he first season of Mindy Kaling’s ‘Never Have I Ever’ was one of my favorite binges when quarantine started more than a year ago. The series had me laughing out loud one moment then bursting into tears the next. The series follows Inidan-American Devi Vishkumar played to a tee by newcomer ((Maitreyi Ramakrishnan). After the traumatic death of her father, Devi is determined to become a cool and popular girl at her high school and this leads to a number of hilarious and sometimes heartwarming misadventures as she mends her strained relationship with her mother Dr. Nalini Vishkumar (Poorna Jagannathan) and discovers her roots as an Indian-American. Along the way, she manages to have not just one, but two blossoming relationships (Whaaaaat?!) -we’ll get more into that later.
The second season picks up right where the first one ended, with Devi having a bit of closure from her father’s death and somehow ending up with two guys! Her childhood rival, Ben (Jaren Lewison) and high-school hottie Paxton (Darren Barnet). If you loved Paxton’s shirt-removing stunt in the first season, don’t worry, they seem to find ways for him to remove his shirt in the show.
Devi is the kind of lead character that’s hard to like most of the time, because she can be very shallow and very selfish, so its hard to sympathize with her or root for her, sometimes, I think of her as representing all the bad choices that I (we) made when we were younger and its a show, so her actions can have larger-than-life consequences at times but they also write her in such a way that when she does have her heart in the right place, she can be an okay character also.
I appreciate how the series normalizes seeking professional help, like in Devi’s case, she was having a hard time processing the death of her father, so she sees a psychiatrist, who is played hilariously by Niecy Nash, she is therefore, oftentimes Devi’s voice of reason and with the sort of trouble Devi gets herself in, she definitely needs one.
I’ve also come to love Devi’s odd group of friends, I appreciate that they didn’t go into racial stereotypes and give Eleanor Wong (Ramona Young) the Robotics Captain role, just because she is of Chinese descent and instead made her character a theater nerd. Fabiola Torres (Lee Rodriguez) who is the Robotics Captain, goes through a journey of self-discovery when she realizes she’s a lesbian, happy to say that instead of going through the usual tropes like a parent who can’t accept their child’s sexuality, Fabiola has to deal with being your authentic self, even after coming out. Fabiola is a nerd and loves robots, she’s not familiar with the common references to pop-culture (she hasn’t seen OITNB or ‘The L word’) and that’s okay, because Fabiola is more than just her sexuality and that’s an arc that I appreciated in the series.
Season 2 heats up with the arrival of Aneesa (Megan Suri) a new Indian student at Devi’s high school, cool and beautiful, Devi is immediately intimidated by her things get interesting with the two Indian students and their friends.
I especially liked that they gave Paxton a bit of a character growth this season, he no longer is some good-looking jock but he also deals with wanting to be a better student and even discovering a bit of his family history, (I won’t reveal what, so you won’t get spoiled) but let me just say that this piece of history has been kept under wraps and hush, hush, for so long, that I’m glad its coming out more now and being talked about.
One of the unique traits of the series is that it’s narrated by 80s Tennis superstar John McEnroe, season 1 is able to provide a very satisfying explanation as to why, in case you haven’t seen it yet. Glad to report that he’s also back for the second season for more un-conventional narrating.
Admittedly there were more laughs and tears in the first season but I still like the direction of where season 2 is going. The themes were not of the usual tropes and I liked that, mental health issues are discussed and of course at the heart of it all, it’s all about family and friends, no matter how crazy they may seem to be at times.
Season 2 of ‘Never Have I Ever’ drops on July 15 on Netflix.