Never Have I Ever Season 1 Review: An Absolute Delight

Warning: This review contains some spoilers for Season 1 of Never Have I Ever.

Mindy Kaling’s latest show, Never Have I Ever, has her fingerprints all over it. There’s plenty of pop culture references (a Nick Jonas/Priyanka Chopra joke and a Tik-Tok scene probably make for the funniest call-outs), a tightly-wound frenemy bound to turn love-interest, and a killer soundtrack.

Plus, in a fun Easter egg for longtime Kaling fans, Sendhil Ramamurthy, who played Kelly Kapoor’s boyfriend on The Office finale, stars in a pivotal role as Devi’s father.

Devi (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) feels like a young Mindy Lahiri in many respects. She’s simultaneously self-possessed, high achieving, mouthy, and selfish while trying to stave off a fair amount of insecurity and grief. 

Contrary to how it’s been marketed, Never Have I Ever isn’t a sex romp or revenge of the nerd fantasy. Yes, it’s funny and certainly touches on sex but it’s more about healing from grief and trauma, the inherent isolation and discomfort that comes along with adolescence, and the tensions that exist between honoring your culture and forging your own identity away from it.

Honestly, it’s one of the most original, interesting teen shows in years (sorry, Riverdale).

The show’s success mostly hinges on newcomer Ramakrishnan’s performance as Devi. Devi isn’t always easy to like and it’s to Ramakrishman’s credit that we want to stick with her (while simultaneously yelling at our screens when she makes boneheaded decisions, of course). 

At the heart of the show is Devi’s unresolved grief about her father’s sudden death and her resentment towards her mother. Ramakrishnan approaches this storyline with aplomb and her work in Never Have I Ever Season 1 Episode 9 “…had to be on my best behavior” and Episode 10 “…said I’m sorry” is raw and revelatory.

It doesn’t hurt that Ramakrishman is supported by a a compelling crew of characters. On almost any other show, Devi or her friends would be sidekicks who mostly existed to revolve around and shine on their central character — and almost always white — friend.

Fabiola (Lee Rodriguez) and Eleanor (Ramona Young) are fully realized characters trying to process and work through their own challenges and feelings of alienation. The writing provides this foundation but Rodriguez and Young elevate their roles at every opportunity.

That the supporting characters are both diverse and well developed shouldn’t go unnoticed given Kaling’s history; The Mindy Project wasn’t nearly as diverse and rich when it came to its cast.

However, the real MVP of the season is Poorna Jagannathan as Devi’s mother, Nalini.

Jagannathan has no easy task: Nalini is a study in contrast and contradiction; buckling under her own grief, she’s unable to fully grasp that her daughter’s merely trying to work through her own, albeit in a different way than Nalini might like.

On top of that, Nalini is modern in many ways, armed with a biting, sardonic wit, but she’s also trying to honor her Indian culture and ensure her daughter and niece do the same (the deeper glimpses into Indian culture are a highlight of the season and the show deftly showcases Indian traditions and how they intersect with everyday life far more than we’ve seen in Kaling’s other work).

Together, Jagannathan and Ramakrishnan portray one of the most honest, complex mother-daughter relationships that I’ve seen on television for some time. There’s clearly tremendous love between them but there’s also a significant gap in the kind of love they’re able to give one another and the kind of love they each need or want.

While the trailers teased Devi’s relationship with resident-hottie, Paxton (Darren Barnet), he’s far more interesting than you’d expect. Imagine Jordan Catalano with greater depth.

Devi’s frenemy, Ben (Jaren Lewison), was featured far less in the previews, which is a shame because he’s genuinely one of the most entertaining characters on the series; so much so that he gets his own standalone episode, Never Have I Ever Season 1 Episode 6 “…been the loneliest boy in the world.”

High Fidelity used a similar storytelling device this year to great effect and given how recent that was,  Ben’s standalone episode could feel like an also-ran.

Fortunately, the writing is so sharp and Lewison’s portrayal of a deeply lonely young man so poignant that it doesn’t matter. It’s one of the strongest episodes of the season.

Should Never Have I Ever get picked up for a second season, I fully expect Paxton will get his own narrated episode.

It also doesn’t really matter that we can see Ben’s romance with Devi coming miles away. Kaling historically loves an enemies to lovers trope, and within minutes of Ben’s introduction on the pilot, I’d already nicknamed him Baby Danny [Castellano].

Never Have I Ever is original in so many respects, so we’ll give them this one. (Plus,that’s one of my favorite tropes too. I feel you, Mindy).

The strongest thing about the show is how it addresses grief and loss.

Grief is a universal human experience but it’s also deeply personal: Never Have I Ever understands that implicitly. Plus, while other shows may have a “very special episode” dealing with loss, Never Have I Ever understands that grief is far too enduring for that. It’s not simply present for the the duration of a mere episode.

Eleanor’s shock over her mother’s abandonment, Nalini’s longing for her husband, and Devi’s pain and guilt after her father’s death are all expressed differently.

Eleanor drowns in her loss all at once, shutting down until she’s finally ready to pick herself up again. Nalini feels a dull pain every day that she leans into while Devi pushes her sadness down deeper and deeper, only for it to wash over her again, as painful as it was before.

They’re all valid, realistic ways of responding to trauma and I, for one, recognized myself in each version. I was relieved to see the shades of grief played out on television so realistically; that’s still fairly rare.

Despite the focus on grief, there’s so much joy to be found in Never Have I Ever (it is devilishly funny but that’s clearly not even the most memorable thing about it). Never have I ever seen such perfectly imperfect characters as Devi and her friends.

I’m looking forward to what comes next. So much of Never Have I Ever seems designed to avoid some of The Mindy Project‘s pitfalls and weaknesses. In exploring the world of a teenage girl, Mindy Kaling may have achieved her most mature work yet.

Stray observations:

• As beautiful as this show is, it’s not without imperfections, much like Ben’s face. Devi’s brief stint in a wheelchair is so brief and disconnected from the rest of the story that it feels unnecessary.
• I, for one, wish we’d dug more into the strange commodification of culture a la the mom in Starbucks who insisted on taking a photo of Devi in her full traditional dress.

What did you think of the debut season of Never Have I Ever? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Never Have I Ever is currently streaming on Netflix. 

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