Never Have I Ever… related to a show more.

Never Have I Ever…. related to a television show as much as this one. A few days ago, we were given the last season of Never Have I Ever and I feel like it was such a treat of a season and the perfect good-bye to the characters we have grown to love. From the call-backs to the first season to the amazing narration of John McEnroe throughout the series, it was a delight through and through. I remember starting this show four years ago and binged it in ONE night and I usually never do that to any show but there was such a pull there and that pull comes from the one and only Devi Vishwakumar. A troubled and absolutely chaotic unhinged teenage girl who seems to be making wrong choice after wrong choice but you just can’t help but love her. Why? Because underneath everything she is just a little girl who is grieving losing her father right in front of her eyes and that is enough trauma for anyone. There was something about her that reminded her of me when I was in high school and it made me utterly protective over this girl who was so clearly hurting. In season 3, Devi says that she feels as though she feels too much and she cares too much and that she IS too much, and boy, was that ever felt. Siri play The Archer by Taylor Swift.

We see Devi making the most unhinged choices throughout the seasons, a lot of the time trying to navigate the social statuses of high school at the cost of everyone, even those closest to her. Her anthem is definitely Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero” because hi, it’s me, I’m the problem it’s me. And Devi is definitely a problem. When she hones in on a goal (like losing her virginity to the hottest boy at Sherman Oaks High), she goes absolute tunnel vision no matter who gets hurt along the way but we know so much of this is her trying to deal with the intricacies of losing the person she was closest to. 

Devi Vishwakumar, our unhinged leader

What really drew me to the first season was the relationship between Nalini, Devi’s mother, and Devi. A mother who is trying to raise a daughter on her own in a nation that is not her own, trying to navigate a life after her husband’s death and a daughter who has so much anger inside of her that it threatens to implode on them because her mother just does not understand what it feels like to be a teenager. I think a lot of South Asian women can relate to their frictioned relationship because we so often experience this with our mothers who still hold the mentality from a place they left so long ago and the children of diaspora who are just trying to fit in. Devi and her mom’s severed relationship was so personal to me because this was the same relationship I had with my mother when I was Devi’s age. My mother was quite young and when she was 35, I was 15, so imagine two headstrong women who refused to see each other’s point of view. I was always fighting against the restrictions my immigrant mother kept trying to put me around and hated how she could not understand how some teenage rituals were just a right of passage and she couldn’t understand why I couldn’t be a “good girl” like my other angel cousins. Towards the end of season one when Devi told her mother that she wished that her mom was the one who died instead of her dad was one of the most hard hitting scenes because I remember the exchange of volatile words in the midst of heated arguments. These scenes that showcased the plight of a relationship that only immigrants can know were done so well and each time, they just hit you in the feels. I remember feeling like no one in the world could understand you and why, just why, your mom couldn’t just understand. It always felt like a personal attack and we saw that with Devi in the show.

Water works was a regular when it came to this show because of its relatability. One of my favorite moments from the show has to be in the finale of the first season when Devi, Nalini and Kamala are doing their final prayers with Devi’s dad’s (Mohan) ashes at the beach and the vulnerability of Devi and her mother. That scene was so beautiful and something that brought them together because after everything, they knew they had each other even if they did not always see eye to eye. I loved seeing their relationship get stronger as they grew closer and we saw Devi’s maturity when she decided to not go away a year earlier to school at the end of season three because she just needed one more year with her mother. Season one Devi would have done anything to get away from her but Devi learned the importance of family. It was so nice to see a matriarchal family comprised of Devi and her mom, Kamala and Pati because bonds between women are so precious and never seen that often on screen. 

Another aspect I loved about the show is the triangle. No, not the love triangle because Team Paxton or Ben, pfft. More like Team Devi and her girls Fabiola and Eleanor. We love seeing strong female friendships and that trio was no exception. What made them so real was how raw they were – they were not perfect, they all made mistakes, there were moments where they weren’t friends. Sometimes, it was because Devi was being selfish as hell and couldn’t see past Paxton’s photoshopped abs she could waterboard off of, sometimes it was because of miscommunication and secrets so they wouldn’t hurt one another but in the end, they always came back together and had each other’s back. It was real. You could believe that this was an actual friend group in high school. That was another thing – the teenagers in this school (other than Paxton because he was a clear dig at the CW network where adults play teens) were believable. They acted like teenagers. This was not another Euphoria where kids are dealing drugs, having sex on every surface, and on the streets acting like they have lived seventy lives under no parent supervision. 

This show received a lot of flack when it first came out for how it seemed to “white-wash” Devi and how Devi was a “coconut” and that wasn’t the desi experience but who are you to say that is not the desi experience? Just because it was not YOUR experience does not mean that it was not SOMEONE’S experience, and it was. It was MY experience. I have never felt “brown enough” and still don’t at times because I don’t listen to Punjabi music and don’t really follow my faith, yet, I certainly was not “white enough.” In season one, Devi even made a comment saying that she didn’t think of herself as “Indian Indian” like other girls in her community and then fast forward to season four and she is doing a cultural dance and owning it. We love to see it. She was even seen wearing jhumkas with her western clothes in the later seasons, just like Kate and Edwina Sharma from Bridgerton. This has been my favourite trend so far from seeing South Asians on t.v.

They even convinced me to rock my own jhumkas that I only usually wear when during traditional events with my regular outfits.

Never Have I Ever was a great show that depicted the trials and tribulations of being a first generation brown girl and I am sad to see it go, but I know this is not the last of Crazy Devi’s antics as she probably is going to raise a lot of hell in Princeton. Thanks Mindy Kaling for yet another piece of brilliance that just shows me that it is not just me. Considering this was her first gig, I can’t wait to see what Maitreyi Ramakrishnan gets up to next. Just like John McEnroe, here’s Anisha, signing out.