‘Emily in Paris’ Season 5 Moment Proves Emily is Losing Her Touch

Emily in Paris‘ fifth season proves that Emily (Lily Collins) has still got it, both professionally and personally. Not only is she helping Agence Grateau acquire and keep new clients, but she also remains that fascinating American girl in Paris who men seem to fawn over. And while Emily does a great job when it comes to getting the agency out of jams and saving otherwise botched campaigns, there’s one big blunder in the season that suggests Emily might be losing her touch, even if she manages to recover from it.

Emily Fails to Realize What Going Viral Would Mean

Marcello and his mom listening to a presentation in Emily in Paris.

Image via Netflix

From the very beginning of Emily in Paris, one of Netflix’s best guilty pleasure shows, Emily is presented as a social media-savvy marketing maven. It’s for this reason, in fact, that her boss sends her to Paris, entrusting her with working as the American counterpart. While Emily initially has trouble tapping into the Parisian market, she eventually gets a feel for it and proves herself worthy. She wins the affections of everyone, including eventually the boss, Sylvie (Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu), who later becomes her boss when Emily decides to work at Sylvie’s newly formed agency.

Time and time again, Emily proves that she knows how to capture the attention of the younger generation, the perfect buying demographic for many of the products that the agency is trying to sell across industries like beauty, apparel, and food. When the story shifts to Rome at the end of Season 4, however, and Emily begins working with a classic Italian fashion brand that isn’t interested in marketing itself to become any bigger, she might be out of her depth. What’s more, she becomes distracted by the handsome son of the owner, Marcello (Eugenio Franceschini), who eventually becomes her latest romantic partner.

Emily’s insistence to Marcello’s mother, Antonia (Anna Galiena), that she should expand and grow the brand makes sense given the nature of her job. The company has thrived on being small and exclusive to Italy, but the opportunities given by their reputation are endless. Emily sees this, and she can’t help but jump on it. But when they manage to convince Antonia to launch a perfume worldwide to grow awareness for the brand as a compromise, it all goes awry.

During an event where Emily invites influencers, they work to spread the word to their collective millions of followers. In fairness, it’s Princess’ (Minnie Driver) fault for revealing the location where Muratori makes its clothing, exposing the quaint village to the internet. Still, surely Emily must have realized that inviting influencers would lead to someone discovering this location. The fallout was tremendous, with tourists galore, storming the tiny village that Marcello and his family have called home all their lives, disrupting the flow. The fact that Emily didn’t even consider that this could happen suggests that either she is losing her touch or isn’t cut out for certain campaigns or industries. She might do well in America, maybe tap the Parisian market. But Italy is a whole different ballgame.

Is Emily Good at Her Job?

Emily looking over at Marcello during a meeting in Emily in Paris.

This isn’t to say that Emily isn’t good at her job. Sylvie and the others recognize that she is, and brush off her blunders that lead to cringe moments because, well, everyone makes mistakes. But this was a pretty big one. Compounded with her idea to use the same perfume that was initially being marketed as perfume for babies, and thinking no one would ever figure it out (they haven’t yet, but you never know), Emily seems to be exploring lines she never would have crossed before.

In another instance, for example, she rubs a burger patty on her palm to attract a dog so she can get the attention of a sought-after designer to coax him into working with Marcello on his new fashion line. It’s not a dishonest move, but it’s also manipulative; the owner genuinely believes his pet was simply drawn to Emily as a person and not the sweet taste of the meat. It was a clever move, but it questions Emily’s ethics.

Whatever direction Emily takes her career in, it seems that if she can make as big a mistake as she did with the Muratoris, even if they eventually forgave her and regretted firing her once the storm calmed, it was a bad marketing move. Considering Princess’s new role at the agency, it’s possible that if the show continues, she will play an even bigger role in getting in the way of Emily’s campaigns. In this sense, that could force Emily back on her toes and thinking the way she did in the previous seasons, instead of letting her love life interfere.

Emily and the team had some fantastic campaign ideas in the past, like the QR code pet filters for a pet food company and livestreaming a real engagement for a French clothing company. Emily thinks quickly on her feet, and she’s able to pivot when disaster strikes, which seems to happen often for the agency (think the rubber boots for that Venice fashion show in Season 5). So, while this viral campaign mishap was a huge blunder that wasn’t entirely her fault, it suggests that if Emily gets distracted, too involved with the clients, or has to acclimate to a new country and marketing tastes, she can miss a beat. She has grown leaps and bounds in her career, but she still has a lot to learn. Stream Emily in Paris on Netflix.