I Can’t Stop Thinking About *That* Emily Blunt Moment In The Devil Wears Prada 2

Spoilers ahead for The Devil Wears Prada 2. The word “iconic” gets thrown around a lot — or admittedly, I throw it around a lot. But when Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) tells Emily Charlton (Emily Blunt) that she is, in fact, iconic at the end of The Devil Wears Prada 2? She’s right!

Twenty years ago, Blunt (in one of her first film roles ever) brought Emily to life with sardonic, scene-stealing presence. If her outfits didn’t all hold up, the specificity with which she wore them did. You could root for Andy while still low-key sympathizing with Emily’s put-upon facade. I regularly think about Blunt’s delivery when Andy calls to hand off her Paris clothes, tearing up while saying, “It’s a huge imposition,” when she really means something like “I’ll miss you.”

But it’s in the hit sequel that Blunt really cements Emily as an all-timer. Even in a film that treads in the nostalgic familiarity of a cozy sweater, the reveal that Emily was scheming to buy Miranda’s Runway job from under her felt genuinely shocking — my theater was agasp — more than if Emily were a simple antagonist.

Because deep down, you want her to be OK! We watched her miss out on Paris and her long-term Runway aspirations. So when Miranda tells her she’s not a visionary, but a vendor, it stings — not just because of Meryl Streep’s brilliantly biting delivery, but because it’s much more relatable to be the latter. To try hard at being a certain kind of person, without ever feeling like you have that intangible “it” factor.

It’s what makes Andy and Emily’s final conversation so touching. The reveal that Emily is now working at Coach is meant to be hilarious, and it is — only because you can tell Emily finds it a career downgrade from Dior. But it’s also a nod to the fact that she (not unlike Coach itself) is capable of a rebrand.

Emily’s new, platinum-blonde hair conveys a kind of admirable tenacity — a willingness to change, reassess, keep rolling with the punches. As Andy tells her long-lost frenemy, she doesn’t need a billionaire boyfriend to make her mark.