Emily in Paris Season Five: Rome, Romance, and the Rooftop That Changes Everything
Season Five picks up exactly where the last left off: Emily Cooper (Lily Collins) heads to Rome to help launch Agence Grateau’s new Italian office. Paris is still technically home, but Rome is where things get complicated – professionally, romantically, and in that particular Emily way where a single PowerPoint idea can detonate her entire life.
Rome: The New Centre of the Emily-verse
Rome is the beating heart of Season Five, with production filming four episodes across more than 40 locations in and around the city. It’s Rome as fashion capital, workplace battleground, and emotionally destabilising dreamscape.
Emily’s Roman world is anchored by Hotel De Russie near Villa Borghese, which recurs as a luxe backdrop, and by Orient Express La Minerva, where rooftop scenes were filmed for those essential moments when characters need to look thoughtful while the entire city glows behind them.
Fashion is, naturally, everywhere. Scenes were filmed inside Fendi headquarters at the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana, that impossibly dramatic “square Colosseum,” as well as within Fendi and Dolce & Gabbana stores, reinforcing the show’s ongoing love affair with Italian luxury and architectural drama. Emily may be having a personal reckoning, but she’s doing it under very good lighting.
Plot-wise, Rome is a catalyst. Emily arrives buoyed by a sense of possibility and by Marcello Muratori (Eugenio Franceschini), heir to a luxury wool dynasty and the man she chose at the end of Season Four when she finally, gloriously, decided to put herself first. Their romance is central to the season, with creator Darren Star describing Marcello as someone who allows Emily to be genuinely happy. Think fewer frantic schemes, more smiling without conditions, though, obviously, that doesn’t last uninterrupted.
Countryside Detours and Seaside Escapes
Because no Italian reinvention is complete without leaving the city, filming also moved into the Roman countryside. Truffle-hunting scenes were shot near Tivoli, among ancient aqueducts and in the Monte Catillo Nature Preserve, offering a slower, earthier counterpoint to Rome’s glamour. This is Emily unplugged, briefly believing she might have a balanced life.
The fictional coastal town of Solitano was brought to life through filming in Ostia, chosen to evoke a Tuscan-style seaside town while remaining close to Rome. It’s presented as its own place in the series, but it’s very real and very effective as the kind of location where feelings intensify and poor decisions feel inevitable.
Venice: Where Everything Comes to a Head
The season finale shifts to Venice, because if you’re going to unravel emotionally, you might as well do it somewhere with canals.
Key scenes were filmed at The St. Regis Venice, including Gio’s Restaurant, and at Terrazza Danieli, the rooftop restaurant of Hotel Danieli. Additional moments unfold at Moro Restaurant, while a staged fashion show takes place at Campo San Francesco della Vigna, providing the setting for major endgame moments.
Characters move through Venice’s streets and canals, using the city itself as a narrative device, romantic, beautiful, and quietly pressurised. This is where secrets surface, relationships wobble, and career ambitions collide with personal fallout.
Paris: Still Complicated, Still Waiting
Italy may dominate, but Paris hasn’t been written out, emotionally or geographically. Filming returned to Fondation Louis Vuitton, LVMH headquarters, the Bois de Boulogne, and Maxim’s, grounding Emily’s story in the familiar rhythms of her French life.
Agence Grateau’s Roman office was actually constructed as a set in Paris, a neat metaphor for Emily herself: straddling two worlds, never fully settled, always pretending she has everything under control.
And control is very much the issue this season. The official synopsis reveals that just as things begin to feel stable, a work idea backfires spectacularly, triggering heartbreak and career setbacks. Emily retreats into her French life in search of certainty, only for a big secret to threaten one of her closest relationships.
Meanwhile, Parisian drama refuses to lie down quietly. Gabriel (Lucas Bravo) realises he doesn’t want to let Emily go, Alfie (Lucien Laviscount) steps into a larger recurring role, and familiar faces, Mindy, Sylvie, Julien, Luc, and Antoine, all return to orbit Emily’s increasingly complex life. Camille, notably, does not.
So, What Is Season Five Really About?
On the surface: Rome rooftops, Venice finales, fashion houses, and perfectly timed sunsets.
Underneath: Emily learning that choosing herself doesn’t magically eliminate chaos, it just changes its accent. Season Five is about reinvention with consequences, love that feels right but isn’t easy, and the slow realisation that you can have Paris and Rome, but not without paying emotional rent somewhere.
And if that rent happens to be due at a rooftop bar overlooking the Eternal City, well – at least the view is excellent.
