Spoilers for Emily in Paris season 2 below.
Mere weeks after And Just Like That…’s shocking Peloton scene, Emily in Paris has entered the chat with a pseudo-Peloton moment of its own—minus the death.
In season 2, episode 7, the Savoir office gets a visit from one of their American clients, Pelotech, which offers luxury, social-friendly stationary bikes (clearly a play on Peloton). With the company wanting to expand to the French market, it’s Emily (Lily Collins) and her colleagues’s job to make the product appeal to the locale. But her boss Sylvie (Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu) and fellow co-workers are not on board. Turns out, the American gym obsession doesn’t mix well with Parisian cycling culture. “Why would anyone want this when you can ride outside? You don’t go anywhere,” Luc (Bruno Guoery) says mid-meeting in French.
Bristling at the densely American product and at her Chicago-based superior (Kate Walsh’s Madeline), Sylvie is staunchly anti-Pelotech. She has the bike removed from her office, but at the end of the episode, we find out it’s been placed in her gorgeous apartment, for her to have for herself. Touché, Sylvie.
What is it about the Darren Star cinematic universe that’s drawn to the Peloton? When I mention the AJLT scene to the Sex and the City and Emily in Paris creator, he’s aware of the similarities. “Oh, I know, yes,” he says on Zoom. “We definitely have parallel Peloton stories, except ours was fictional. Pelotech!”
And while he couldn’t speak to the bike’s inclusion in the SATC revival (he’s not involved in the new series), he did explain how it ended up in Emily’s storyline.
“It was really just the idea of an American product they would be forced to promote that they may not be all that excited about. And just how that could be perceived differently culturally in France,” Star says. “In the end, though, as you see in the episode, we do see Sylvie really actually enjoying it. I think it was more an instance of not wanting to be taking orders from somebody in Chicago. But yeah, she did like the bike.”
That closing shot was also a great excuse to see Sylvie’s enviable flat, which was filmed in the Saint-Germain area. “And what I love about that scene in the end is we get to see Sylvie’s apartment, which is like, people can drool over the clothes, but I’m drooling over that apartment,” Star says.
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