nice building, who wants to move?
DEADLINE: It is. I’m assuming Alfie is out of the picture romantically? It doesn’t seem feasible after his exit from the chapel.
STAR: I don’t think romantically he is in the picture. I don’t think that makes Alfie out of the show. He certainly has a reason to be in Paris, and he’s working with Gabriel. I feel like all of our characters are still connected, just in a more complicated way.
DEADLINE: Talk about a very loaded business relationship. What about Sofia, you alluded to her when you said Camille may be in love with someone else. Will we see more more of her?
DEADLINE: I think quite possibly we could see more of her. I don’t know that that is a relationship that’s over, and I think that there was a romantic spark between the two of them that I feel like we’ve never seen between Camille and Gabriel. I feel like there’s like some real passion there between the two of them.
DEADLINE: Can you discuss expanding the series to feature a same sex relationship this season?
STAR: It really wasn’t anything that was… there was no agenda coming with the season thinking that’s what we want to do. I thought it was the idea of Camille having an affair, almost out of being eaten up by the decision, the way she won over Gabriel, which felt very dishonest to her, and I think the idea of an artist who is coming into her life with this piece about confessions.
It was very much the idea of Camille having an affair, we were open to a man or a woman. Suddenly, a woman was something that was not only more interesting, but felt very true to the character and something that felt a little bit missing from the series.
I love seeing the two of them together. It feels like there’s more passion in their relationship than there is between Camille and Gabriel, which feels like the kind of relationship she had been pursuing for a long time that felt like was maybe it, but I think with Sofia something else opened up, not just about sexuality but about feelings and passion.
DEADLINE: This season reconciled Sylvie and her husband, Laurent. It seemed almost too good to be true, her being so happy in love, until the finale bombshell that Laurent is now in business with JVMA, the big corporation that has been after Sylvie. Can you talk about how, again, feelings will be mixed with business in their relationship?
STAR: I think that will be our theme for Season 4. Season 3 was about making choices. I think Season 4 is about how to balance business and toxic relationships, because that’s going to be happening with a lot of our characters.
DEADLINE: Will we see Sylvie in a good place next season in her personal life?
STAR: I think we are going to find out more about her relationship with her husband, and what keeps them together and what keeps them apart at the same time. And I think that will come to a head a bit more this season just because we’re going to see them spending more time together.
DEADLINE: What about Sylvie’s agency? She finally got the the band back together and then we have that alarming email that Julien sent in the finale. Is the team broken?
STAR: Maybe a little bit, possibly. I think that Julien, throughout the season, has been very vocal in terms of feeling that he’s been treated unfairly there, If you look at it, Emily is a strong character who came into this mix with strong ideas, and I think Julien, who was sort of Emily’s biggest ally at the beginning, now felt a little sidelined. And I think that he’s a bit of a disgruntled employee, for a good reason.
DEADLINE: Talk about Julien’s evolution; we see his frustration growing throughout the season.
STAR: In terms of everyone that’s working for Sylvie, they’re all talented people, and I think Emily comes in with this sense of drive and ambition that maybe they never felt they needed to express in quite that way. I don’t think they’ve ever felt so much in competition with each other. I think Emily brings in this sense of needing to have the loudest voice in the room to be heard. And I think Julien feels like maybe he’s had enough of it. I think Emily’s presence changed the work culture there a little bit.
DEADLINE: Yes, it feels like a little bit of Americanized work culture. Was that intentional?
STAR: Yeah, absolutely. I think Julien is definitely having a reaction to it. And I think Sylvie’s reaction is that it’s working for her so she’s embracing it a little bit.
DEADLINE: Moving on to Mindy and possibly the biggest question about Season 4. Will we see Eurovision on the show and will you film at the real event?
STAR: I don’t know what the details of filming are but I think that our plan is to go to Eurovision next season, we’re all set up for it. And I think we’ve got a deserving song. I love that song, “Mon Soleil”, I think it would be definitely a worthy entry.
DEADLINE: Will Ferrell’s song from the Eurovision Song Contest movie was pretty strong, too, it took on a life of its own. Was an inspiration for you to create another song that can catch on?
STAR: I actually watched it, I really enjoyed that movie, it had more of a comedic take on Eurovision than we would. I think we’d like to look at it maybe in a more straightforward way. But this song has been a part of the show all last season, I think it just has its own life on the series.
