In real life, Emily in Paris costars Ashley Park and Lucien Laviscount are just good friends. Which is precisely why executive producer and director Andrew Fleming decided it was time to make their onscreen alter egos — Mindy and Alfie — something more in Season 5 of the hit Netflix series. As part of the show’s shift from Paris to Rome for the new season’s first four episodes, the absurdly attractive duo wind up hooking up. But they promise to keep their friends-to-lovers arc secret from mutual pal, Alfie’s ex and title character, Emily Cooper (Lily Collins).

“Ashley and Lucien are like brother and sister,” Fleming says. “They’ve never been boyfriend and girlfriend, but they enjoy each other’s company. They’re both high-energy people and there’s this kind of electric craziness when they’re together. For awhile now, we’ve thought it might be fun to let them have a romantic storyline.”

Not for nothing, but the timing of the Mindy and Alfie coupling almost exactly syncs up with how another set of fictional Friends got together. The Season 4 finale of the hit NBC sitcom ended with Monica Geller (Courteney Cox) and Chandler Bing (Matthew Perry) literally falling into bed together while abroad in London. That storyline carried over into Season 5 as the duo tried to keep their romance under the covers… until the inevitable one where everybody finds out midway through the season.

In Mindy and Alfie’s case, their dalliance is discovered earlier — though not by Emily, but her coworker, Julien (Samuel Arnold). And the ranks of those in the know continues to grow as the season progresses, and the characters ditch Rome for Paris once again. “I love what that storyline does for the season,” Fleming says. “The longest-lasting shows keep finding new combinations of their characters to connect in various ways. And we still haven’t gotten all the different variations on our show! There’s still life left within us on that front.”

Of course, since Alfie and Emily’s romance ended some time ago now, it’s fair to ask whether she’d really be all that upset to learn that he’s moved on with Mindy. But Fleming counters that secrecy makes the idea of their coupling sexier — to Mindy, at least. “Keeping it secret was exciting to her,” he notes. “I can certainly relate to that. And it’s the secret that’s really the problem [more than the romance]. But that’s human nature and Mindy is wonderfully imperfect as a character.”

As expected, Emily in Paris fans have thoughts about Season 5’s trip into Monica/Chandler territory, with the social media reaction spilt evenly into pro and con camps. And the actors have confessed to being uncertain about the storyline as well. “When we first heard about this might be a plot line, I really thought it was a joke,” Park told Refinery29. “I called [Lily], and I was like, ‘Wait, what’s going on’? But it’s because I didn’t see how the story was going to blossom and flourish and in the end really deepen their sisterhood. And I think that’s something we really enjoyed doing.”

Fleming also enjoyed the show’s extended visit to Rome, which comprises the first four episodes. “The culture of filmmaking is different in Italy than it is in France,” he reveals. “The French are very quiet and reticent, whereas the noise level with Italians is very high. But that’s because people were excited and proud of their country and city being showing in a positive light. They were very open to Emily being there.”

While two key Rome locations — Emily’s office and apartment — were built on Paris soundstages, all of the exterior locations were shot in and around Italy’s capital city, as well as the smaller towns of Tivoli and Ostia Antica. Based on past experience, Fleming is well aware that a visit from Emily in Paris can transform a sleepy setting into a tourist hot spot, and the show actually offers a meta-critique of its cultural footprint. In the fourth episode, Emily is castigated by Antonia Muratori (Anna Galiena) — who is both a client and the mother of her Italian paramour, Marcello (Eugenio Franceschini) — after her campaign for Muratori’s new perfume line turns the little fictional town of Solitano into an Instagram influencer hot spot. Booted from the account and on the outs with Marcello, Emily promptly leaves Rome in the rearview and heads back to Paris for (nearly) the remainder of the season.

“When we shoot someplace, we know that it will have a big impact on its popularity,” Fleming says of the well-documented Emily in Paris effect. “I mean, Emily’s Parism apartment is on Google Maps as a destination! By and large, the reaction has been positive. I think the French were aghast when the show first dropped because it was a show from people who aren’t French making a series about French people, but they’ve come to love it.”

That’s one of the reasons why Emily’s move to Rome was never going to be permanent — despite the title change for the first four episodes. “We were being cheeky calling it Emily in Rome,” Fleming says with a grin. “It made people wonder what was going to happen! But at its core, this is a show about Emily’s relationship with the city of Paris — how it changed her and maybe how she’s changed it. But the nice thing about living in Europe is that you can experience so many other countries and cultures so easily. I can travel from Paris to Spain in the same amount of time it takes me to get from L.A. to San Diego.”