And just like that—whoops, wrong show—Emily's world was turned upside down. (Warning: If you haven't finished season two of Emily in Paris, stop reading now and come back later. Major spoilers ahead!)
In the second-season finale, Emily Cooper made a major life decision…but in perfect cliff-hanger couture fashion, we'll have to wait until a yet-to-be-renewed season three to find out whether our protagonist is heading back home to the Windy City or staying in the City of Light.
To recap, a lot went down in the season finale, titled “French Revolution.” Madeline Wheeler (Kate Walsh) and Sylvie Grateau (Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu) went head-to-head over the best way to run marketing firm Savoir. Although Sylvie knows the French way of business better than Madeline, Savoir is a subsidiary of the American conglomerate Gilbert Group, so she's technically at Madeline's mercy. Sylvie tries to bite her tongue; but when it all becomes too much, she resigns in epic fashion at Gregory Elliott Dupree's stunner of a runway show at the Palace of Versailles, along with colleagues Luc and Julien.
Emily is naturally distraught at the developments, but remains—for now—loyal to Madeline. That is, until Madeline starts treating Emily as more of an intern than the respectable marketing colleague she's become. When Sylvie eventually tells Emily she'd like her to take a leap of faith and come work for her at her new marketing firm, Emily is conflicted. She'll have to stay in Paris longer than she anticipated, but Emily is mostly excited over what she knows is the right opportunity.
Of course, there's the issue of her love life. Emily has a heart-to-heart with her best friend Mindy, who tells her to go after what she wants after Emily finally admits she's in love with Gabriel. But British import/dreamboat Alfie is still in the picture, and while it took him a while to warm up to our impressionable American, he can't deny his feelings for her any longer and wants to go all in. Problem is, Em doesn't quite feel the same.
In the last few minutes, Emily runs to Gabriel's apartment to confess her feelings, only to be interrupted by Camille, who has gotten back together with Gabriel—and moved in with him! It's a gut punch to Emily, whose plan to stay in Paris, work for Sylvie, and start anew with Gabriel is suddenly derailed. And then, after hours of walking alone in the city, a tearful Emily finds herself making a call to Sylvie and saying, “I've made my decision.” Fade to black.
So while Emily in Chicago doesn't quite have the same ring to it as Emily in Paris, it's anybody's guess what she'll decide. Lucky for us, creator Darren Star hopped on Zoom with West Coast editor Jessica Radloff to give us some insight into what might happen next. Read on.
Of the final episode, Darren Star tells Glamour, “As a writer and a creator, you have this wish list of what you'd like to do. I thought, Okay, fashion show in Versailles Hall of Mirrors, but you don't actually think you're going to get that. It's a testament to our crew, producer, location manager, director Andy Fleming, and director of photography Steven Fierberg how they pulled this off. I had to beg, borrow, and steal some more money from Netflix, which they graciously, generously gave us, because once we're there, we need it to go all the way.”
STÉPHANIE BRANCHU/NETFLIX
