Creator Darren Star actually has an explanation for Madeline’s pregnancy timeline.

Not that we watch Emily in Paris for the, uh, realism, but shouldn’t the premise of the show hold up at the very least?

In case you forgot, the whole reason Emily Cooper (Lily Collins) takes a job in Paris despite being kinda unprepared and unqualified (and not a French speaker) is that her boss, Madeline, gets unexpectedly pregnant, making it impossible for her to go to France. That’s in the first episode of season one, and we kinda assumed Madeline (Kate Walsh) was sixish weeks along at the time.

Cut to the season-three premiere, which just dropped on Netflix. She’s still pregnant. Um, what?

At the end of the first episode of season three, Madeline finally gives birth, then sticks around Paris postpartum, which opens up a whole other line of questioning: If Madeline is cool to have her kid, and raise it, in Paris, why did Emily have to take the job? She’s not…good at it! Fans were seriously confused.

There is, actually, a simple explanation, at least when it comes to the show’s timeline: The seasons don’t play out in real time. “Our seasons are not nine months long,” Emily in Paris creator Darren Star confirmed in an interview with Glamour. It’s not unprecedented! There’s a seasons-long pregnancy playing out on Virgin River, and the first three seasons of Grey’s Anatomy canonically play out over the course of one year.

If we accept that Emily has been in Paris for only about seven months, her whirlwind romances and many career adventures seem even more whirlwind-ish, but her progress in speaking French is far more impressive! And Mindy’s career is taking off at lightning speed. On the other hand, this timeline puts Madeline back at work, like, a day after popping out that long-gestating baby, which also doesn’t make a ton of sense!

Perhaps the lesson here is, and we mean this totally respectfully, to just turn your brain off when you watch this series. Pretty dresses, pretty men, pretty Paris.