Long before Lily Collins, Taylor Swift was the one blithely embracing her basic bitch persona. Not just in general, but in Paris. Specifically in the video for 2012’s “Begin Again.” And what with the Red album being relevant again this year thanks to “Taylor’s Version,” a revisit of the “Begin Again” video seems well-timed to coincide with the release of Emily in Paris’ second season. For Taylor comes across as being just as naïve and très la-di-da and “isn’t Paris all macarons and merveilles?” Well, no. In the worlds of Taylor and Emily, it’s also “just happening” to meet someone as equitably hot. As both women manage to amid their sorrows over mourning another.
Director Philip Andelman opens the scene on Taylor overlooking the Pont des Arts with an overload of “love locks” attached to it (a phenomenon that has since diminished in the wake of Anne Hidalgo actively campaigning against this maudlin gesture that has only brought the bridge to the brink of collapse from all the weight). In this instant, we immediately get a flash of Emily. But blonde. Swift, too, has that doe-eyed, “aren’t I sweet and precious?” quality going on, perhaps to an even greater extent thanks to riding a fey bike around town and “whimsically” clothes-shopping to lyrics like, “Walked in, expecting you’d be late/But you got here early and you stand and wave/I walk to you/You pull my chair out and help me in/And you don’t know how nice that is, but I do.” Lyrics, in short, that compare how much “nicer” (therefore, theoretically, “better”) her new love interest is. In contrast, Emily’s own new beau, Alfie, is something of a British bastard. Yet at least he’s more open about his bastardry than Gabriel was.
It seems whoever Taylor’s new piece is, however, offers no sign of douchebaggery whatsoever—which is what makes “Begin Again” even more of a “Parisian fantasy” (despite being sonically told through a country song). The emotional porn that women of Taylor and Emily’s nature “secretly” seek to find when they make the jaunt to the “City of Light” (so often mistakenly referred to as the “City of Love”) in the first place. After all, no girl travels that far without the heavy expectation of l’amour on her mind—whereas no bloke travels that far without the lighter expectation of “getting some pussy.” Like the guy who clocks Taylor in the café. He’s the same sort of guy as Alfie, but white. Very finance-y. And also very Joe Alwyn-y. Taylor always had a type in mind, that much is clear.
To play up les plus beaux clichés, she even opts to sketch little drawings (including one of, what else, la Tour Eiffel) as she sits in the café sipping espresso leisurely, since Americans are told they’re meant to languish the day away if they truly want to get into the “Parisian spirit.” As though people living in Paris don’t actually have to work. Yet another impression Emily in Paris was particularly fond of giving off in season one, before it decided to take certain “feedback” (read: river of shit) to heart in season two (though not really. People are still having elongated wine lunches and ostensibly making their own hours to further perpetuate the lie of Paris as a “laid-back” place Americans ought to covet). To heighten the schmaltz, Swift also has a handful of postcards laid out next to the notebook. Then again, it was 2012, so postcards did still have a touch more believability than they do now.
As the suit continues to eyeball how “quirky” and “kitschy” she is (you know, in a suit’s eyes), he can no longer resist the urge to approach her table. And as he does, Swift narrates with her singing, “I’ve been spending the last eight months thinking all love ever does is break and burn and end/But on a Wednesday in a café, I watched it begin again.” It truly is a wonder that this song hasn’t managed to creep into Emily in Paris, for it is taylor-made for it.
After the encounter, Swift appears to be “walking on air” as we see her once again ambling along the Seine near a houseboat, smiling that “I think I just fell in love” smile as she looks behind her and up at the Parisian “wonders” around her. All at once, she’s telling this story from a rooftop with, once again, the Eiffel Tower in the background (and then there’s her stint on the Intercontinental Hotel with Opéra in the background). Because it’s very important to remind people all the time that you’re in Paris with shots of the Eiffel Tower.
Andelman then cuts back to the café scene, wherein Suit Guy sits down and starts chatting Taylor up, making her practically blush because, “You said you never met one girl who had as many James Taylor records as you, but I do.” First of all, a truly accurate depiction of Paris would feature no one being interested in a James Taylor record. Not even in one of those ultra off-brand record stores that sells a grab-bag of all the worst vinyls. And secondly, if a man started taking your picture in a café and you already had trust issues to begin with, would you really be so giggly about it? Probably not. But wait, “this is Paris” and suddenly Taylor, like Emily, is under its spell. Doing things she would not ordinarily do. Which is why the lyric, “We tell stories and you don’t know why/I’m coming off a little shy/But I do” doesn’t quite jive when Taylor is coming off far more coquette than shy.
And now a montage: more of Taylor biking on her twee bicyclette, holding hands in the street with Suit Guy and putting her face very close to his, staring at some pastries behind a case and picking one out to enjoy because being in love makes you work up an appetite for dessert. As she sits in a different location to eat the mini cake she’s selected, it seems le dessert tastes even sweeter since she fell in love. Now we’re back in the café where they continue to yuk it up—then a scene of Taylor in the Tuileries writing on one of her postcards, presumably to tell some hick back at home how much she’s fitting in and that she thinks she might have found “the one” for real this time.
Soon, a shot of them walking down “one of them cute little Puh-ree-zhun streets” (as a Southerner might refer to it), with Taylor holding her annoying bike and Suit Guy following along like her docile lamb. Cue an exchange of yearning looks that mirror the ones Emily so frequently has with Gabriel. In fact, Suit Guy does look a lot like Gabriel (in addition to Joe Alwyn). More than anything, however, Emily looks a lot like Taylor with a retrospective viewing of “Begin Again.”
