At first glance, Emily in Paris Season 2’s second episode, “Do You Know the Way to Saint-Tropez?” is the pinnacle of our title character’s life abroad — after all, Emily (Lily Collins) parties through St. Tropez, dressed in an endless parade of designer resort wear. But amid the yachts, couture infighting, and champère showers, there’s a cloud of melancholy around Mindy Chen (Ashley Park), who plays Emily’s Parisian partner in crime. In this particular episode, an old storyline is rekindled: Mindy is seen mourning her fractured relationship with her dad, the unimaginably wealthy Zipper King of China. 

Although viewers still haven’t met Mr. Chen, Emily in Paris has been dropping details about him and his relationship with Mindy since the very beginning of the series. Mr. Chen’s looming expectations are essentially the reason for Mindy’s prolonged (read: technically illegal) sojourn in Paris. If you can’t remember exactly what caused the evident rift between Mindy and her zipper connoisseur père, we have the full rundown. 

In the Season 1 premiere, Mindy is introduced to viewers as a Chinese expat who’s been living in France for about a year. During Episode 2, “Masculin Féminin,” Mindy explains her situation to Emily: “Ever since I was a child, I was obsessed with the idea of living in Paris. So I enrolled in [business] school here and dropped out.” But it was socialite Mindy’s disastrous China Popstar audition the previous year that truly pushed her to flee her home country (and some very mean memes), landing her in Paris. When Mindy’s father, the elusive Mr. Chen, who owns China’s preeminent zipper and “other fasteners” business, found out Mindy left school in Paris, he “cut her off.” Still, Mindy insists she is happy to have her “freedom” over a “a very predictable life in China”— one that must include the right job, the right husband and the right house on the right street.

Later in the first season, Mindy digs a little deeper into the Succession-level family drama at play with the Chens. In the sixth episode, “Ringarde,” Mr. Chen attempts to bribe Mindy back to China by offering her a BMW — and the sprawling mansion behind it. Mindy calls her dad an “asshole” and complains, “All I have to do is go home, join his trainee program and start dressing like Angela Merkel.” If you’ve seen a single one of Mindy’s bright yellow outfits, you already know that such a fate is impossible for her.

But by Season 2, the tides have shifted. At the onset, Mr. Chen is apparently fed up with his daughter’s willful rebellion and has changed tactics. Rather than trying to pay his only child to return home and run the booming family business — which is Mr. Chen’s “dream,” according to Mindy — he’s stopped checking in altogether. “I feel like he doesn’t even want to try anymore,” Mindy admits after learning Mr. Chen visited France without getting in touch with her. If anything can loosen the Zipper King’s grip on this icy family feud, it just might be the photo Mindy takes in front of an old St. Tropez restaurant that she and her father loved during her childhood. She texts him the image, writing, “Remember us here? Miss you dad.” 

Mindy’s connection to China is further reignited, later in the season, when news of her Parisian music exploits reaches the Shanghai gossip mill. Although this development still doesn’t inspire Mr. Chen to contact his daughter, it seems unlikely someone so well-connected hasn’t heard these latest rumors. The least Mindy deserves is a text back, in a prospective Emily in Paris Season 3.