DEADLINE: Benoît is now back in the picture through Eurovision, so he’s setting up a second love triangle with Mindy and Nico. Can you talk about the dynamic of the pull and push from the different sides?
STAR: I think they’re such opposites. I think that Nico represents so much of who Mindy was, the pull to her family, her life of privilege, and I think Benoit represents her artistic spirit.
DEADLINE: And will they both coexist, at least for the time being?
STAR: Yeah, absolutely. Definitely. Both will be in her life.
DEADLINE: A lot of people have talked about how Emily In Paris is a romanticized version of life in Paris with Emily’s fancy outfits, picture perfect apartment; it’s somewhat similar to Carrie Bradshaw in your HBO series Sex and the City. For the first time I saw a practical aspect reflected this season with Emily’s visa application. I’m an immigrant, so I know it’s not easy to start working in another country. Talk about that; are you planning to introduce more of the realities of living in a foreign country?
STAR: I think we wanted to touch on the realities a little bit more, I feel like this season the show has become a little more grounded. Because first of all, we’re looking at it from all perspectives, it’s not just all from Emily’s point of view this season, it’s from some of the other characters’ point of view. And I think Emily, her feet are on the ground a little bit more, so I think she’s dealing with a somewhat ordinary issue — the way we’d play with it in our Emily in Paris fashion — but I felt like we couldn’t ignore it completely. We can’t completely live out of reality in terms of her work life and her life in Paris.
DEADLINE: A small detail on that topic. If I’m not mistaken, Mindy was busking because her visa as a nanny had expired. All of a sudden she is working at a club this season, and now she’s going to Eurovision representing France. I don’t know if you’re going to address this but it’s one of those elements that I mentioned, blending reality and fantasy. When she was performing at that club, I kept worrying that immigration officers will come and arrest her.
STAR: I don’t know that we’re going to dig so deep into that but I think she’s got some big connections, Mindy, if she needs some help staying in Paris. She’ll get a talent visa.
DEADLINE: You already introduced that visa route with Emily this season…
STAR: Now you are giving me ideas, Nellie, because she’s going to go to Eurovision, she’ll get a talent visa, we’ll keep her there.
DEADLINE: Okay, I’m glad to hear. Season 3 is the first of a two-season renewal, allowing you to create a two-season arc. Did you conceive Season 4 as a final chapter or can the show go beyond that?
STAR: I definitely think the show has a life beyond next season. It’s not necessarily conceived as a final chapter. I think like every other show, it’s a rich ensemble. There’s no end in sight until everybody feels like it’s time to end. And I don’t think this show is limited by a number of seasons, I think it’s limited by everybody’s enthusiasm and excitement about doing it and telling stories about these characters because I think the world, especially after Season 3, the universe of the show is expanded because we have such a fantastic ensemble of characters and the show, it’s Emily In Paris, but I think it’s moved beyond just Emily in Paris, which is exciting.
DEADLINE: Anything else you’d like to add about what you want people to see and feel in Season 3?
STAR: I’m excited for people to see this season, just in terms of how the universe of the show expands. There is a lot more French spoken this season, a lot more subtitles, and I think the audience has embraced that, I love seeing that. I think they actually welcome that, I think they enjoy seeing these French characters speak French to each other. And I love seeing our French actors performing in their native language. It’s great to see; I think it adds a whole other layer of texture and reality to the series. Emily’s French is getting incrementally better, but it’s not the kind of language you learn in a year.
DEADLINE: Will you be watching …And Just Like That Season 2?
STAR: Of course. Of course. You bet.
DEADLINE: Did you like the first one?
STAR: I did. I think it’s amazing that also the audience wants to continue to embrace these characters and follow them in the next chapter of their lives.
DEADLINE: Thank you for your time. Emily In Paris has been fun to watch, except for the Ukrainian immigrant storyline in Season 2.
STAR: Can I say one little thing about that? We cast this actress and just asked her, where are you from? She said Kyiv, so we made her Ukrainian. It wasn’t written like, she has to be Ukrainian; it was written as anywhere, it could have been Romania, it could have been Russia. This show is an equal opportunity offender to all cultures that’s always meant to be lighthearted, never meant to cause harm or anything. So I think it was bad timing.
DEADLINE: No, not just the timing with the war in Ukraine. I’m an Eastern European immigrant. There’s a stigma, and it didn’t help the way she was portrayed, with the shoplifting and the other stuff.
STAR: I hear you. Next time we’ll be better.
DEADLINE: I appreciate it.
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