So, I watched the new Netflix series, Never Have I Ever. It wasn’t something I was highly anticipating, but it was only ten half-hour episodes, which is super doable for me. Plus, there’s an inherent sense of obligation. You know, “for the culture,” I guess. I am not someone who goes into any piece of media hoping they “feel seen” or whatever, though I do see the value in showcasing talent from typically underrepresented communities. And while they aren’t perfect, I’m glad Netflix has been an outlet that is at least trying to give more opportunities to these talents.
Which brings us to this show that hit the platform just last week. It is created by Mindy Kaling and Lang Fisher, and it centers on high school sophomore, Devi Vishwakumar (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan), who is hoping to improve her social life in the new school year, mostly focused on losing her virginity to a really hot guy. But in doing so, she finds herself struggling with her relationships with her two best friends, Eleanor (Ramona Young) and Fabiola (Lee Rodriguez), as well as her mother, Nalini (Poorna Jagannathan).
Overall, I’d say that the show is pretty good. It has a lot of charm going for it, from its cast to the almost knowingly corny sitcom humor that I really enjoy. Ramakrishnan is a terrific lead, and it’s kinda shocking that this is her very first role. I hope we see more from her in the future. The show is also much weirder than I anticipated. The choice of having legendary tennis player, John McEnroe, narrate the series is so absurd, I can’t help but love it. There’s also an effective throughline about Devi processing the loss of her father, Mohan (Sendhil Ramamurthy), which really resonated with me, since it touches on things that I’ve experienced with my mother when my dad passed away. And while the plot itself is largely standard for this kind of show, it doesn’t waste too much time, and it largely makes all the smart and efficient choices as it goes along.
However, I have my critiques, especially when it comes to the way the show tries to bring the desi experience to the screen. Though, I should make it clear that the show isn’t trying to be the one-size-fits-all showcase of what it’s like being an Indian-American, and nor should it. Most of us know that India is a place of many peoples and cultures, so the way these cultures fit into immigration stories will end up differing. And I’m glad the writers and showrunners were mainly just focused on Devi’s experience. The problems I have are issues that the show develops purely on its own terms.
According to Kaling, the writers room was filled with Indian women, even though that doesn’t seem to reflect the actual “written by” credits (according to IMDb), the majority of which – of the ones not written by Kaling and/or Fisher – appears to be written by mostly white dudes. I only ever saw two South Asian names popping up, and one of them was a co-writing credit with a white guy. The directing credits don’t fare any better. Four of the ten episodes are helmed by two South Asians, who each get two episodes. It’s worth noting many of these folks have collaborated with Kaling before on The Mindy Project (which I haven’t seen). Obviously, I’m not saying every episode needed to be written and directed by South Asian talent, I don’t buy into that line of thinking, everyone does their job perfectly well here, and writing and directing for television is a very complicated business, I’m very well aware of all that. It’s not about them personally as much as it is this idea of trotting out as something that is claimed to be this big step forward in representation when it seems like that representation is only applied in front of the camera, and not behind it.
I only bring this up because a lot of the show feels like it’s always one step away from really leaning into its Indian-ness. As if the folks behind it went out of their way to make sure it was palatable to a white audience, never veering into something that might alienate them or make them uncomfortable. It touches on a lot of plot points that many stories about desis have been covered many times. It even includes all the basic Indian jokes about stuff like spicy food, long Bollywood movies, and judgmental aunties. It’s honestly a miracle they didn’t try to pull a “screw the lightbulb, pet the dog” moment (if you’re desi, you know exactly what I’m talking about). It’s all been done before, and frankly, much better. The weird thing about it is that many of these gags lack the kind of specificity to really land. The nods to Indian pop culture and traditions are mostly very vague, and there’s barely any Tamil spoken in the entire series. The only exception is episode four, which briefly gets into the festival of Ganesh Puja and its traditions, and it’s easily one of the best episodes.
Then there’s this weird situation with Devi’s cousin from India, Kamala (Richa Moorjani), who is staying with Devi and Nalini while she completes her PhD. Kamala is suddenly faced with an arranged marriage, which conflicts with her secret relationship with a classmate. It’s already a tired desi storyline, as relatable an anxiety as it might be, what really caught me off-guard was the reaction from Kamala when she first hears the news. She’s surprised, she makes a joke about how she’s looking forward to marrying someone she’s never met before, it’s a very western reaction, and it’s one that I had a really hard time buying from someone who is supposed to be directly from India, where she was likely raised in an environment where this was normal. She could still be against it, but the way it came across felt like it would have been no different from Devi if she had that news thrown in her face out of nowhere. It’s details like this that constantly took me out of the show, leaving me wondering who exactly this show was for.
I think it was early on when I realized that Never Have I Ever was not really going to dive that deep into the South Asian American experience when an opening montage had a moment where it mentioned how Devi’s parents moved to the United States on the month of September…in the year 2001, with McEnroe commenting “not a super chill time to be a brown person in America.” And that sentiment is never brought up again, nor does it ever seem to factor into either Devi’s life, or the life of her parents. I mean…what?
Like I said, it’s not like I’m mad that the show doesn’t reflect my own experience. I’m more than happy to see stories about desis that aren’t anything like what I’ve been through, and I’m sure the show does that to a degree since Kaling says some of this pulls from a lot of real personal history from her and other people involved in the making of the show. I guess my main issue with this series is that it doesn’t fully lean into the kind of lived-in experience that they are trying to present. It’s not so much the big picture, so much as it is the confidence to dive into all the weird, little details that really bring the story to life in a way that truly feels authentic, even if it comes at the expense of potentially alienating a white audience – which, in all likelihood wouldn’t really happen since the show itself in terms of structure, pacing, etc. is still fairly strong.
The season ends on a note that leaves a story thread to explore in season two, but you still get a complete story with these ten episodes, and a really solid arc that builds to a really emotional final episode that left me in tears. Jagannathan, who has always been an excellent performer, comes very close to stealing this whole thing right from under Ramakrishnan. Whenever the show just focused on either the wacky, contrived teen angst, or the exploration of grief, I was really into it, I was enjoying myself. The cast is very likable, and there’s a warmth to the whole thing that makes it hard to be mad at. It is full of missed opportunities and imperfections, but once it was all said and done, I’m glad I watched, and I’m more glad that it even exists.