After five seasons (and counting) of Emily in Paris, several hallmarks have emerged. Think: maximalist fashion, love triangles, and a timeline that seems to have little basis in reality. All showed up in Season 5 of the Netflix series, including a chronology error that fans called out on social media.
Calendar Confusion
The adventures of Emily (Lily Collins) continued when Season 5 premiered on Dec. 18, starting with a multi-episode sojourn in Rome and later a return to Paris. Episodes 6 and 7 centered on two real-life events back in the French capital. Yet, they happened out of order.
In Episode 6, “The One Where Emily Goes to the Embassy,” our American in Paris celebrated the Fourth of July for the first time abroad. However, an episode later, in “Second Chances,” she and Agence Grateau helped rebrand their client Apogee Waters as Libid’eau, using the Paris Pride parade for the launch. The event happens annually in late June, which is, of course, before Independence Day in the United States.
Calling out the “inaccurate timeline” on Reddit on Dec. 25, a fan asked, “Shouldn’t those episodes have been reversed?” Fellow viewers agreed, and one noted, “I’ve learnt to ignore the timeline because it doesn’t make sense.”
Another shared a similar sentiment, noting that there have been chronology issues “since season 1.” The error also came up in a separate thread from Dec. 25, as fans criticized the show for making “the focus of the Pride episode” a heterosexual couple — Emily and Marcello (Eugenio Franceschini). There, one fan suggested that the writers are “all just intentionally messing with us when it comes to the timeline.”
What Is Time?
Since the beginning, time has been complicated on Emily in Paris. Ahead of Season 5, fan Sam Geiger posted a video breakdown of the show’s timeline through the first four seasons, pointing out the many inconsistencies and “spring resets” viewers have seen along the way. Though it’s not uncommon for the world of Emily in Paris to include real-life events, they don’t necessarily take place when they’re supposed to. For example, Season 3 seemed to end in late summer, yet Season 4 picked up during Roland-Garros, a tennis tournament that takes place in late May or early June, despite little time having passed for the characters.
As Geiger summed it up, “Emily’s world exists in a Groundhog Day-style of unstable chronology that will flash back to late spring, early summer at any time.” The unpredictable timeline is just part of the experience.
