‘The Recruit’ Dethroned In Netflix’s Top 10 List By A New Show

As Wednesday wraps up its record-breaking debut month on Netflix, it was supplanted by The Recruit, the new Noah Centineo spy comedy. But after a few days on the top of Netflix’s charts, that show has already been knocked off by a returning series, Emily in Paris, back for its third season.

The implication is that Emily in Paris is getting more popular in time, as I don’t think we’ve ever seen it debut at #1 before, indicating some snowballing level of viewership as Netflix subscribers have discovered it over the years. It’s a controversial series that generally has somewhat middling reviews from fans and critics, but it is on the higher end of viewership, even if it’s not setting any records. Netflix famously got in trouble for allegations it was bribing Golden Globe foreign press members with lavish trips to Paris, which landed it nominations at the awards no one thought it deserved.

It really does not matter how Emily in Paris performs because Netflix has already hitched its wagon to this star, and did a double renewal of the series last year for both seasons 3 and 4. So that’s a done deal. Why this show gets that special privilege when so many other series struggle for second or third seasons is unclear, but debuting at #1 does imply viewership is going up.

I still remain pretty confident in The Recruit getting a second season, albeit it has been knocked off the top spot faster than it might have liked to see. A new season of Alice in Borderland has finally arrived and debuted at #5, not amazing, but not bad for the Japanese series that wasn’t a huge megahit in its first season, but may have gotten more of an audience over time.

The big Netflix story of the weekend, however, is not a show at all, but rather the debut of Glass Onion, the new Knives Out movie that Netflix swiped the distribution rights for. They debuted it for a week in theaters a few weeks ago just as an experiment, but now it has hit the service in time for the holiday, and I would expect that to be one of their most-watched original movies ever when all is said and done. The movie already has stellar reviews and it’s exactly the kind of thing Netflix wants to be associated with its brand.

As for Emily in Paris, that could remain on top through the new year, depending on other new releases, but it’s a strong debut for a series Netflix seem to have an unending amount of confidence in, for some reason.

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