Emily in Paris just nuked girl code — and the fallout is messy
*Warning — Major spoilers ahead for Emily in Paris season five*
If you haven’t heard the news: Emily in Paris is now Emily in Rome. But while Lily Collins’s newly power-bobbed marketing exec is trotting through palazzos and cobbled piazzas in velvet platforms, thinking up pitches for her agency, back in Paris, her best friend and ex-boyfriend are hooking up behind her back. Gasp!
Ashley Park’s talent show dropout Mindy and Lucien Laviscount’s cockney lad Alfie have their first smooch after a glass of rosé turns into two bottles on a spontaneous night out. They’re both taken aback by their connection but swear it can never happen again until they are staying… in the same hotel while visiting Emily in Rome (what a coincidence!). Then, a brawny Alfie gives Mindy a sensual (?) tango lesson (honestly, don’t ask). They bail on Emily to go and kiss down an alleyway, which she inevitably finds out about, resulting in a physical altercation involving a croissant (no, really). The friendship is on the rocks. Girl code has officially been broken.
As an Emily in Paris apologist — I believe it is the perfect slop to numb the mind after a long day — I didn’t see this coming. Mindy and Alfie have never had a romantic spark in past episodes, and the actor’s forced attempts at feigning chemistry aren’t convincing, either. But if you can put aside the fleeting plotlines and underbaked character development, this silly whirlwind of nonsense is actually saying something about the somewhat juvenile scripture that is Girl Code: it’s dying out.
Girl Code is a series of unwritten rules for female friendships, and one of its very cornerstones is that you never date your friend’s exes. Even if the pair has romantic potential, and the friend has happily moved on, it has to be squashed. That dogma has become a little outdated in the current dating climate, which is largely shaped by hyper-individualism, when people are advised to “do what makes you happy” rather than live their lives worrying about upsetting others. Forbidding your friend from dating one of your exes casts you as dramatic and suggests you still have feelings for them.
Cut to the oh-so-realistic world that is Emily in Paris, Mindy doesn’t seem phased by the laws of Girl Code — she’s more concerned about her next hook-up with Alfie. Our Emily is clearly upset by news of the new fling (she avoids Mindy like the plague by appearing to train for a half-marathon). But after some passive-aggressive exchanges, Emily admits that she wouldn’t have done all that running if they had just told her the truth in the beginning. The modern-day Girl Code, it seems, is about transparency, a cursory message to say: “Hey, how would you feel if I dated your ex?” Rather than running around like you’re having a secret affair.
But it would be wildly ironic to take lessons in Girl Code from Emily Cooper, the queen of the messy love triangle. She has, for about the past 40 episodes of this mammoth Netflix series, been playing tug-of-war with Camille (played by Camille Razat) over their shared ex Gabriel. Emily kept up appearances by claiming to be Camille’s friend, merely a pretense to be able to share furtive glances with Gabriel before the inevitable tryst. Emily is hardly a trustworthy friend. I would also argue that her relationship with Alfie was merely a placeholder before she and Gabriel got back together.
For a while now, Emily in Paris has been degrading in value; the past three seasons have rehashed the same storylines. Alfie. Gabriel. Alfie again. Gabriel again. We’ve now reached its 50th episode, and nothing significant has actually happened. But between the panoramic drone shots of Paris and Rome, and the heinous product placement, maybe season five gives us something to ponder about female friendships, if little else.
