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With Season 5 on it's way, Emily now finds herself in a lose-lose situation
**spoilers ahead
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Emily in Paris is living our collective dream! She has left her American life behind to move to Europe and pursue her career while living in French culture. She’s sampling all Paris has to offer from the food, arts, entertainment, and even men. She’s dating around as women in their twenties often do, and we cannot fault her for that. It begs the question, since leaving the good, ol’ US of A, has she given too little thought to her long-term plans? Since she’s so successfully embedded herself in Paris, it appears now that Emily has girl-bossed herself into quite the conundrum.
Should Emily ever arrive at a desire to marry or have a family, she has now placed herself into a lose-lose situation: she can either move home and start a family, but abandon her entire career and everything she has worked for since leaving Chicago, OR she can stay and work more on her career and choose to settle down and start a family alone in another country without her own family’s support.
She’s dated British, French and now in season four has landed herself an Italian man who makes us all swoon with his “Ciao Bella” and his direct, clear displays of intention with her. Marcello has left behind the gray areas and even in one scene takes her to the Trevvi Fountain where he explains the true tradition– tossing in one coin means you will return, two coins means you will fall in love when you return and three coins means you will marry. Emily herself is the one who hesitates there, but based upon the look on Marcello’s face in the scene, we can tell that he is a marriage-minded man. He later shows Emily around his hometown, she meets his family and community and finds it to be warm and welcoming, true to Marcello’s Italian roots.
When season four wrapped, it was clear in social media spheres that audiences loved Marcello’s character and wanted them to become a more permanent item. This brings Emily’s predicament to the forefront of our minds. Should she decide Marcello is the elusive “One” and get married, she then is faced with the prospects of cementing her life in Europe. She’s just been handed a promotion and will now be the director of Agence Grateau á Roma, which means her lovely team and friends will be living back in Paris without her. She will need to consider what that will look like long term. Will she be comfortable having a family in Italy, away from her own family and all that is familiar? It’s well accepted that raising kids is hard enough, but even more so when you are away from any type of support system. This presents an impossible decision. Emily would have to give up everything she has worked toward these past four years if she wants to raise a family near her own family. Who could blame her for choosing to stay where her career is and live in the life she has curated for herself?
Regardless of what the Emily in Paris writers have planned, we’re enjoying watching her explore Europe. The show’s writing team has presented the modern woman with the perfect example for how not to navigate your early career as a woman. In the beginning of season four before even meeting Marcello, Emily speaks to her friend Camille in an art gallery about her philosophy for living life in Europe when she says, “I am less focused on next year and more focused on making the right decision for me right now.”
Maybe Emily should take a tip from Camille? After telling Gabriel the truth about her false positive pregnancy, Camille ghosts everyone for a while. Audiences later find her to discover that she has moved apartments and plans to adopt a baby on her own. The show does not give us detail about what happened when Camille took her time to make this decision, but we know based upon her tone and demeanor as she tells Emily this, that she did deliberate and it was not made lightly.
Emily’s roommate Mindy is often depicted as a lighter character in the show, but even she has clearly given thought to her goals in life. Mindy is in pursuit of a self-made career in music and throughout the show has made sure that is what she’s working towards. Mindy even went so far as to break up with her boyfriend, Nicolas De Léon, whom she so deeply loved because he was not supportive of her arts pursuits. We can see through the portrayal of Mindy’s character and how she handles rejections in both her career and romantic life that she is taking time to think about her goals in life and consciously making decisions toward what she wants.
It was a refreshing change when audiences saw Emily lose a bit of her luster in season 4 part one, when she runs into her hunky, British ex-boyfriend Alfie only to find that he’s moved on and is even attending church services with his new paramour. Audiences needed to see that Emily has more emotions than just happiness all the time. It leaves open the door for more character development later for Emily and we can hope that means she will take a less laissez faire attitude toward her relationships and goals in life.
While it may seem overwhelming to think about starting a family, getting married or choosing your career path in your early 20s, it’s an important concept for the modern 20-something to contemplate. Making decisions with such weight can seem daunting and avoidance, as portrayed by Emily, is certainly an easier route. Merely “vibing” your way through each decision has such appeal as it allows one to run on instinct and make choices easily. But after years of running on feelings alone and suddenly standing in front of a major decision like marriage, or children to find that you have never even considered that path before will make it seem an insurmountable choice.
Young women today should be encouraged to do both. Pursue your career, find things that bring you joy and spend your time engaged there, but be sure to consciously make decisions over the course of time that will give yourself freedom in the future. Not only the freedom to choose between two options such as starting a family in Europe or moving home, but the freedom that comes from forethought. Having the self-awareness and comfort within one’s own psyche to contemplate different paths in life and what those might look like allows one to come to easier decisions in the future when it is time to make them with confidence and no regrets.
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Rachel Persson is a midwest-based writer for The Swish. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Public Relations, with minors in Psychology and Religious Studies. Her academic background brings a unique perspective to her writing. She is a wife, mother, fertility awareness educator, blogger, knitter, gluten-free baker and self-identified crunchy mom. Rachel believes that true femininity lies in accepting all facets of ourselves, even those that might be termed “masculine,” for it is in self acceptance that we can find the confidence to embrace our womanhood.
You can read more about her life here: https://www.femmwithrachel.com/blog
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