Here’s the thing – I’m one of the people who do honestly like Emily in Paris.
Yes, I know that it deserves rightful criticism and its main character (played by Lily Collins) is flatter than a piece of cardboard, but there are other reasons I’ve started to like the Darren Star show, and it’s only become a bigger reason over the last three seasons – Sylvie, played by Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu.
I don’t know how it happened, but this character casted a spell on me in the first season. The Emily in Paris cast is great, but Sylvie was always the person I looked forward to seeing the most with every new season. And as far as I’m concerned, she’s the main character of Emily in Paris. And today, I’m going to get into my reasons as to why I think that.
Say It With Me – Independent Business Mogul
I mean, we love an independent queen.
On a real note, Sylvie is exactly what I would love to be if I was to get into making my own business. While working at Savoir, she runs it with an iron fist because she knows she’s the one in charge, but she is also open to taking people’s ideas and expanding on new ones for the sake of growing the company.
And at the end of Season 2, she realizes that she doesn’t even want to work for Savoir anymore because of everything that Emily’s boss had been putting her through. So she straight up leaves during fashion week, one of the most important parts of their whole career, with Luc and Julian, because she respects herself more than she respects this company.
When I tell you I screamed. It felt like Miranda Priestly from The Devil Wears Prada in the way she handled everything. From then on, I knew I was a fan of hers.
Sylvie Knows Exactly What She Wants – And Goes After It
I’m not even talking about in a professional manner – she just knows what the heck she wants and she will not stop until she gets it.
Sylvie reminds me of everything most young workers want to be in these types of shows – a go-getter, aggressive, and sassy all at the same time. She knows exactly what she wants for not only her company, but her personal life. And if no one is willing to give it to her, she goes out and gets it herself. I mean, just hearing her backstory, of how she came to Paris on her own in order to be successful – that is something I never could have done.
I mean, I’m also not super independent – I always have people around me, but I have so much respect for her for literally putting herself out there and taking chances when she was younger, and now with her growing up, she knows exactly how to get what she wants.
She’s Always Willing To Call People Out On Their Crap
This has to be one of my favorite parts about Sylvie overall – she isn’t afraid to call you out on your crap. Whatsoever.
There’s just something I love about the blunt character in any show, whether it be anime, a cartoon, or it be a live-action one like this. Sometimes, people just need to be humbled, and Sylvie is always the answer to that. I can’t tell you how much I was rooting for her when she first met Emily. I know that Emily was sort of culture shocked into the world of France, but hearing Sylvie grind into Emily so often was so satisfying.
I can still remember when she first met Emily and how displeased she was to work with her because it would be a pain to put up with a girl that didn’t know how to speak French and worked a completely different way than she did. Some people might have seen that as pushy but I did not. I saw that as someone who knew exactly what works at her company, and how she spotted a possible threat to that.
I love an honest character. And sometimes, Emily really does need that blunt honesty.
And She’s Also Willing To Push People To Do Better
However, Sylvie isn’t just a hardworking woman with a layer of steel – she’s also kind when she feels people deserve it. She gives so many chances to people throughout the show that completely reveals who she is as a person – that underneath it all, she has a heart and wants people to grow.
The beginning of Season 3 is the best example. Sylvie, who was adamant about not working with Emily at the beginning of the show, ends up offering Emily a position at her new marketing firm, because she can see the potential now that Emily has after working with her. That is something we never would have seen from Sylvie in the first season, and shows just how much she has changed over the course of the series.
The fact that Emily was having trouble trying to figure out who to work for was one of the moments that made me want to pull my hair out in Season 3 – because how can you not choose Sylvie?
Sylvie Has A Lot More Complicated Layers Than We Ever Expected
Move over the annoying love triangles and petty job rivalries, because Sylvie’s story is honestly better than Emily’s in Emily in Paris. While Emily was faced with the impossible task of deciding who was the hotter man to date (and let’s be honest, it’s Alfie), Sylvie was off having her own show totally separate from Emily.
We saw her have a heavy confrontation with a former coworker of hers, subtly revealing that there is some serious tension between the two of them because of misconduct that occurred. We see her trying to actually fix her relationship with her husband in Season 3 instead of going out there and sleeping with someone else. We see the insecurities that she feels when certain clients of hers end up going elsewhere, such as Pierre Cadault.
There is so much more to Sylvie than we really ever imagined and that makes her an even better character, because we get to see this darker, more vulnerable side of her. It makes her more human and honestly, a better character than anyone else. Her story was a heck of a lot more compelling than anyone else’s.
Emily in Paris Season 4 is happening, but I hope that Sylvie is going to be a bigger part, even more than she already is, because if I have to deal with Emily speaking bad French for another season, I am going to literally break my television. When will we get the Sylvie spinoff we deserve?
