Emily In Paris‘ fifth season won’t arrive for awhile but has already sparked a half-serious war of words between world leaders. That pseudo beef doesn’t even touch how the fourth season ended with Hot Chef Gabriel pushing for answers on how to find Emily In Rome. The suggestion there is that Gabriel would show up in Emily’s new life, and then she will be torn on whether to stay with Marcello or try one more time to make it work with a guy who remains too close with his ex and also doesn’t wash his skillet.
If Lucas Bravo’s feelings have anything to do with that will happen, then Gabriel might not surface again on Emily In Paris at all. In fact, he has been promoting his new film, Freedom (directed by Inglourious Basterds star Melanie Laurent), and while recently speaking with the Le Figaro newspaper (via The Times), Bravo did not hold back back his disappointment over how the Netflix series has been going, and he sounds kind-of over it:
“Life is short. It takes five months to shoot this series. Do I want to sacrifice them by telling something that does not stimulate me? … I do not want to be a part of a cog that does not tend to take the intelligence of viewers into consideration.”
Of course, the Darren Star-created Emily In Paris has never been held out as prestige TV. It’s an escapist show in which the main attraction is the preposterousness of Emily Cooper’s adventures, but it’s true that Gabriel has lost all apparent joie de vivre. Likewise, Bravo seems bummed about his character’s development (or lack thereof), as he told Indiewire:
“The ‘sexy chef’ was very much part of me in Season 1 and we grew apart season after season because of the choices he makes and because of the direction they make him take. I’ve never been so far away from him. In Season 1, there was a lot of me in him. But as they made him kind of unaware of his surroundings, of the dynamic, always victimizing and always being completely lost in translation and oblivious to anything that is happening around him and being manipulated by everyone, it kind of became not fun for me to shoot or to see a character I love so much and brought me so much, being slowly turned into guacamole. I really grew apart from him.”
The “guacamole” analogy is a choice. Bravo’s further message to Indiewire, however, is that “[t]here is a lack of risk” to the show, and “I’ve been frustrated with the direction by character is taking. But we’ll see where it goes. The show is not over.” However, Bravo’s time on the show might be “over,” since he added, “It makes me question if I want to be part of Season 5” … “because my contract ends at Season 4.”
This could prove awkward since the most recent season finale showed Gabriel acting desperate to see Emily, but perhaps not? Or maybe Gabriel heads to Rome and accidentally stumbles into the Gladiator 2 set and drowns during a water battle? I would watch that scene, and it’s more exciting than what has actually been happening with Gabriel.
Whatever the case, Bravo seems happier with the results of Freedom, in which he portrays late 1970s/early 1980s criminal Bruno Salak, a so-called “gentleman bandit” who held people at gunpoint while committing robbery and burglary but was somehow polite despite becoming “France’s Public Enemy #1.” The film is now available to stream on Prime Video/Amazon.
