The French actor opens up about his “coming of age” season and what he hopes Emily will do next.

You might expect to hear those three little words shared between Emily (Lily Collins) and Gabriel (Lucas Bravo) at the end of the Emily in Paris Season 3 finale. After seasons of longing, nothing stands in their way anymore. Camille (Camille Razat) has called off her wedding with Gabriel. Alfie (Lucien Laviscount) has stormed off after realizing the depths of Emily and Gabriel’s feelings for one another.

Instead, Gabriel says two words: “She’s pregnant.” The “she” in question is Camille. Suddenly, the wind is knocked out of Emily’s sails; Gabriel and Camille are tied together forever by a baby that will enter the world in a matter of months. So Emily closes Season 3 with three very different words than “I love you” — “Oh, my God.”

“Every time you feel like you’re getting closer to reuniting Emily and Gabriel, there’s always something intense. And a baby is quite intense,” Bravo tells Tudum. After years of watching creator Darren Star unveil new Emily in Paris twists and turns, Bravo remarks, “Oh, I’m the cliffhanger now.” But the surprises all add up to a “coming of age season” for his beloved chef.

“I did a few takes where I [said] ‘She’s pregnant’ sad,” Bravo says. “And the director told me, ‘It’s still good news. So you should smile when you say it.’ That’s why I’m like, ‘She’s pregnant,’ but still embarrassed.”

As Star tells Tudum, “Up until the fact that the wedding didn’t happen, Gabriel was just really, really happy.” As we see earlier in the season, Gabriel is actually quite taken with the idea of a growing family, long before Camille returns from Greece with her pregnancy news. This was a purposeful choice from the Emily in Paris writers room, who planted the seeds of the finale surprise to ensure maximum impact.

“It becomes a big revelation at the last moment of the season that forces you to go back and reexamine some of the motivations of the characters in previous episodes because the information’s been withheld from the audience,” Star says. Take, for example, in Episode 6, when Gabriel chats with a fellow chef in Provence about maintaining work-life balance with kids, saying his new friend has “figured it all out.” He might not know about Camille’s pregnancy just yet, but this is one of our first big pieces of evidence that Gabriel’s ready to “commit” to his future, says Star. The baby gives Gabriel, whom Bravo describes as “lost,” the grounding he so craves. Marie Etchegoyen/Netflix

“The first part of the season, he’s kind of falling apart. Once Camille comes back from Greece… he starts projecting into the future with the family,” Bravo says. “He’s been torn between choices. He doesn’t want to be defined by things he doesn’t have control over. So he just chooses now.”

While the impending baby forces Gabriel to “double down on everything that he’s striving toward,” Star says, the ending also lays out the stakes for the already-confirmed Emily in Paris Season 4. Gabriel might want to give his future child the world, but the mother of that child also just left him at the altar — while calling out his love for another woman.

“Emily and Gabriel have a lot of feeling and passion for one another,” Star says. “They have things that are getting in their way, but, at the same time, every season, in a strange kind of way, their relationship deepens.” Marie Etchegoyen/Netflix

Bravo’s in agreement with the creator, and ultimately sounds optimistic about Gabriel and Emily’s future. “I don’t know what the dynamic is going to be, but I think there’s no greater privilege than receiving love from a baby that is not yours [biologically],” Bravo says. “So maybe Emily will accept [being] a second mother.”

And, no matter what, Bravo concludes, “It would be fun to see a Darren Star baby.” Prepare the baby bucket hats stat.