I can’t stop thinking about the embassy episode of Emily in Paris Season 5. In a chaotic season, released December 18th, which includes four episodes of (admittedly gorgeous) Roman Holiday pastiche, a fantastical finale shot in Venice, and a lot of uninspired partner-swapping and work drama in between, the new season’s sixth episode struck an unexpected chord in my little ex-expat heart.
The ‘Emily in Paris’ Embassy Episode
While momentarily single and in a fight with her best friend, Mindy, Emily embarks on a red-white-and-blue side quest. In this episode, titled, “The One Where Emily Goes to the Embassy,” our heroine accidentally finds herself at an American bar in Paris, where a round of Friends trivia is being played. There’s a meet-cute with a charming Michigander named Jake (played by Bryan Greenberg), who later invites her to a Fourth of July party at the U.S. Embassy, where he works.
Now, there are many small things in the episode that continually took me out of the story, per usual. Why does Emily ask for a “Pabst Blue Ribbon” from the clearly-American bartender, instead of just calling it a PBR like a normal human person? When Jake shows her where he’s from using her hand as a map of Michigan, why does she hold out the wrong hand? (The girl is from Chicago, she would know what Michigan looks like!) And how are we supposed to believe that this episode takes place around the Fourth of July when everyone is wearing full blazers and pants the whole time? (Have we already forgotten the Season 2 plotline about how hot and sweaty Paris is in summer thanks to the lack of AC?)
However, on the whole, the episode made me nostalgic about my own nostalgia for home during the years I lived abroad. There’s a delightful glee to watching Emily back among other Americans, playing cornhole and eating Reese’s Puffs on the floor of the secret embassy commissary full of American junk food. (This commissary is a real place, by the way, but it’s only accessible to embassy staff, and as such was not filmed on-location.) She doesn’t seem as loud or obnoxious in this context—in fact, she fits right in.
Characters and viewers alike have spent years mocking Emily Cooper for her inability to assimilate to French life, to be a good little parisienne who speaks French, wears tailored suiting, has messy love affairs, and knows when to shut the f— up. There are, of course, valid points to this criticism; Emily exhibits a striking lack of awareness and respect for cultural norms, and expects everyone around her to meet her where she’s at, linguistically and otherwise.
In Season 5, we are shown, Emily has finally committed herself—or, I should say, submitted herself—to assimilation as a project of self-improvement. She can speak in complete sentences in French (even if her accent is comically atrocious), her style has vastly improved, and she no longer panics at the thought of showing up to the office after 9 am. (In fact, she’s almost convinced to extend her sexy grasse matinée past lunch by Italian stallion Marcello in the season premiere.)
We are even provided with a couple of characters who seem designed to make Emily look less tacky by comparison. There’s Princess Jane, the “palazzo-poor” socialite played by Minnie Driver whose penchant for brand-shilling leads Julian to say, “I thought I was a label whore, but this is next-level,” after Jane orchestrates a truly surreal Peroni product placement moment at her swanky gala. And let’s not forget Genevieve, the intern from hell, whose unabashed entrepreneurial aspirations get her swiftly fired from Agence Grateau despite her nepo-baby status.
Emily Cooper as the Assimilated American Expat
In contrast, Emily has been pretty well-behaved, according to French standards. But navigating the liminal space between the customs and mores of a new country and those of your own is a process that can feel markedly dissociative, a subject Emily broaches with Jake at the embassy’s Fourth of July bash. “Living abroad can be hard sometimes,” she tells him, as they watch the fireworks display. “You’re here, but back in the States, everything is just… going on without you.” He responds by acknowledging the alienating feeling of those abroad keeping you at an arm’s length because “they know you’re just passing through.” It’s during this conversation about the challenges of making true connections abroad that Emily decides to make up with Mindy, showing up at her temporary abode to throw croissants at the window. Their shouted reconciliation earns them an admonishment from a neighboring French woman, but instead of feeling shamed, the two burst into laughter.
This scene sticks with me because up until this point in the season, Emily has been performing Frenchness to what is deemed a more-or-less satisfactory degree. But here, though knowing the rules, she chooses to break them, fortified by her day at the U.S. Embassy. This is a crucial step in assimilation, wherein individualism is broken down and then built back up from scratch. It’s only when you have displayed a mastery of cultural norms that you are “allowed” to break them. (I recall, for example, a bistro lunch I had years ago with a friend, a born-and-bred Parisian, who ordered ketchup to go with her fries, a move I would never have dared to make lest it give me away as an ugly American.)
France, as a nation, encourages assimilation almost to a fault. This concept is sharply contrasted with American individualism, of which Emily Cooper is the ultimate avatar. She avoids the performance of assimilation for years (which she is able to do, in large part, because of her inherent privilege as a thin, conventionally attractive white woman), but ultimately can’t escape it, and she is heavily rewarded for eventually conforming.
Still, something is lost in the process of her moulding herself into the shape of the acceptable, inoffensive parisienne. There is a sense of resignation to it, of acknowledging her own cultural inferiority as an American in France, her self-hatred internalized and buried under long-lasting L’Oréal lipstick and a cunty bob.
When the embassy episode ends, and Jake fails to make another appearance throughout the rest of the season (Shame! Bring him back! Let Emily date someone she’s not already professionally entangled with!), it all feels like a kind of fever dream. Emily returns to her French-ified life and her European beaus, the taste of Pop-Tarts and hot dogs on her lips now but a faint memory. You can go home again, the show seems to say, but now that you’ve ascended to the pleasures and privileges of assimilation, why would you ever want to?
Catherine Rickman is a writer, professional Francophile, and host of the Expat Horror Stories podcast. She is currently somewhere in Brooklyn with a fork in one hand and a pen in the other, and you can follow her adventures on Instagram @catrickman.
