Bonjour, mon cheri! Sure, the 2024 Olympics have officially left Paris, but we're still in France (at least mentally), because Emily in Paris season 4 has arrived with its first five episodes on Netflix (the final five episodes will drop on Thursday, September 12).
Last we saw Emily Cooper (Lily Collins) in the Emily in Paris season 3 finale, she had just witnessed Camille (Camille Razat) break off her nuptials to Gabriel (Lucas Bravo) because she rightly suspected that the French chef actually had feelings for Emily, a revelation that also prompted Alfie (Lucien Laviscount) to dump our eponymous heroine. And that's not even getting into all of the professional drama that went down with Sylvie (Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu) and the rest of the Agence Grateau team.
A lot went down last season so without further ado, let's catch up with our oh-so-fashionable friends in France.
Emily Cooper, social media star
Three days after the wedding that wasn't, Emily has gone viral — for all the wrong reasons. Camille's brother Timothée (Victor Meutelet) has taken TikTok by storm with his animated recounting of how Mademoiselle Cooper "ruined" his sister's big day, detailing all of the romantic nitty-gritty between Emily, Gabriel and Alfie. Sure, it's a handy refresher for viewers about that whole bridal mess, but it's also a PR nightmare for Agence Grateau, with Sylvie watching in horror as Emily's personal life mucks up her business once more. (For his part, Bruno Gouery's Luc is loving the social media series.)
The problem is Julien's (Samuel Arnold) client, AMI, has already approved an entire "Love is in the Air" campaign based around Emily and Alfie's real-life love story, which now is significantly more complicated after the whole viral break-up thing. AMI wants the estranged couple to recreate the ad's romantic smooch in person over caméra bisou (aka kiss cam) at Roland-Garros the next day. But Alfie not only hasn't been texting Emily back, but he's straight-up deleted her from Instagram. How will Emily fix this personal and professional snafu?
Two's company, three's a crowd
Despite the fact that Emily tells BFF Mindy Chen (Ashley Park) that she's not interested in exploring the "nice little path" Camille has cleared for her to Gabriel, it seems like that little je ne sais quoi still very much exists between the marketing maven and the French chef.
Running into Gabriel in her apartment building, she notices he's burned his hand while cooking at the restaurant, so she helps him with his groceries and whips up some eggs for the injured toque. He fills her (and us) in on what's been going on with Camille — she's been staying at her family's chateau in the South, seemingly avoiding him — and proclaims he wants to make things right between her and Alfie. "Alfie isn't your problem, Gabriel, and Camille isn't mine," she reminds him.
But that doesn't stop Alfie from showing up to L'Esprit de Gigi to set things straight with its chef-owner. "You told me you were my friend. And then you lied right to my face," Alfie confronts him. However, Gabriel assures the Brit that nothing untoward happened between him and Emily while she was Alfie, and any feelings he may still harbor for her don't matter: "I won't get in the way. End of discussion."
After Alfie gets admonished from Sylvie for mixing work with play, he shows up last minute at the Roland-Garros and ends up saving the AMI campaign. But the on-camera kiss that he shares with Emily — which Gabriel spies while watching the tennis match at the restaurant, naturally — isn't an amorous one, but a sort of goodbye. Despite her promising him that their relationship was real, he informs her he can't get past his worries: "I'm always going to be waiting for the other shoe to drop."
Can't dull Mindy's shine
Ever colorfully dressed, Mindy and her bandmates Etienne (Jin Xuan Mao) and Benoit (Kevin Dias) sit down with a Eurovision rep about being selected as the French delegation for the song contest. (For "Mon Soleil," remember?) It's exciting news, until the trio is brutally informed that, due to budget cuts, they'll have to personally foot the bill for their own recording sessions, choreographers and dancers, even pyro experts. ("No help from the government? What is this, America?!") Benoit suggests they start busking again nightly to earn the cash, but Etienne wants Mindy to see if she can get the money from her wealthy beau, JVMA heir Nicolas de Léon (Paul Forman).
Relationship-wise, things are looking good for Mindy and Nicolas: he has invited her to join him and his family in the JVMA suite at Roland-Garros, and even gifted her a pricey couture outfit to wear for the festivities. However, while at the match, Mindy overhears Nicolas' father, Louis de Léon (Pierre Deny), speaking disparagingly in French about the way Mindy usually dresses. She confronts Nicolas afterwards: "Did you give me this outfit to make me more palatable to your dad?" He confesses his father is obsessed with crafting the perfect family image, but Mindy is furious Nicolas didn't stand up for her. She storms out — "You do not want me to stay with this much rage and free alcohol" — but not before saying pointedly goodbye to Louis in perfect French.
Mindy gets the last laugh, however: she takes that couture outfit to a luxury consignment collector and sells it for €3,000 to help fund the band's Eurovision dreams.
Sylvie's not-so-suite life
We already know the Sylvie Grateau versus Louis de Léon feud runs deep, though we don't entirely know why — but it looks like we'll get answers this season. After all, Sylvie's husband Laurent G (Arnaud Binard) is already in business with Louis, opening a scenic yacht club together right on the Seine, so the rivals will be forced to socialize.
Case in point: Sylvie warily agreeing to join her hubby in the JVMA suite at Louis se Léon. While there, however, she clocks a one-on-one conversation between Nicolas and Julien. Is Nicolas who Julien was secretly texting at the end of season 3 about a potential role? Yes, her employee confesses. However, he's less than pleased to hear that, instead of being poached for his own talents, Sylvie believes Louis wants to hire him just to get back at her for the Pierre Cadault mess last season. Insulted, Julien quits on the spot.
The drama continues back at home, when Sylvie gets a voicemail from a reporter at Le Monde who is researching Louis de Léon and rumors of sexual misconduct within JVMA. She wants to interview Sylvie about her experiences with Louie — will Sylvie tell all?
Of course, a cliffhanger
As Emily is heading home from her successful day at Roland-Garros, she runs into an anxious Gabriel outside L'Esprit de Gigi. He just got off the phone with Camille's mother, who is freaking out because nobody has seen Camille since the wedding three days earlier. "Camille is missing," a distressed Gabriel declares, right before the credits roll. Sacré bleu!
All five episodes of Emily in Paris season 4 part 1 are now available to stream on Netflix.
