Boiling Point

Episode 6 of Emily In Paris Season 2 begins with Gabriel heading over to Emily’s and calling her out for the shallow social profile she’s crafting for his restaurant. Specifically with the words “le chef hot.” Emily shrugs off his concerns, telling him the list has been carefully curated and that it’ll be a big hit. Meanwhile, Pierre is joined by Julien as they head to the PR photo shoot. Whilst there, the pair are met by Ellen Unwerth who happens to be a really good photographer and she gets to work glamming Pierre up. Now, Julien winds up flirting with Gerhard, who happens to be working there too, and he even invites Julien across to Hamburg. Speaking of photographers, rumours are abound when Emily checks the photos from the boat event and notices lots of shots of Sylvie. Now, earlier on Sylvie was growing close to Erik, the photographer. Putting two and two together, Emily susses out that they’re actually sleeping together. Julien is offered a big decision to get Ellen Unwerth onboard for her upcoming campaign, but Sylvie has already decided on Erik. That’s a real problem given Vespa are under the assumption Unwerth is going to be taking the campaign. When Sylvie finds out, she’s not best pleased. However, the big night arrives and Emily shows up at the restaurant to oversee proceedings. Now, the restaurant would probably be shut down given the distinct lack of food standards on display here; no one in the kitchen are wearing hairnets, people just freely come and go, while Emily just wanders in and starts talking to Gabriel. Camille is there too but it feels like a moot point given she’s not involved in any drama. There are way too many people in the restaurant though, with punters dancing about and turning this into a bar. It’s absolutely chaotic and there’s even people dancing on the tables. Antoine is happy with this though whereas Gabriel wants it to be a proper restaurant. Instead, they’re going to have the best of both worlds; a restaurant until 11pm and then a club from 11 onward. I’m guessing they’ve got all the licences and late night venue documents sorted to do this of course. With the opening night a success, Sylvie swallows her pride and speaks to Erik, telling him he’s off the campaign. However, that doesn’t deter their interest in one another, as they head out for coffee and kiss. Emily, still reeling from Alfie’s earlier quips about her being boring, decides to ride the Vespa across to French class, picking up Alfie en-route to show how fun-loving she is.

The Episode Review

Episode 6 continues to walk tepidly through the various melodramatic beats this show flirts with, struggling to actually find a consistent voice across this season. There have been glimmers of brilliance here in an otherwise below-average series, that somehow still hasn’t fully found its voice this late in the game. The second season has misfired on the Camille situation while the simmering romance with Alfie looks a certainty alongside Gabriel. Is that enough o a spark to spice things up a bit? We’ve got 4 more episodes to go though and it’ll be interesting to see what direction this one takes next.