‘Emily in Paris’ Season 3 Episode 8 Recap: Blame It on the Alcohol

After that dark twist at the end of last episode, the gloomy tone remains as the Grateau staff walk through a park dressed in black, obviously talking about Pierre Cadault in a way that sure sounds like the designer is dead. But, in another twist, he’s actually very much alive, and they’re not leaving his grave, but paying him a visit at a very high-end hospital.

While meeting with Cadault — who does not know yet that he’s being fired from his own brand and replaced with Gregory — Sylvie tries not to talk about work with him, and back at the Grateau office, she takes a meeting with Gregory himself, who honestly seems a little annoyed that Cadault is alive. And after he spills about his past, can we really blame him? Gregory reveals that he was previously photographed while “enjoying fellatio al fresco” and was nicknamed “Gag-ory” by Cadault, who coined the iconic and unfortunate term while speaking with the press.

Emily, after seeing Cadault in recovery, calls Nicolas, asking him to hold off on announcing Gregory as the new head of the brand while Cadault remains in the hospital. He says no, and Emily tells Sylvie, who takes matters into her own hands when she arranges a meeting with Louis de Leon, Nicolas’ father and the JVMA boss. Over lunch, she asks him to delay the announcement to let Cadault leave his brand gracefully, but he’s not swayed and says it’s ultimately Nicolas’ decision.

He’s also just gross, and deflect Sylvie’s questions by talking about her being just as “feisty and beautiful” as she was when she was an assistant. But Sylvie knows how to play the game too, and says she “remembers everything” about working with him, implying Louis was a creep to her. After she lightly blackmails him, they make a deal and he says he’ll pause the announcement for now.

That night, Mindy, Emily and Nicolas are chatting after Mindy’s performance at the jazz club, where Nicolas confronts Emily about Sylvie going over his head by talking to his father about delaying the Cadault news, which isn’t fair because she didn’t know anything about it, anyway.

Nicolas is angry, telling Emily it’s his choice when to announce, and Emily leaves him and Mindy to have dinner on their own. She gets a text from Gabriel asking to get a drink just as she’s walking back, and she finds him sitting on the riverbank slugging a bottle of Japanese whiskey, and he is druuuunk. He tells her he suspects Camille is cheating on him after he saw a photo of her in Greece with Sofia and some guys at a club, but he continues to spill secrets, confessing to Emily that he suspects Camille never forgave him for when he and Emily hooked up, and telling Emily he fell in love with her right when he first saw her.

Emily’s response? Let’s just call a cab. In the back of the car, Gabriel is still chugging whisky and says he loves both Emily and Camille, but Emily gets him safely back into his apartment before he can drunkenly confess anything more.

The next day at work, Emily tells Sylvie that Nicolas was angry about her meeting with his father, and he’s still going forward with the Gregory announcement that night. Sylvie knows she now has to break the news to Cadault, and she and Emily visit him in the hospital, where he’s expectedly upset, especially when he finds out that “Gag-ory” got the job.

Still, they proceed with the Cadault store opening, with Gregory set to claim the Cadault crown that night. While there, Nicolas tries to make amends with Emily, toasting to the two of them after bringing Gregory on and promising plenty of success to come. But Emily has something up her sleeve. She and Sylvie arrive at the event pretending Cadault is dead to build buzz around him, not just his brand.

The plan works, and rumors begin to swirl about Cadault at the party that he died in the hospital that morning. Just as the news of his “death” is hitting peak interest with the crowd, Cadault emerges, walking through a hologram of himself to correct rumors of his demise.

Nicolas quickly puts it together that Sylvie had the idea of killing off Cadault and asks her to leave, severing connection with him and his company, but Sylvie couldn’t care less. As he and his father officially cut her agency out of JVMA, she says she’s losing something she never even wanted: a relationship with Louis de Leon. United, she and Emily leave the party, spelling trouble for her friendship with Mindy, but ultimately success for her relationship with Sylvie.

The next day, Emily is returning to the apartment when she runs into Gabriel, who says Camille came back yesterday. And he’s in a way better mood — and better shape — than when we saw him last. Gabriel tells Emily that Camille assured him she was seeing “no one,” so he’s happy, and they just “missed each other.”

Oh, and he doesn’t remember any of the crazy stuff he said either, which is probably for the best.