With Emma, specifically, I think she’s so refreshing because she’s not that way inclined. She’s just a woman living her life. Like, let her live her life like we all want to live our lives. It’s the double standard…. Like, Dexter did much worse shit than Emma does. We don’t see him apologizing! Like, he’s done terrible stuff. I love Dexter, don’t get me wrong, but he does terrible stuff in this series. We don’t really ever see him apologizing or reckoning with that, and no one expects that of him. I imagine it’s the same people who were saying Emma should apologize, who’ve also been like, “I love Dexter. I love him so much.” Again, it’s this double standard just seeping in everywhere.
I wonder if another part of it relates back to what we discussed about Love Is Blind. Maybe a bit of that pushback comes from American audiences being used to those big grand gestures and apologies in romance movies. There’s something more quiet about Emma and Dexter’s love story. [Don’t get mad at me, reader—I’m American.]
I completely agree with you. Oh my God, I completely agree with you. I think that’s what’s so remarkable about this story and about this show, like, love isn’t grand, it isn’t dramatic, you don’t have these large gestures in real life. They only really exist in TV and films of old. And if that’s the kind of rom-com or romantic story that you’re into, those are available for you to watch. But this story is a much more grounded one about growing up. And we see Emma and Dexter go on this realization as well, that when you’re younger, you have these big dreams, you have these big ambitions about finding the love of your life and finding your dream job. But as you get older, you just want a quieter, peaceful, stable life. And that’s what they give each other. Even when Emma comes back to the apartment in Paris, it’s not this massive turn of events. She’s made a choice. She has come back and she has chosen him and that’s that.
I think there’s something that’s so much more romantic and profound in the small moments that two people share together. And that’s what I love so much about episode 13…is, like, their life together is very ordinary. It’s the small moments that they find together on a day-to-day basis like having like a glass of wine together at the end of the day, or going to pizza with Jasmine, having breakfast together. It’s the small moments that make up a relationship.
Have you discussed the double standards and criticism you’ve seen with Leo at all?
I haven’t directly, no. I think because I’m still trying to process it myself. The show only came out a couple of weeks ago, and honestly, it’s been quite an overwhelming rush of time. So I’m, like, still trying to produce it for myself before I then, like, go out and talk about it.
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