Director of “Emily in Paris” analyzes the finale of the fourth season in Rome

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Emily in Paris Season 4, Part 2.

Emily in Paris is now… Emily in Rome?

That's true: At least for now, Emily (Lily Collins) is living her best Lizzie McGuire – The Movie Fantasies in Italy's capital. The season ends with her moving to Rome to set up and manage Agence Grateau's new office in the city, where she will work with her latest crush, Marcello (Eugenio Franceschini).

But a lot happens before that. Camille decides to adopt a child and do her own thing. Sylvie's stepdaughter Genevieve (Thalia Besson) comes to Paris and causes unrest at Agence Grateau as well as between Gabriel and Emily. Mindy and Nico split up when he destroys her and the band's chance at the Eurovision Song Contest, but in the end it works out because Chinese pop star calls and wants Mindy to be a judge and sing her new song. Things are going well for Alfie too, who has a new girlfriend at the end of the season and finally gives Gabriel, who has just been awarded a Michelin star, advice: he should put his pride aside, stop thinking and feeling and fight to win Emily back. (Good advice, Alfie!)

The last thing we see of everyone is Gabriel asking Mindy where Emily is in Rome, while Emily happily speeds away with Marcello on a Vespa (cue: “What Dreams Are Made Of” by Hilary Duff).

Of course, all this has a big impact on the rest of the show, so Weekly entertainment We chatted with director and executive producer Andrew Fleming to answer our burning questions about that finale, discuss how the season got “more grown-up and complicated,” and what it all means for the future of the series.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How long did you think about the idea of ​​taking Emily away from Paris, and how did it evolve over time?

ANDREW FLEMING: Well, we knew there were places in France that we wanted to visit. We wanted to go to the Alps, we wanted to go to the Côte d'Azur and Provence and Champagne, where Camille's family lives. But Darren [Star, series creator] and I have talked about Rome being the next logical place from the beginning, simply because it is something like the yin to the yang of Paris, it is the romantic city in Europe that is not Paris. I mean, there are a lot of romantic cities in Europe, but that's the other big thing. And also, Sylvie's character has lived in Italy and speaks Italian, as does Luc (Bruno Gouery). So there was this natural opportunity to immerse yourself in the culture in that way.

What was it like logistically to move production to Rome after Paris had been your home base for so long?

We finished shooting Paris and then the rest of the shoot was in Rome, which was kind of good. We really had to get out of Paris because the Olympics were getting closer and it was getting more and more difficult to shoot there. Well, not difficult, but limited – there were places we couldn't shoot. And I think we were actually the last production company to shoot there before the Olympics. We were the last.

The last two episodes in particular use cuts and different shooting techniques to really keep the audience on the edge of their seats. Why was that important to you?

There was quite a bit of cutting back and forth between Rome and Paris, and there's a sequence in episode 9 with the two parties – one in Paris, one in Rome. On paper, it was actually just a couple of lines, but I really wanted to make it kind of spectacular. I love the idea of ​​two different parties in different cities, but parallel things happening to two characters. And I was really happy with the way that sequence turned out. It was a lot of work. And then the finale, the very last few scenes are mostly set in Rome, but there's this kind of trompe l'oeil – optical illusion – where you're between Paris and Rome for a moment without giving anything away. Here's this sequence that takes place in Rome with Emily and Marcello, but we get glimpses of what's happening with Gabriel, and that was fun. It was like a little technical trick. I really like that on this show, for a half-hour comedy, we can be very cinematic. I can play with the camera, the technique, the style. So it's a lot of fun for me. It's challenging, but it's fun.

As a director, what was the core message you wanted to achieve in the final episodes?

I think the really interesting thing about the script for episodes 9 and 10 was that they were not typical Emily episodes. That there was this kind of inertia, a little bit of maturity. When she gets to Rome, she's not as hyper as she was in Paris. She slows down, she takes a breath. There's a scene on the Spanish Steps, and she just relaxes and says, “I need to do this. I need to get off the hamster wheel of work, appointments, sleep, work, appointments, sleep in Paris.” In Rome, she's just a tourist and she starts to think about her life outside of work. And that's really what this season, especially at the end of the season, is about: her appreciating her life and not necessarily making work everything she wants.

