Emily in Paris Recap: Heartbreak Hotel

Emily in Paris
Bonjour Paris!
Season 5 Episode 5
Editor’s Rating ★★★★
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Not to be mean, but my first thought when this episode began was, Wow, they’re really slacking off with the episode titles. “Bonjour Paris!” Go, girl, give us nothing! But we are back in the titular city, and Emily’s French is improving enough to yell at rude(r) Americans convincingly. Mindy is back as a Crazy Horse headliner, texting Alfie pictures of the stage lingerie she’ll be wearing later. Emily swears she is completely moving on from Marcello, and how thrilling it is that she and Mindy can be single at the same time in Paris? I’m not getting my hopes up because not only is Mindy not actually single, but, more to the point, this show never lets Emily be single for more than 20 minutes.

Sylvie returns home to the husband she allegedly just realized she can’t live without (does not track; makes no sense; I blame this on a between-scene lobotomy), only to find another woman in her house, in her robe, which … ew! Sylvie lays down some new rules for Laurent: “Your lovers don’t wear my clothes or spend the night in my bed.” Sounds reasonable enough to me!

Also, Mindy was wearing earrings that looked like Game Boys. At the office, Julien’s shirt has giant flip phones on it. Again, it would make literally no sense for these characters to be coordinating intentionally, and it doesn’t do anything for the story for them to be sartorially aligned, so what are we DOING here? It’s so distracting! 

Anyway, the office is in shambles because Gen is the least competent assistant around. She has done nothing while her overlords were away except (1) gossip, (2) design the ugliest baseball hats I’ve ever seen with (3) the dumbest slogan, which I just don’t understand, because my recollection of Gen from when she first joined the gang is that she was supposed to be a more naturally chic counterpart for Emily. Her dad is Laurent! She wants her new line, “Bonjour Bitch,” to be a priority for this agency. The line is literally just hats. It’s like a soulless version of those sassy, profane pillows Tricia made on Somebody Somewhere. Meanwhile, Gen is totally incapable of doing even the most basic parts of her job, like setting up Zooms.

Sylvie arrives in a very loud outfit, but remember, she is under duress. The Zoom, which Gen barely gets together, is with British billionaire hotelier Thomas Heatherton, who correctly rejects the extremely idiotic plan of making his launch event have, like, a giant Eiffel Tower or whatever in the lobby. (“Are you going to put them on a hop-on, hop-off bus as well?”) Unfortunately, the opening is in three days, but fortunately, all Emily ever does is spontaneously pitch things in meetings for which everyone really should have been briefed in advance, so Emily suggests re-creating the storefronts of her local neighborhood so guests can sample their products. This is a good enough idea for Thomas. Gen dives in to pitch her dumbass hats, and honestly, that alone is a fireable offense, but Sylvie says it’s complicated. Emily offers to be a kind mentor, and I wonder once again if we are all supposed to have forgotten that the only thing Gen ever did to Emily was sabotage her! 

Sylvie has tasked Emily with mediating the Alfie/Antoine/Gabriel situation. Gabriel was inspired by eating at a plant-based restaurant in Rome one (1) time, and now he wants to change everything on his menu, even though the menu just won a Michelin star, and (I thought?) was inspired by his beloved grandmother’s best recipes?! But okay! For some reason, these grown men need a third party to explain to them that there’s a way to compromise here. Antoine’s take: Gabriel can cook the menu everyone loves or he can be replaced. Gabriel is nonplussed; he gets offers all the time. Okay, but … the restaurant was his whole dream?? Did I hallucinate the first four seasons of this show?! Like, obviously, he doesn’t want to just up and go work for some devil he doesn’t know, doing God knows what!

Once Antoine leaves, Emily tells Gabriel that Rome is “over” in a loaded tone of voice. They are standing very close together, and I am exhausted. ENOUGH of this couple that never should have been! 

I really need one of you well-traveled commenters to tell me how annoyed I need to be about Mindy’s song choices at the Crazy Horse. To me, it feels insane that she would be singing a slowed-down jazzy version of “Oops! … I Did It Again” at this French nightclub. But I’ve never been and am prepared to be told I’m wrong about this. I’m not wrong about Gabriel being the worst, but I could be wrong about the Crazy Horse situation. (Also: Britney covers are generally bad, because making them “better” in any way actually makes them worse. You can’t out-Britney Britney!) 

Alfie and Mindy blow off Emily to make out in the street. I thought they would get busted here, but I was mistaken. They both agree they want to be in a real relationship, which means no more sneaking around; instead, they will take Emily to dinner and tell her together. Personally, I would advise Mindy to just have a one-on-one chat about this in the privacy of Emily’s apartment, but no one on this show is consulting me, which is really a shame. That said, I appreciate this (alas, short-lived) display of emotional maturity from two characters in this series. 

