It’s become a time-honored tradition for Emily in Paris fans to point our stuff that doesn’t make sense about the Netflix series. Now that Season 3 has dropped, there has been no exception. One major plot point that doesn’t really seem to add up is that Emily’s boss Madeline has been pregnant for three seasons. Let’s talk this out.
We’re about to get into spoiler territory, so if you aren’t fully caught up on Emily in Paris yet, you have been forewarned.
Fans Have Some Questions About The Timeline Of Madeline's Pregnancy
If you can recall all the way back to Season 1, Emily was sent to Paris only after her boss Madeline could not make the trip. At the time her boss (Kate Walsh) found out she was pregnant thanks to an encounter with some perfume. Emily goes to the City of Lights instead to work with Savoir, a French marketing company her U.S.-based company has just acquired. This in itself is a bit of a plot hole, as Emily only goes to France because Madeline backs out; however, then Madeline ultimately comes to France while still pregnant.
why does no one talk about the biggest plot hole in emily in paris, Madeline didn’t go to France because she got pregnant but then comes to paris still pregnant?December 21, 2022
But I digress. Back to the timeline issue. Madeline popped up early-ish in her pregnancy in Season 1, and by Season 2 is heavily pregnant. Then in Season 3, she’s still pregnant. Season 3 has her coming to France – still fully pregnant – where she has the baby.
Theoretically, this should be no big deal. Let’s say Madeline found out she was pregnant, couldn’t travel in Season 1 and then if Season 2 picked up sometime shortly after the events in Season 1, and Season 3 picked up shortly after the events in Season 2, the timeline of her lengthy pregnancy could have made sense. If only. Unfortunately, there is some seasonal stuff that just does not seemingly check out and Netflix subscribers are noticing.
The timeline for Emily in Paris does not make ANY sense. It starts in October to mid November. then mid-s2 it is unbearably hot but Madeline says she’s only 6 months pregnant which SHOULD MEAN it’s only February since we found out abt her pregnancy before Emily left for Paris!January 16, 2022
The weather is the issue. More time seems to have passed on the series than would make sense for a nine-month pregnancy. Season 1 has Emily in France in the late summer/fall, but then it gets really hot in Season 2, so there’s a presumption those episodes are set in the summertime. If Season 2 had been set, say, six months later, as the tweet above hedges, the episodes would have been shot with a wintry setting. Apparently, it’s always summertime in Paris.
Part of the issue here may be that Emily in Paris was set to film in the first part of 2019, but then filming didn’t get off of the ground until August of 2019, so perhaps the planned stories ended up having to be shifted a bit from their earliest iterations. Season 2 did, in fact, film during the summer of 2021 while filming for Season 3 began this past June.
In real time, Madeline’s been “pregnant” for more than three years.
The Joke Emily In Paris Makes About Madeline’s Pregnancy
So, back to the fact that Madeline shows up in France at the end of Season 2. She does this because it’s “now or never,” which makes no sense because she literally avoided taking the job in France thanks to her pregnancy. Maybe she’s just really attached to her obstetrician, but if that's the case, the birth did not go as planned. By Season 3, she is finally close to having the baby.
Fans got a bit of a payday when the latest season finally hit the Netflix schedule. Madeline’s water finally breaks at the Eiffel Tower restaurant. (Her water breaks on Sylvie’s shoes, naturally.) She’s rushed to the hospital and has a baby boy. The nurses at the hospital joke it’s the “biggest baby” they’ve delivered in quite some time. Of course it is. She’s been pregnant for years, y’all.
The good news is that Kate Walsh has had a sense of humor about wearing the baby bump for so long as part of the Emily in Paris cast. She told Netflix earlier this year the look lends itself to physical comedy, which she enjoys very much. She shared with Tudum,
Visually, it’s so funny. One of my favorite things to shoot was the scene in the boardroom with Lucas [Bravo, who plays chef Gabriel] and Antoine [the perfume CEO played by William Abadie] with the belly. It was really fun to impose that belly on everyone. But then equally, I was happy to be like, ‘No more pregnancy scenes? OK, great.
So, in a sense it will be a little bit sad to see Madeline without her large baby bump. But who knows? Emily in Paris has already been renewed for Season 4, so there's always the chance the show could just lean right in and Madeline could get pregnant again.