Let’s talk about Mindy. Were you disappointed not to be at the Eurovision Song Contest and does that mean that we Chinese pop star?

It is possible – we are prepared for it. I wondered how we would do it [Eurovision]and we kept asking ourselves that. And then I got distracted by this other thing, which was a musical number at the Crazy Horse, and that was my musical number quotient for the end of this season. [Laughs.] And that was a lot of fun. That was very challenging. It was a huge undertaking. We worked with all the people from Crazy Horse, who were so great and so collaborative and creative, but it was complicated because we were using their choreographer, our choreographer, their lighting designer and their dancers. So it took a long time, but I love the result. And there's the jazzy version of [Britney Spears’] “Oops! … I did it again.”

Over the course of the last few episodes, Gabriel argues with Emily in French, regretting that they always used her language in their relationship and that she never tried to accommodate him. When Emily calls Gabriel at the end to congratulate him on his Michelin star, she does so in French. Should we interpret this as her saying that she is not really done with Gabriel yet? Is that how he takes it?

I think when he told Genevieve in French that there was a communication problem in the relationship and that maybe it was because she had never really tried to speak his language, it really hit Emily when he heard that in translation. And she's learned the language and she's getting better at it. And I think it was an acknowledgement that he was probably right about that. I think that's what it means. Where their relationship goes in the future, I don't think anyone knows. I know it's not over between them because they have to work together, they're friends and they're emotionally intertwined. But right now she's with Marcello.

And what about Alfie? Given that he has a girlfriend and really seems to think outside the box and give Gabriel advice, we can see his role in the love triangle as final?

Well, I don't think Emily's love life has been a triangle for a long time. I think it's more like a truncated icosahedron. It has a lot of angles, and I know one thing for sure: mathematically speaking, her personal life is only going to get more complicated. But I love the character Alfie and I love [actor] Lucien Laviscount, and… I really hope his story isn't over yet. I mean, we have great designs for him.

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With that in mind, can you tell us about plans for season 5? Is there any news on that?

Well, I don't have any news to share. Nobody does. I think we have hope that there will be more. I mean, right now it's really in Netflix's hands. I hope so anyway.

And more importantly, should we change the name to Emily in Rome?

[Laughs.] Well, for now she's in Rome. I don't think we'll ever go back to Paris, but for now she's in Rome.

When you look back on the season, what aspect are you most proud of?

I'm really happy with how the show has grown up this season, and I think Emily has grown up. She's grown up, and the season has become more grown up and complicated and a little darker. I use the term chiaroscuro, which is an Italian term for light and dark. And because we were shooting in Paris in the winter, the show was actually darker, and we switched cameramen to this guy named Seamus Tierney, and he uses more contrast. So there were literally more shadows this season. It has a different structure, and that really reflects what was going on with her, that she's kind of growing up and taking Gabriel seriously, taking her life more seriously and not being so rash and juvenile, how should I say, spontaneous. She's maturing as a character, and so is the show. I mean, she's still Emily, she's going to make some mistakes, but we talked to Lily about that, about it just being time for [Emily] to grow up a little.

I think there's a lot going on in Part 2 that will get people talking. What aspect are you most excited to see how fans will react?

I think I'm really curious to see what people think about Rome, because for us it was a breath of fresh air. It was a kind of lift for the crew that came here. It was just exciting to have this new architecture, this new color palette, this new culture. It just breathed a lot of life into the show. And I think at the core, that idea is the DNA of the show, and it's a fantasy, but it's also just this kind of human hope, which is that I could go to a new place at any time and start a new job and have a new life. I think everyone thinks that or holds onto that on some level, and Emily embodies that, and her coming to Rome and her basically being forced to build a new life for herself here – it's a fun way to put a new spin on that.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Emily in Paris Season 4, parts 1 and 2 are now streaming on Netflix.