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Emily in Paris spoilers ahead!
Emily In Paris just considered getting un petit peu polyamoureuse. But naturally, Emily got polyamory completely wrong — and did it in the messiest way possible.
In part 1 of season 4 of Emily In Paris, which dropped on Netflix last week, Emily (Lily Collins) may be growing out her trauma bangs, but she's still just as chaotic as ever. Last season saw Gabriel (Lucas Bravo) and the pregnant Camille (Camille Razat) almost tying the knot before Camille ran off from the altar, stating, “You and Emily have been in love with each other since the moment you met… I’m sorry. I really am, but I can’t marry you. And it’s time we all just stop pretending.” Plus, Camille had also been having an affair with Sofia (Melia Kreiling), a Grecian artist. This left things rather complicated between Emily and her boyfriend Alfie (Lucien Laviscount).
So, as season 4 begins, everyone's relationship seems to be up in the air: Alfie won't speak to Emily, Emily is still avoiding romance with Gabriel and Camille has run off for some alone time at Monet's garden (as you do). Soon, however, things seem to settle. Camille strikes up a relationship with Sofia. Emily, after a flirty conversation with Alfie, strikes up a relationship with Gabriel. (No, she doesn't break up with Alfie first — or even speak to him about this other relationship, as far as we can tell.) Camille (who is pregnant with Gabriel's child, we remind you) and Sofia move in with Gabriel, while Emily remains close by in her flat on the floor above. It's all very cosy and, yes, messy.
For about half an episode, Emily decides to lean into the uncertainty of her relationship with Gabriel and his two… flatmates? After Gabriel sets up a very cute rooftop bed-and-candle-situation, Emily says dreamily to Mindy (Ashley Park), “Maybe I'm more than one thing. Maybe I'm a little more complex than that. Maybe I'm someone who's living the question instead of always trying to find the right answer." She adds, "Everything doesn't always have to be so black and white.”
What Emily means by all of this is kind of unclear. That she's ok with being unsure if her boyfriend is still kind of in love with her ex-girlfriend who is also carrying his child? That's she's ok with him living with said ex-girlfriend and her new girlfriend in a one bedroom apartment?
Her meaning becomes a little clearer when, the next day, Emily puts her new philosophy to the test during a spontaneous pitch to Augustinus Bader for their new grey haircare line.
Emily pitches an ad about an older woman living in bohemian bliss who sneaks off to the roof for some sexy intimacy with her partner. “What makes people sexy is their openness to new experiences. New types of relationships," she says. “Maybe there's people in her apartment. Or maybe she's in a throuple. Or a polyamorous quad, you know, but they just wanted a moment alone.”
Emily dubs this lifestyle the “grey area.” Evidently, this is how Emily sees her new situation. It's certainly odd that she chooses words like “throuple” and “polyamorous quads” — because as far as everyone else in the situation is concerned, they are all monogamous. According to Emily, being in a throuple is the same thing as being in a messy situationship in which you simply decide for yourself that your monogamous partner can continue to have a bizarre semi-romantic situationship with his ex. According to Emily, this is what polyamory looks like.
Of course, Emily, once again, has got it all wrong.
As Gemma Nice, a Sex and Relationship Coach explains, real polyamorous relationships look rather different. “Within a polyamorous relationship, each person knows where they stand and there is equal love for everyone,” she says.
We need this on Netflix yesterday, s'il vous plaît.
However, in this case, Emily simply uses the concept as a means to avoid confronting issues in her own monogamous relationship. As such, it's portrayed more as a joke than anything else. “Within the Emily In Paris series, polyamory is portrayed as a joke in the form of each person loving another but not being in love with the whole poly family,” says Nice. “It is possible for us to love more than one person and be in an intimate relationship, but communication and trust needs to be high up on the agenda – but it doesn’t seem to be with this series.”
Emily's little foray into her (imagined) polyamorous relationship lasts all of about ten minutes in the show. When she inevitably starts to feel hurt again, she tells the landlady that there are too many people living in Gabriel's apartment. (Once again, the phrase ménage à trois is used for humour.)
Later, Emily tells Gabriel she actually doesn't want to be in a throuple or a quad — despite never having communicated that she did want this in the first place. “The more I think about it, it's just not me,” she tells him. “I need boundaries and order and a ceiling over my bed."
As ever, Emily seems to conduct her relationships in her own head without ever fully communicating with her partner.
For polyamorous people, this season of Emily In Paris may feel disappointing. By using terms like “polyamory” to make a joke out of Emily's messy situation with Gabriel, the show seems to suggest that all polyamorous relationships are, at their core, unhealthy or toxic. Ultimately, the show seems to say, polyamory is what happens when people simply don't know how to set boundaries or how to communicate.
Plus, by using polyamory as a little joke mid-way through the season, the show misses a trick.
“As a therapist specialising in gender, sexuality and relationship diversity, I work with many clients who feel confused, restricted and ashamed by their desire to explore love and sex beyond the monogamous ‘norm,'” says Counselling Directory member Amy Sutton. “For a show set in the city of romance, it’s a shame that it seems Emily in Paris hasn’t taken the opportunity to explore what modern romance can really look like.”
She adds, “For polyamorous people, watching a depiction of their lives that makes fun of, or perpetuates stereotypes can intensify feelings of difference or shame. They may feel less able to be open about their relationships to others, or feel they have to defend their choices, which can lead to anxiety and a sense of feeling silenced. When we silence who we are and how we love it can lead to feelings of low self-worth, anxiety, depression, isolation and shame. No one should be made to feel this way for loving who they love.”
