‘Emily in Paris:’ Season 2 Manages to Tick Off a Whole Country — Spoiler Alert, It Isn’t France (This Time)

I want to start by saying that Netflix Original comedy-drama Emily in Paris: Season 2 is definitely an improvement from its work with Season 1. Emily (Lily Collins) is finally making an effort to learn French, there’s some intriguing drama in the form of old friends becoming new villains, and Sylvie (Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu) steals the show every time we’re lucky enough to have her grace our screens.

While the show did make an effort to take its initial criticisms in stride, unfortunately, it still has some shortcomings (like the drawn-out ménage à trois between Emily, Gabriel (Lucas Bravo), and Camille (Camille Razat), or the way Emily and the supposedly-destitute and definitely-freeloading Mindy (Ashley Park) can afford such lavish wardrobes and lifestyles) that undermined some of its forward motion, none, evidently, more so than the Petra Problem.

Emily in Paris has been in some hot water as of late for their Eastern European-caricature of a character, Petra (Daria Panchenko), a designer apparel-obsessed kleptomaniac who can barely speak English OR French and is basically just around as a punchline to drive Emily into the clutches of new flame Alfie (Lucien Laviscount). Emily and Petra are in the same French class, and seem well on their way to becoming fast friends when our titular American gal partners with Petra for a class project. It even starts out as a fun exercise of cultural exchange — “tell us about your partner and their lives, mais en français, s’il vous plait!”

We learn that Petra is from Kyiv, Ukraine, that she dresses and looks kind of like Luna Lovegood (you know, Harry Potter’s resident spacey Ravenclaw), she is portrayed as tacky and unsubtle is style and manner, and oh yeah, she LOVES to steal. “I love free, no?” she says before walking out of a fancy store wearing various stolen accessories and clothes, prompting Emily to do the same before valiantly saying that stealing is bad and it didn’t work for Jean Valjean, before returning the stolen items. Petra comes across as both the butt of the joke, and as merely cannon fodder to push Emily towards Alfie (and thereby spark their relationship).

Lily Collins and her fellow producers, as well as series creator Darren Star, seem to be making a genuine efforts to improve Emily in Paris with each season, as they listen to critiques and take steps to adjust and grow accordingly. Even so, this stereotypical character ended up rubbing many people the wrong way, namely those of Eastern European descent and nationalities.

Among such detractors was Ukraine’s own culture minister, Oleksandr Tkachenko, who was moved to send a letter to Netflix speaking out against the portrayal of Petra and how it poorly represents and depicts Ukrainian people. Tkachenko expanded on his reaction in a December 24th post on his Telegram channel, writing, “We have a caricature image of a Ukrainian woman that is unacceptable. It is also insulting. Is that how Ukrainians are seen abroad?”

We can only hope that Emily in Paris and Netflix can continue their trend of heeding reviews and commentary in order to do better with representation and characterization in Season 3 (if there is one, as it has yet to be greenlit by Netflix). And maybe, just maybe, if there is another season, we’ll even get to see Petra get some sweet revenge, or at the very least, a nice new storyline.

Watch Emily in Paris on Netflix