It’s hard to do a teen-centric coming of age story right, especially when there have been so many attempts in the last couple of years. Never Have I Ever tries to do it by taking a fresh perspective: that of high school sophomore Devi Vishwakumar (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) who’s trying to make sure that her new school years goes great, especially after a disastrous previous year where she was paralyzed for three months after watching her father die from a heart attack during a school concert. The series tries to follow all the hallmarks of high school sitcoms, centering it around Devi’s experiences as an Indian American who often feels like an alien in her own culture.
Written and produced by Mindy Kaling (The Mindy Project, the Office), the show mixes some of her own experiences with sitcom staples. As Devi first tries to sleep with- and then get closer to- swimming team heart-throb Paxton Hall-Yoshida (Darren Barnet), she also has to deal with her strict, almost overbearing mother (Poorna Jagannathan), her beautiful ‘perfect’ cousin Kamala (Richa Moorjani) and nosy Indian aunties. Then there’s her rival, Ben (Jaren Lewiston) and her friends, Fabiola (Lee Rodriguez) and Eleanor (Ramona Young), who have been dubbed the ‘UN’ by the rest of her class. The show also explores Devi’s grief, which she refuses to deal with, even after the prodding of her therapist.
One of the things you take away from Never Have I Ever is how impulsive and flighty teenagers can be at all times.
Devi has a distinctly short fuse, often blowing up at her friends and mom when stressed. She even goes so far as to sabotage a model UN session when she gets mad at Ben. Some of the decisions she, and her friends take seem a bit too melodramatic, but then again their heads are supposed to be swimming in hormones so some of it can be forgiven. However, the show does get cringey and at times, frustrating, as characters make self-sabotaging decisions just so the show can get a padded runtime.
While Never Have I Ever is fine, it never makes a compelling case for why it exists, beyond putting an Indian American teen’s experience to the screen.
It’s not as quirky or heartwarming as Sex Education, or as endearing and varied as PEN15. It definitely isn’t as funny as The Politician or as edgy and thought-provoking as Euphoria. The show spends most of the first season setting things up for the next season, which means that there isn’t enough story to stand on its own. It’s not that the show doesn’t have its own brand of quirkiness: John McEnroe and Andy Samberg narrate the story, for instance. Still, the show feels like it’s a result of Netflix’s famous algorithmic soup, adding to the streaming giant’s library of teen comedies by catering to an untapped demographic of Indians living abroad.
Still, the show has an earnestness to it that keeps you watching along. Ramakrishnan does a great job, especially as a first timer who had to beat 15,000 other girls to get the part. She gets good material in the second half of the season as she is forced to deal with her grief and her relationship with her mom. Her best friends, Fabiola and Eleanor, also get their own storylines, helping to flesh out their one-note characterizations.
At this point, Never Have I Ever shows promise, but it has to go a long way to fulfill that. Let’s hope it tries to make bolder choices instead of settling into a safe, predictable pattern.