Patrick Wymore/The CW Ever since Rachel Bilson revealed that she was pregnant, the question on every Hart of Dixie fan's mind was: how is the CW's southern rom-com going to handle its star's real-life growing baby bump?
Many shows have tackled this very same issued in the past, to varying degrees of success. There's How I Met Your Mother's creative use of large props to hide Cobie Smulder's and Alyson Hannigan's baby bumps, Scandal used creative camera angles and large coats to hide Kerry Washington's...and then there was Nashville's simple solution: write Hayden Panettiere's pregnancy into Juliette's story on the show.
So how did Hart of Dixie handle Bilson's pregnancy?
WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW! If you have yet to watch the season four premiere, avert your eyes now!
Zoe's pregnant, y'all! After trying to convince Wade (Wilson Bethel) that they below together after more than a season apart, Zoe threw caution to the wind and tried to use sex as a way to rekindle their relationship. Of course, to Wade, sex is just sex, so Zoe's plan to win him back didn't exactly work...though it did result in an unexpected bun in her oven!
While viewers were treated to a quick scene in which Zoe figured out she wasn't sick, just pregnant—cue the major squeeeees!—we got Hart of Dixie's executive producer Leila Gerstein on the line to find out exactly what this bundle of joy means for Zoe and Wade's romantic future.
"She's going to freak out as I think many people would!" Gerstein says of Zoe's surprise news. "This is an unplanned, unexpected pregnancy, she's a doctor, she's not even with the father, so episode 2 is all about her dealing with the fact that she's pregnant, figuring out what she's going to do now that she's pregnant, what she's going to do about Wade, how she's going to tell him, and how he's going to take that news."
Of course, Zoe being Zoe, she's not exactly going to tell Wade the news in a normal way, but we can reveal that Wade will find out what's going on with Zoe by the end of episode 2.
"Episode 3 will see both of them overreacting to this news in crazily inappropriate ways," Gerstein says. "Finally, by the end of episode 3, they will have come around and there will be a major resolution as to what's going to happen between them and their child."
We might be getting ahead of ourselves but...cross your fingers for a Zade wedding, people!
While this Zade baby is surely going to bring us a ton of amazing Zoe/Wade scenes all season long as they figure out how they're going to be parents together, it could not have come at a worse time, since both Wade and Zoe were ready to take their friendship back up to the next level. And according to Gerstein, that would have finally worked this time around.
"Without the pregnancy, their relationship would have worked out," Gerstein says. "But I think they probably wouldn't be able to take things slow. I think they have too much history. They would have tried at the start to take things slow but these two are destined to be together. Eventually they would have found their way back to each other for good."
Zoe's unexpected pregnancy may not have been the way most fans would have liked to see Zade get back together, but Gerstein is excited to explore what this adult situation will do for their relationship.
"Honestly, I am so happy about the pregnancy!" Gerstein says. "It was not the way I was planning to go with them but it's an amazing storytelling device and I think everyone is going to be really excited and pleased by it. It's great for Wade and Zoe because it forces them to have to grow up right away."
Hart of Dixie returns in its regular time slot on Friday, Jan. 9 at 8 p.m. on the CW.