Right off the bat, I’ll tell you the title of this episode made me VERY nervous. Although Emily is an American living abroad, without income and (I assume) a work visa to her name, she is trying to brand her current crises as “funemployment” and spends her days livestreaming her frantic efforts to, I guess, burn through all of her savings as quickly as humanly possible. Am I the only person who has put two and two together re: her apartment belonging to the Gilbert Group? Mindy will ALSO need to find a new place to live in the event Emily gets evicted! Anyway, Emily has a list of things to do while she focuses on LIFE, and they include “have sex in the middle of the day” (Has she not done that yet? EMILY!) and take a Segway tour (… no).
Over at Savoir, Sylvie has inherited the pet-food account, brought to her by Julien and Luc, and is using Emily’s pet filter (though she does not know its origin). Unfortunately, Sylvie is stuck dealing with administrative bullshit instead of sleeping soundly next to her beautiful boyfriend, and to get herself out of this red tape, she texts Laurent, her hot “ex” husband. Yes! He tells her she’s sexy; she says she needs help, he’s already on his way. A perfect relationship!
Camille is dressing like an American girl’s idea of a parody of a French person (beret wrapped in a netted veil and also, suspenders??) to give a hot artist, Sofia, a tour of her gallery space. Sofia’s piece is a confessional where whatever secret you whisper gets beamed out in lights on the wall of the gallery, and it’s not really clear exactly how it works — like, does it happen in real time? So there’s no secret to the secret? Or do the secrets get scrambled through some hidden tech mechanism that brings intrigue into the otherwise fairly no-duh process? Sofia is flirting with Camille basically constantly, and Camille neither rejects nor encourages this … it is truly impossible to tell if this is an acting choice she is making or if she is just generally nonresponsive no matter what her scene partner is throwing her way.
A waiter at Gabriel’s restaurant is conveniently playing hooky, so Emily, who allegedly waited tables in college, has a new gig. Gabriel points out that she barely speaks French and does not even understand the menu, but her first night goes astonishingly well. Have we finally found something that Emily is good at?
Later, Camille is wearing an enormous neon-green suit jacket to discover that Emily quit her job three days prior. It seems impossible to me that she would not already know this. But she and her parents have a meeting at Sylvie’s office where Sylvie learns that Emily is still in Paris, posting the most annoying Stories you’ve ever seen in your life. Camille’s parents say, “Never a dull moment with Emily!” and I write in my notes, “Honestly there are SO many dull moments with Emily … have we met the same Emily?”
Camille tells her parents she still feels guilty about breaking her fake pact with Emily over Gabriel. Her parents, correctly, tell her to get over it.
The next day, Emily grabs lunch with Luc and Julien. Her hair looks very dopey in that scrunchie. They want her back at the agency but advise her against making the hard sell. Julien’s hilarious advice: “The worst thing you can do is remind Sylvie you exist.” Then Luc tells her that everybody has sex on the Ferris wheel (the Roue de Paris, I think?), so Emily adds that to her to-do list. (At the very end of the episode, she closes out her funemployment week by having sex on the Ferris wheel with Alfie.)
Sylvie looks very chic even just lounging around doing paperwork with her cute scruffy ex. She ought to hire a business manager so she can focus her energies on creative! Maybe Laurent is interested? An interesting power move on Sylvie’s part to not even tell her boyfriend that Laurent was coming to town and staying at her place. The boyfriend speaks English about this, I assume as an act of aggression, but before the fight can escalate, Sylvie says she has to get dressed for Camille’s gallery event tonight. (This is how Sylvie looks before she gets dressed to go out? I have so much to learn from her.)
Camille’s parents head to Gabriel’s restaurant for dinner and discover, to their absolute horror, that Emily is waiting tables there. Emily has learned about the Kir Royale and has the (actually good, “a broken clock etc., etc.”) idea to use Champére Champagne to make a canned cocktail. She bounces so much while she talks. Is she nervous? Or just like this? I do love that Camille’s parents hate her. SOMEONE should hate her! At the gallery that night, Camille’s mom reports to her daughter that she ought to be VERY worried about how close Emily and Gabriel are in that restaurant. Meanwhile, Sofia the artist tells Camille that her type is “smart French women with exquisite taste.” Does Camille date women or just flirt with them? (Remember when we first met her and the whole episode was a fake-out about her flirting with Emily?)
Camille’s mom spots Sylvie and reports that Emily is working at Gabriel’s restaurant. “The useful people to keep around are the ones you’re most threatened by,” she says, adding that Emily’s canned-cocktail idea is a strong one. Camille’s mom is doing a lot of heavy lifting to get the plot moving and I really appreciate her valiant service.
Over at the restaurant, Emily accidentally almost manslaughters someone because her language skills aren’t up to par. There is a very heated discussion over calling 911, and it is not at all shocking to learn that Emily doesn’t know the 911-equivalent number of the country where she has been living for almost a year. (Her delivery of “YOU SAID NO CELL PHONES AT WORK” is extremely funny.) The mushroom man lives, even though Emily’s Kelly Kapowski hair is going to kill me. Gabriel very kindly fires Emily and suggests she take the time to live. She admits she is afraid to do so. I know I drag them all the time for having no chemistry, but you know what? In this scene, I do believe them as friends. I know I am supposed to believe them as more than friends, but I’ll report on those sparks when I see them.
Speaking of sparks: Erik, the photographer boyfriend, tells Sylvie he is not at all thrilled that her not-even-ex-husband is slumber-partying at their place. But this lunch is interrupted by a table beside them ordering the Kir Royale, and Sylvie thinks the universe is giving her a sign. So she humbles herself and deigns to check Emily’s Instagram so she can track her down. She and Mindy are playing bumper cars … are you KIDDING me. You’re in Paris, Emily! She is wearing one of her least chic outfits to date. So much bright green. And why would she wear heels and a coat and knee socks for this Chuck E. Cheese–style adventure?
Emily swears to Sylvie that the pet-filter and the canned-cocktail pitches had no ulterior motive and she was only trying to help. This is actually very believable because I don’t think Emily is complicated enough for ulterior motives. Sylvie is far too proud to steal an idea, so “we’ll have to come to some sort of arrangement,” which is all the encouragement Emily needs to SQUEAL and hug her. Emily, calm down and negotiate! Sylvie’s parting words: “I’ll see you on Monday. Don’t be early.” Impeccable. Still doesn’t explain the apartment, however.
