Never Have I ever is a 2020 American teen dramedy on Netflix. It follows the life of Devi Vishwakumar as a 2nd generation Indian-American after the death of her father.
Genre: Comedy Drama
Episodes: 10
Never Have I Ever is light-hearted, refreshing, and overflowing with American pop culture references. The story starts off in the San Fernando Valley in California with a narration from Tennis Star and fellow hot-head who can relate to Devi’s emotional outbursts, John McEnroe. In fact, I find Devi’s personality so refreshing. The hot-head trait is mostly connected to male characters.
As the story goes on, we learn a lot of what has happened to Devi and how she manages things. Devi’s father, Mohan (Sendhil Ramamurthy), suffered a heart attack at an orchestra concert the previous school year. The death resulted in a lot of change for the family. Devi’s mom, Nalini (Poorna Jagannathan), continues her work as a dermatologist. As time goes on, she handles grief by considering getting rid of the things he loved. In addition to that, Devi’s cousin, Kamala (Richa Moorjani), who is the “obedient” cousin, moves into their home as she finishes up her PhD at Cal-Tech.
After being a nerd for all of freshman year, Devi schemes to return sophomore year as cool, but there are many obstacles in her way. For one her two best friends, Eleanor Wong (Ramona Young) and Fabiola Torres (Lee Rodriguez). Eleanor is an actress in the school’s drama club and Fabiola is the president of the robotics club. Devi makes it a goal for them to get boyfriends, which results in a completely different scenario. For Devi, her goal is to sleep with the hottest guy in the school Paxton Hall-Yoshida (Darren Barnet). Her obsession with Paxton seems to be a coping mechanism for her to manage grief.
Lastly, We have her arch nemesis, Ben Gross (Jaren Lewison). Since both Devi and Ben are the most intelligent in their grade. They have competed for the number one spot since elementary school. Ben is a terribly annoying character, but we are allow to empathize with him and gain understanding when we are giving an alternative perspective episode.
This drama was created by Mindy Kaling. To be honest, I have always found her really annoying. I’ve tried to watch her stand-up and I didn’t like it. I tried to watch her show, The Mindy Project, and I still didn’t like it. I have even tried to read her book. I read it in her voice which is probably why I didn’t like it. So I’m surprised that I like this creation. Maybe she’s better in the behind-the-scenes.
Music
These are a couple of the songs from the show. To hear the whole playlist, click here.
Scenes
Quotes
“Sociopaths get sh*t done.”-Devi
“If I had your body, I’d treat it right too.”-Devi
“Can I get you a gatorade? Because you seem real thirsty.” -Ben
Questions/Thoughts
- I like that her friends had a friend break. I honestly did that a couple times in high school, but only because I spent too much time with some friends.
- I love the Ben’s perspective episode. It soften his annoyingness a bit.
- The end of the last episode was a great cliff-hanger.
Drama-to-life
Culture
Outfits
American Tacos recipe
Snacks
Chocolate Chips recipes
Samosas
Slang