Emily in Paris Season 3: Raise your hands if you also want Emily's 'problems'

She moonlights, kinda two times, is always at the right place at the right time (but thinks otherwise) and has her ex-boyfriend call her out of the blue to give her a huge account just when she needs it. Oh, Emily, what I would give to swap my very real, messy problems with your ‘life issues’ that somehow always, always end up making things better not just for you, but all the beautiful, often rich people in your life!

Let’s just admit it – Emily in Paris is that once-a-year guilty pleasure that you somehow put yourself through, only to feel that much better about yourself. Or worse…? I mean, how does Emily (Lily Collins) afford haute couture fashion, which she wears even when she's just goofing around in an amusement park, with her equally well-dressed and broke BFF Mindy (Ashley Park)? They can't afford to rent a house bigger than a matchbox, but their clothes would make any SoBo socialite turn green with envy.   

I need to find a Marketing job in Paris! Don’t get me wrong, I have a pretty good life and a job that pays me to rant about fictional characters. But how I would love to make Emily's problems my own! 

Let me paint a high-fashion picture for you, while definitely giving away many spoilers from Season 3. Emily's ‘trauma bangs’, for instance, somehow look super chic even though she took all of two seconds to chop them off herself. She is always the best-dressed person in the room – any room, even one packed with the biggest names in French fashion – on a marketing salary. And she has all the right connections, in all the right places, all of which take place through sheer coincidence. And all of these are situations in which she is battling through some crisis or the other.

Read on about more of Emily’s ‘problems’ that I would certainly not mind having in my life… 

Always at the right place at the right time
What kind of rabbit foot does Emily have hidden in her bag and where did she buy it? She is somehow always at the right place, at the right time, with big shots coming over to talk to her – and these are people who she doesn’t know from Adam, but soon becomes pally with thanks to some connection. And she always manages to get some professional benefit from these people, which directly helps her find favour with her bosses. Case in point: Nicolas de Léon (Paul Forman), who owns the biggest fashion house in France, walks up to Emily during his event, for no apparent reason, and strikes up a conversation with her. She instantly pitches her company to do his marketing work, and soon realises that he and Mindy went to school together. And, of course, despite being hesitant, Emily manages to convince Nicolas to work with her firm. But that leads to him sidelining Pierre Cadault (Jean-Christophe Bouvet), who Emily misleads with unsolicited information.

Finding her feet in a new country, all without breaking a sweat
…even when the country is France, the city Paris, and the people French – who are not exactly known to be the most welcoming people in the world. Emily, an American who has never before lived abroad, makes moving countries seem like a breeze. Freelance writer Anjali Muthanna, who had to shift base from India to Hong Kong, wishes transitioning was that easy IRL. “I would love for things to not work out, but magically work out anyway, all while I have a face full of makeup right after I wake up, and perfect bedhead. It’s mind boggling how simple Emily’s transition was, what with leaving behind everything that she had worked hard for, learning a new language, figuring out how to navigate transport, and even getting around to something as difficult as the French not using air conditioners. And let’s not even begin with the cultural differences that crop up when one party is not speaking in a language that is not their native tongue. Everyday conversations can be a struggle, forget professional communication. The Parisians aren’t known for being very nice, yet Emily wants to stay behind in Paris. If I got bullied like she did in the first season, I would go back home and my life would be a mini series that would end in five episodes! To be fair, Emily does get slammed, but she still goes through everything with dogged determination, which, I suppose, is admirable,” says Anjali.

It’s raining men!
Be it present, past or destined-to-be lovers, good-looking men are always helping Emily out in her professional and personal life. Despite not giving him priority in her life, her gorgeous British boyfriend Alfie (Lucien Laviscount) and Emily makeup quicker than it takes to Google Jean-Paul Sartre. And just when she’s in need of a big account to impress Sylvie (Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu), Emily’s former American boyfriend calls her up out of the blue to give her a huge McDonald’s account. What happens next? A conflicted Emily runs into her former lover, but now good friend Gabriel (Lucas Bravo), who drops everything to help her understand McDonald’s in the French context, and even with her love life with Alfie. Mind you, this is the same man who doesn’t have time to spend with his live-in girlfriend, Camille (Camille Razat), because he’s super busy running his restaurant.

