This past “challenging times” TV season seems to have been particularly hard on female-led series, with beloved shows like Stumptown, High Fidelity, GLOW, Teenage Bounty Hunters, etc., getting the axe, often with the excuse that they were just not cost-effective enough in the COVID era. And yet: The Hollywood Reporter announces today that the expensive-looking Netflix rom-com travelogue series Emily In Paris will come back to pummel us all with even more annoying hashtags and outfits we could never fit into/afford for an upcoming season two.
While the Darren Star series about the plucky Midwestern social media maven upstart (Lily Collins) eager to win over the snooty French people had a decent critical turnout, it received a lot of backlash for Emily’s, um, simplistic view of Paris (“The entire city looks like Ratatouille!” she tells her soon-ousted at-home boyfriend), as well as its swipes back at her Chicago hometown (You keep the sacred name of Lou Malnati’s pizza out of your damn mouth, Emily). Some viewers, though, apparently found Emily irresistible as a picturesque travelogue/fun-to-hate-on binge-watch; it was oddly hypnotic to witness as one mesmerizing Parisian landscape just unfurled after another. THR calls Emily In Paris a “breakout word-of-mouth hit” and reports that, “Nielsen said subscribers watched more than 676 million minutes of the series within its first week of release.” So. Many. Hashtags.
No episode count or premiere date yet for Emily’s second season, but the show will be heading back to Paris, its primary selling point, to shoot in the spring. Season one, you’ll remember, ended with Emily’s career skyrocketing but her romantic life entangled in some sort of love quadrangle. No word on whether COVID-19 will be worked into the storyline, but maybe Emily could use that downtime to finally learn French!
We would have much rather seen a season two of The CW’s similarly themed and already cancelled Katy Keene: At least she made her own clothes.