Hilary Duff Reveals Why 'Younger' 's New Season Might Have Switched Her to Team Charles

When Younger kicks off its fourth season on Wednesday night, Hilary Duff is ready to kick her character Kelsey in

The book publishing wunderkind is trying to forge ahead in her career while recovering from a split from a double-dealing author boyfriend and feeling spurned by her friend and colleague Liza (Sutton Foster), who finally came clean about lying since they met about her age.

Duff, 29, chatted with PEOPLE about what fans can expect from Kelsey this season — including what will become of the book-loving BFFs, how Kelsey’s connection to Liza’s ex Josh (Nico Tortorella) is growing and where she currently stands on Team Josh versus Team Charles (Peter Hermann).

Congratulations on the new season! But it’s not exactly a great start for Kelsey — how can we expect her to bounce back from all the fallout in her life, both personally and professionally?
I think that the nice thing about this season is it’s not very sugarcoated. Kelsey is really shocked by finding out this truth, and I think she’s really disappointed in the way Liza’s handled this and their friendship, now so intertwined in something that she’s worked so hard for, which is her book imprint Millennial. Kelsey’s work is really serious, and the rift with Liza also is risking Millennial’s future. It’s nice for us to start the season at being at odds with one another. It definitely takes a while for her to regain the friendship and her relationship with Liza.

How do you think people will respond to Kelsey and Liza no longer being on the same team?
Yeah, I think people will be sad; it is sad. Sutton and I were having a hard time filming it. The audience knows why Liza’s doing it, but Kelsey doesn’t really get it yet. She hasn’t met her daughter and she doesn’t get that bond yet because Kelsey doesn’t have that in her life yet. She’s not a mom.

Obviously, we make up. I’m not really giving anything away there because I don’t think there’d be much of a show since the show is so much about our friendship. These are normal things that happen in friendships and relationships, and I think it’ll be nice for the audience to watch, to see some real stuff happening between them. Even though they do make up, there’s definitely times past the first four episodes once we’re really fighting with one another. Once we’ve made up, there are things that still bubble to the surface that hurt Kelsey because she realizes how deep the lie has gone.

From the trailer, it’s clear Kelsey will start to feel more of a connection to Josh in the wake of his split from Liza. Should shippers get excited?
This is a tough one for me. I’m really not allowed to say too much there. There are definitely some boundaries being tiptoed upon. You don’t know what’s gonna happen. Kelsey and Josh have never really had an opportunity to even have a friendship because I think Kelsey’s been such a good friend to Liza and has her back, but every time Josh would mess up in their relationship, Kelsey was the first one to speak up and get in Josh’s face about it. They don’t really even know each other that well and now they have this big thing in common and that’s definitely explored throughout the season.

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So I’m sure you get asked this constantly, but where do you stand right now: Team Josh or Team Charles?
I do get asked all the time. I think up until this season, I was really saying Team Josh because I liked that he brought out this really fun side of her and made her feel alive again. I think I was always kind of Team Josh. But now this season, I might be a little more Team Charles. Things have changed and I just feel like maybe Charles is the better match for Liza. It’s all very complicated.

Younger returns Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET on TV Land.