Bosses who could care less about accountability
Emily, being Emily, is wanted by both Sylvie and Madeline (Kate Walsh). While Sylvie fires Emily when she finds out that she is working for her and Savoir at the same time, Madeline not only completely forgets that Emily was working for her rival behind her back, but also happily lets her go when she says she doesn't want to return to Chicago, where she is required to explain the huge mess in Paris. All this without even a tiny mention of accountability, considering that things went south in Savoir on Emily’s watch. Bengaluru-based Diversity and Inclusion Facilitator Nimisha Agarwal is still waiting to find a boss who would be half as accommodating and understanding as Madeline. “Despite not knowing French (and almost killing people because of it), Emily can easily get not one, but two jobs in France, at competing firms, in the current economy! Her bosses are slightly pissed off at her initially, but her ‘brilliant’ ideas always end up ‘helping’ the firm, so, somehow, no accountability is ever needed. Even the men in her life – colleagues, friends and lovers – are super understanding and always silently helping Emily out, never once taking credit for her work or dragging her into office politics. Save for Julien, who seems to be the only one who sees Emily as someone who’s constantly interfering. How does this happen?” wonders Nimisha.

Being the best comes naturally
Be it convincing influential people to work with her or being a waitress at a French restaurant without knowing the language – there isn’t anything that Emily isn’t good at. So much so that a group of women want to take a selfie with her while she is waitressing at Gabriel’s restaurant, where she gets ‘fired’ by him (and this has nothing to do with the fact that she nearly killed one of his customers) right in time to get hired back by Sylvie – who literally walks up to her with the job offer. What comes next? Emily is on the cover of a magazine, at the top of a list that a veteran like Sylvie hasn’t been able to get on! Why is this a problem? Because it is something that Emily never wanted and it obviously pisses Sylvie off!

Run-of-the-mill? No, it's brilliant!
Emily is always the one to jump to the rescue and get her high-profile clients out of tricky situations. While her ideas are applauded as brilliant, almost always accompanied by the line, ‘Emily has done it again’, they are anything but out of the ordinary. Just ask Ujwala Thirumurthy, Managing Editor at Bengaluru-based tech startup. “Do I want Emily’s life? No. Do I want Emily’s problems? Yes. Do I want Emily’s qualities? Yes, all of them!” says Ujwala, the head of content marketing, who assures you that her job isn’t as easy as Emily makes it out to be. “While Emily’s social media marketing ideas throughout the series might seem avant-garde, they are anything but unconventional – from posting random photos of Paris and French women on social media, to suggesting pitch decks for clients to promote products to the French audience — they seem all too simple. Also, how does one plan publicity events, meetings and entire fashion shows overnight, where everything seems perfect and everyone turns up looking flawless? That NEVER happens in reality. But it makes me wonder. Perhaps it is this simplicity and vulnerability that actually makes Emily so appealing. The ability to turn disaster into opportunity (although this may not translate very well for her personal life), her spontaneity and the wild faith that ‘she can make this happen’; her open-minded approach to anything that’s thrown her way, her compassion and loyalty — all of which reflects in her professionalism — is to die for,” adds Ujwala, who ensures she binge watches every season of the show.

And there’s more, like how her otherwise no-nonsense boss Sylvie gives Emily mandatory time off in beautiful Provence, so that she can go on a lunch date to a romantic Michelin star restaurant with Gabriel. Even though all Emily wants to do is work! And how does she get to go back to Paris? In style, of course — zipping through the beautiful French countryside in a limited-edition McLaren car that Antoine (William Abadie) casually gives Alfie and Emily to drive back to Paris for him.

Is the show meant to resonate with young, career women across the world? Perhaps not. The show was obviously made so that people will dump on it, and Season 4 will only have more such moments of eye rolling and ‘Yeah, sure!’ But hey, that’s the fun of watching a show like this! 

Emily in Paris Season 3 is currently streaming on Netflix. According to reports, the fourth season was shot soon after the team wrapped up the shoot of season three, but an official announcement on the release date is yet to be made.