'The Mindy Project' Season 4 Premiere: Mindy Kaling and Chris Messina on the Chemistry Behind the Moment We HAVE to Talk About

"It was just luck," star Mindy Kaling says of her chemistry with costar Chris Messina

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Published on September 15, 2015 04:10 PM

If you haven’t watched the The Mindy Project‘s season 4 premiere yet – first of all, what’s wrong with you?! – don’t read any further.

Seriously. Spoilers below.

After being resurrected by Hulu for a fourth season, The Mindy Project returned Tuesday with some great guest stars (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, The Big Bang Theory‘s Kunal Nayyar and Freida Pinto as herself, but “kind of a bitch”) and even a timely Tom Brady joke – but the most shocking and awwww-inducing moment of the episode came when Danny Castellano (Chris Messina) abandoned his disbelief in marriage and proposed to Mindy Lahiri (Mindy Kaling).

As if seeing their love blossom on screen wasn’t enough, Kaling and Messina have us smitten with how they feel about each other in real life, too.

“I’m super lucky,” Messina tells PEOPLE of working with Kaling, 36. “I really enjoy acting with her. [When I started on the show,] I didn’t know where it was going to go. But I buckled up for the ride and wanted to see where we ended up.”

Kaling, for one, had no idea how well their chemistry would be before Messina was hired.

“We’re such different kinds of people, but I admired him so much,” she says of Messina, 41. “But our energies were so different, I thought it might be enjoyable to watch. I really didn’t know going into it. It was just luck.”

Luck that played out to everyone’s – including the audience’s – favor.

• Reporting by SCOTT HUVER