Emily in Paris takes on Italy: The latest season was stylish and fun, but the storyline fell flat

Rome looks good on Emily — but fair warning, there are spoilers ahead!

Five seasons deep into the established Netflix rom-com, Emily in Paris, the titular character is navigating her personal life while taking on the marketing world with Agence Grateau in the streets of Italy.

Also blooming this season was a romance between her and Italian hunk Marcello Muratori.

While Emily’s character growth was substantial, the storyline was dull — and at this point in the show, I thought it would get bigger and better. Unfortunately, that was not the case.

Emily had a lot to juggle — especially in her relationship with Marcello Muratori, the young heir of Umberto Muratori, a fictional Italian fashion brand focused on cashmere apparel. Marcello is known for being a player — and mixing work with business can be a sticky situation.

When I look back on Season 1 and compare it to now, Emily is really taking risks and putting herself out there. She has had her flings and romances in past seasons (we can’t forget the handsome French chef, Gabriel), but this is the first time we actually see Emily take a shot at a relationship.​

This season, Emily navigates the challenges of maintaining a work-life balance. At times, she overthinks her relationship with Marcello, questioning whether his true intention is to build a long-term relationship with her.

Emily finds what appears to be an engagement ring in his bag — and the excitement of a potential engagement makes her happy, with her whole personality revolving around the ring and when the heir is going to propose. But with a breakup early in the season and then them getting back together later on, an engagement seems rushed considering the instability of their relationship. Nonetheless, Emily found love this season.

Yet, there’s the realization that what she wants and her intentions toward Marcello differ from his intentions toward her, leading them to part ways at the end of the season.​

Emily’s character development does not end there. Her relationship with Sylvie Grateau, a fashion marketing executive for Agence Grateau, has grown significantly since the first season, and the development is quite apparent in Season 5. Grateau did not like Emily the moment she laid eyes on her. She was hard on her and, frankly, quite harsh as well. 

This season, I loved their relationship. Their working relationship fostered into something much more — a friendship. Sylvie needed Emily more than ever, which we did not see in the early days of Emily in Paris. I loved their bond — and it was definitely a highlight of the season.

A relationship I did not love was the unexpected connection between Emily’s ex-boyfriend, Alfie, and her best friend, Mindy. I felt the relationship did not add much to the storyline and was unnecessary to include, especially since it did not last long. Emily went out to find out about the two and it was devastating to her. This season would have been better off without this relationship.

While I enjoyed seeing character developments this season, I wish the storyline was a little less flat and dull. I felt as though we were getting a repeat of the past four seasons, but in a different country. Nothing big and exciting happened, except for maybe Mindy getting engaged to her ex, Nico, and Emily breaking things off with Marcello in the last episode.

Also, we had Agence Grateau in Italy fall apart and fail miserably by the end of the season. Needless to say, Season 5 did not hit. I hope the show’s writers come up with a better, more engaging storyline next season.

Overall, I give Season 5 of Emily in Paris a 6/10. The storyline needs a lot of work, but Emily’s character development saved the season.