Top 10 Reasons to Watch Never Have I Ever

In a lot of ways, “Never Have I Ever” is your typical teen dramedy, but it has the perfect amount of different elements to make it stand out. It tells the story of a young Indian American girl living in California who is not only dealing with all the usual perils of adolescence, but is also grieving her recently deceased father. One particularly unique thing about the show is that rather than having Devi narrate her own story, the voiceover is done by pro tennis player John McEnroe. While this seems a bit bizarre, it weirdly makes sense when you watch the show.

Since it was released in full on Netflix in April of 2020, the reviews of this show have been overwhelmingly positive. It holds an impressive 97% on review site Rotten Tomatoes and has received countless raves from both critics and the public. Forbes even said that “Never Have I Ever” was the best teen comedy that Netflix had created so far, which is pretty high praise. Kathryn VanArendonk, writing for Vulture, titled her review “Never Have I Ever Made Me Happier Than I’ve Been in Weeks”, going on to explain how this was the show we didn’t know we needed right now.

Even if you haven’t seen the show, you might be aware of the fact that it was created by none other than Mindy Kaling. After getting her start on “The Office,” she has become one of the greatest comedic voices in the industry. Kaling co-created the show with Lang Fisher and based it largely on her own experience growing up. The show has a personal feel as well thanks to Kaling’s own brand of rom-com humor, which makes it feel uniquely her. If you’re a fan of Kaling’s other shows or her memoirs, you will definitely love this show.

While the show focuses on Devi’s story, she is surrounded by a cast of supporting characters who are equally compelling. There’s her mom, Dr. Nalini Vishwakumar, a complex role played by Poorna Jagannathan. Then there are her two besties, Eleanor and Fabiola, played by Ramona Young and Lee Rodriguez respectively, who each have their own character arcs to follow. Then of course there is Devi’s primary love interest, Paxton Hall-Yoshida, played by Darren Barnet, who is a total babe and who you’ll be happy to know is nearly 30 despite playing a high schooler. Whew!

We’re going to delve into the representation of the show later, but one of the things that makes “Never Have I Ever” so enjoyable is that everyone will likely be able to relate to Devi, regardless of their background. She is hot headed and definitely has a temper, often acting in ways that are far from ideal. While she’s definitely a modern teen (who does things like making Tik Tok style videos to get her crush’s attention), there’s also a timelessness to the story, which feels like it could take place in any recent decade if the technology were stripped away.

While we’ll talk about the more serious side of the show in the next entry, “Never Have I Ever” is primarily a comedy. And right now, a good chuckle is probably what we all need. There are laugh out loud moments in every single episode, and also quieter more clever jokes interspersed throughout. Devi’s confidence and boldness in her actions are extremely endearing, and we can’t help but giggle at her as she haplessly navigates high school. The series is extremely bingable, and we wouldn’t blame you if you watched all ten half hour episodes in a single sitting.

At the center of the story is the fact that several months before the action of the show begins, Devi’s dad dies suddenly at one of her concerts, and she proceeds to lose functionality in her legs, leaving her wheelchair bound for a period of time. Throughout the series, she is blatantly avoiding processing her father’s death, and while she is going to therapy for it, she largely spends her sessions talking about her friends and the guy she’s into. As her journey progresses however, she learns to deal with her grief and grows in the process.

Before being cast in “Never Have I Ever”, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan was a regular teen living in Mississauga, Ontario who had done some acting in school plays. But after she (along with 15 000 other young girls) auditioned to play the lead in Mindy Kaling’s new project, she became one of Netflix’s brightest stars. After sending in a video that she filmed in her local library, she was eventually asked to meet with the creator in LA and she got the gig based on her sense of humor and the fact that Kaling saw some of herself in the young would-be actress.

You may not notice it at first, but the majority of the cast of this show are women, and each of them are empowered women in their own right. Devi lives with her mother (a strong willed dermatologist) as well as her older cousin Kamala, who is getting her PhD at Caltech and flouts her culture’s rules on arranged marriages. The show is also unabashed about Devi’s interest in sex, putting her in a role usually relegated to teenage boys where she is open about her sexual desire and her willingness to lose her virginity.

Did we mention that all of the aforementioned female characters are women of color? And so are Devi’s two best friends. So is Devi’s therapist, and the principal of her school. The diversity on the show feels revolutionary, but it doesn’t spend any time reveling in the fact that its cast and characters are largely non-white. What it does do is give representation to underrepresented communities, and gives us an inside look at what it’s like to grow up Indian American in modern day California. We see Devi questioning the culture she came from, and learning to embrace parts of it that even she was skeptical of.