He may be a hot Parisian chef, but Gabriel is also the poster boy for toxic boyfriends. Emily's hot-headed downstairs neighbor didn't make the best impression in Season 1 of Emily in Paris when he flirted with Emily while failing to tell her about his girlfriend, Camille. But he takes his bad behavior to a whole new level in Season 2.
In the very first episode of the new season, Emily bemoans what finding out about their infidelity will do to Camille. However, Gabriel doesn't seem to care if his longtime girlfriend's heart gets broken or not. In fact, he insists Emily didn't do anything to Camille, but she did do a lot of things to him. Gag.
Things only get worse from there. Even after Emily shuts him down, he calls her during her trip with Mathieu to whine about the girl he stayed in Paris for not wanting to be with him. Which, excuse me, Gabriel, did Emily ask you to completely alter your life plans for her? No, she did not.
Gabriel's most annoying trait is his rampant entitlement. When he's not pouting over things not going his way, he's making rash decisions and shouting at the people who love him. From the way he treated Camille when her family offered him money to start his own business to him literally stomping out of his own opening night because the restaurant was too noisy, Gabriel is hot-headed and downright mean at times.
The most frustrating part is no one calls him out on his bad behavior. Emily in Paris presents Gabriel as a passionate Frenchman whose dimples can get him out of any sticky situation. In the aftermath of Camille finding out about Emily and Gabriel sleeping together, the chef suffers zero repercussions.
While Emily begs for Camille's forgiveness, he simply continues to flirt with both women, neither of whom hold him accountable for the way he treats them. At one point, he even plies Emily's new boyfriend, Alfie, with food in hopes of keeping the two from sleeping together. Her response? Little more than an eyeroll at Gabriel's "antics."
If someone in your life routinely attempts to sabotage your love life, while also emotionally blackmailing you, that's not cute. That's toxic. Scratch that, it's super toxic.
By the end of Season 2, Gabriel finally seems to accept that Emily is moving on with her life. This would be the perfect time for him to reflect on the way he treated Emily and Camille, and takes some time to learn from his past mistakes before jumping into another relationship. But since this is Gabriel we're talking about, he does the exact opposite.
The minute he believes Emily is serious about Alfie, he runs back to Camille and asks her to move in with him. It's as if he's so afraid of being alone, he would rather toy with Camille and Emily than face dealing with his own issues. Either that or he's just so conceited he can't live without having a constant cheerleader in his corner — after all, that's the role he assigns to both Camille and Emily. They're there to soothe his ego and bolster his confidence, while he pays little to no attention to what's going on in their lives.
Gabriel is turning into a problem for Emily in Paris. The more the show pushes the idea that he and Emily are destined to be together, the more Emily and Camille's feelings are disregarded. The best thing the show could do at this point would be have both women dump him for good and allow Emily to get #ToxicChef trending on Instagram.
Images: Carole Bethuel/Netflix; Netflix