Gen continues to pioneer new levels of professional incompetence by not knowing about Brexit (!) and thus blanking on the fact that Thomas Heatheron’s chef would need a visa to get into the country. Once again, this is an optimal moment to fire her, but no one around here is going to do anything at the optimal moment. Emily offers Gabriel’s services because she has a vision in which Gabriel’s food is so good that Antoine realizes he can’t just toss him out, and the two men (again, adults) will have to learn to work together. Sylvie is not convinced by this elaborate plot, and neither am I.

Outside the office, a man awaits Emily. It’s NICO. Ugh, literally, why? We moved on! He served his purpose; let him go! But I do like Emily’s dress here. Emily does a great job of telling him off and refusing to pass a message along in his behalf to Mindy, but she does inadvertently let it slip that Mindy is back at the Crazy Horse, so now he knows where to find her. Nico shows up at the Crazy Horse that evening, uninvited, to be told to his face by Mindy that she has blocked him. He says he wants to apologize, that he’s changed, and that he can prove it. Mindy says it’s too late. It is in this distraught headspace that she must tell her best friend that she is dating said best friend’s ex-boyfriend. 

It sure seems like Alfie and Mindy should’ve worked out their routine in advance. Instead, Mindy dodges. When, in a quick sidebar, she tries to explain why she’s not in a good place for this tough conversation, Alfie dumps her. One of my biggest pet peeves about this show is how often male characters behave in totally out-of-character ways just to move the plot forward. For instance, the Alfie who was very serious about Mindy one night before would not suddenly bail because her ex — whom Mindy blocked everywhere — rudely accosted her at her job. Plot is supposed to spring from character, not be flung at them from the story gods. Hard to get invested in anyone or anything when they don’t have a consistent way of existing in this world.

Laurent tells Sylvie that his girlfriend would like to go on a date with them. “She doesn’t want to get between us, but she wouldn’t mind getting between us.” How French! Sylvie’s response to this: “You should get your own apartment.” Laurent moved to Paris to make their relationship work. But is it working? I can’t imagine he thought he would be endearing himself to his wife by letting some other woman wear Sylvie’s clothes and have sex in her bed, but he seems quite wounded by this.

Improbably, Emily has pulled together the Heatherton Hotel event in 72 hours. It’s basically the “Bonjour!” scene of Beauty and the Beast, which is only marginally less on the nose than the original idea, but it certainly seems to have pleased the client. He’s all about sustainability and loves Gabriel’s plant-based meals. (A billionaire who cares about sustainability? Okay, I see, now we’re doing science fiction.)

Julien shows Mindy the latest news in the fashion world: Nico stepped down from the family business. (But also, he wasn’t necessarily going to get to take it over anyway? He was a competitor in a succession war, and I’m pretty sure he lost, no?) Mindy unblocks him, and all his texts come through: He’s sorry, he misses her, blah, blah, blah.

Gen is sticking her tacky hats in the gift bags. Luc warns her that doing so without Sylvie’s go-ahead is a bad move. Sylvie does, in fact, discover the hats and deputizes Emily to fire the nepo baby. “I’m making you Vice-President in Charge of Firing Useless Stepchildren,” she says. Though it takes a minute for Gen to figure out what’s happening (“Are you trying to fire me?” Girl, duh), and then she fights it in the classic nepo style. (Do we think she would actually say “don’t you know who my father is?” I don’t think real people ever do!). Finally, Gen uses this opportunity to tell Emily that Mindy and Alfie “have been hooking up for ages” and everyone knows but her. Julien, cornered, confirms this.

Of course, at this moment, Mindy comes over to blurt out everything she’s just learned re: Nico, JVMA, “I’m pretty sure he did it for me.” What ever should she do?! Emily’s retort: “That depends. Are you and Alfie just exclusive, or is it just sex?” 

The next day, Emily pops over to Gigi’s, where she finds out that Gabriel is resigning from the restaurant to work on a yacht for a billionaire, which is a horrible idea because there’s no such thing as a sane billionaire. Just the fact that he goes to space for 11 minutes to celebrate every victory is a MASSIVE red flag; I am aligned with Olivia Rodrigo and Brooke Dubek on this matter. Also, personally wouldn’t want to be trapped at sea with a billionaire, even/especially on a yacht, but that’s because I watch Industry.

“I’m never really going to be happy here,” says Gabriel, gesturing at the restaurant he built to his exact specifications to honor his beloved grandmother, where he, just months ago, won a Michelin star. To this, I say: Okay, bye, whatever, take that spray tan and go! 

But that’s probably not how the show wants me to feel because the end credits roll to the sound of a weird, extra-sad version of Dido’s “White Flag.” LOTS of interesting song choices this season, wouldn’t you say?