Emily in Paris

So my Netflix account had been suspended for a week (there was an issue with the payment momentarily!) and I was confined to Youtube while I was sewing and playing Pokemon to pass my time. I didn’t think I would miss the streaming service as much as I did, but when I finally got it back online, I just clicked on the first recommended series Netflix showed me.

And wasn’t it just Emily in Paris. I didn’t read the description of it, otherwise I don’t think I would have bothered watching it; it’s your typical basic girl gets job and moves to Europe from America and absolutely smashes it all the time while never wearing the same outfit twice kinda series.

I found the first episode kind of difficult to watch, she’s so god damn happy, and her life is so amazing and perfect and not at all how real life is. She gets told she’s going to Paris for a year… and then she moves there the next day. No talk of packing, or if she’s ready for a job her BOSS was going to be doing. Just an ol’ switcheroo! And everyone seems fine with it.

In every episode she has brilliant ideas, and they go off great, and everyone seems to love her no matter what. She has the tiniest of blips every episode but they’re always smoothed over by the end of it, and everything goes according to plan. Sure she has one woman in the office who hates her (just one!), and she makes life difficult, but as Emily knocks it out of the park all the time, this woman is made to look like a complete troll the whole time.

And of course, with every feel good chic flic there is a good old romance. Literally the guy next door. Or more, the guy downstairs who’s apartment she keeps accidentally walking into. And there’s the whole will they won’t they debacle, but he has a girlfriend, but their relationship is conveniently a bit shit so he likes Emily more… basically what I’m saying is that this series is the most predictable thing you will watch this year. And you will guiltily love every second of it.

I hated that I liked it so much, and finished the whole series in less than 24 hours. And the only reason I didn’t finish it in a night is because I found it at 11 in the evening, and had an interview the next day so I couldn’t stay up past 3am. It is a real feel-good piece, and you do kind of find yourself rooting for Emily, despite the fact that her live is way too perfect to be believable, and it reads like something straight out of the Disney Channel… minus the sex and and wine drinking.

I would recommend watching it in fairness, as maybe a predictable, feel-good, bingeable series is what we need to feel better about ourselves during these dark times. If nothing else it will give you ideas on what to wear once we are allowed to leave the house again.