Peace Out, Virgins!
Never Have I Ever Season 1 Review, Season 2 Review, Season 3 Review.
The fourth and final season of Never Have I Ever follows Devi (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) and her friends as the enter their final year of high school, preparing to say goodbye, move on to their next step and figure out what is next. After losing her virginity to Ben (Jaren Lewison) however Devi enters her final year on a low note after the awkwardness of the encounter pushes the two to break off any form of relationship and remain as uneasy friends. Ben then begins dating arty student Margot (Victoria Moroles) who Devi instantly dislikes, causing her typical form of drama after a major miscommunication with a vandalism indecent. Everybody also begins applying to college, with Devi and Ben with the hearts set of the Ivies, Fabiola (Lee Rodriguez) struggling to find where she fits best and Eleanor (Ramona Young, Legends of Tomorrow) setting her sights on Julliard.
Meanwhile Nalini (Poorna Jagannathan, Gypsy) begins contemplating her life after Devi leaves for college, beginning a romance with contractor Andres (Ivan Hernandez) who also happens to be Margot's Father. Nirmala (Ranjita Chakravarty) also begins dating again after she meets white-man Len (Jeff Garlin), concerning Kamala (Richa Moorjani) who fears the worst and sets out to prove his guilty intentions. With so much in their lives changing, Devi and her family must band together more than ever if they want to get through to the other side. But with so much on her plate and the threat of college looming closer will Devi get everything she's ever wanted or will her own actions have consequences that even she cannot fix?
Devi has to go down in history as one of the most chaotic and messy TV protagonists I have ever seen and I have absolutely loved following her story these past four years. I think it used to be very rare for characters to be seen as so vulnerable in television (especially women of colour) and so Never Have I Ever really has been ground-breaking in its representation across the board. Over the past four seasons we've seen Devi go through incredible loss, regularly attend therapy with Doctor Ryan (Niecy Nash, Dahmer) and if I'm being honest make some really bad decisions. Every episode it seems Devi creates more and more mess and it's just so refreshing to see such a realistic character who makes mistakes, does some pretty awful things but does always try and fix her mistakes. Devi is selfish, careless, overly concerned with popularity, incredibly competitive and honestly I wouldn't have her any other way.
I think perhaps my one gripe with this season was how a lot of the older characters tended to be forgotten or overlooked whereas a lot of brand new characters were then introduced only for their storylines to go absolutely nowhere. Characters like Kamala and Aneesa (Megan Suri) were pretty much non-existent this season and even when they were around they were placed in the background or given very out-of-character storylines. Aneesa probably grand totalled about five minutes on screen and Kamala seemed pretty absent as well, only really appearing for her scenes with Len, with if I'm being honest felt more in line with Devi's character than the usually serious and studious Kamala. On the flip side new love interest Ethan (Michael Cimino, Senior Year) was promoted as a selling point of this new season only for him to completely disappear after only a few episodes. On the one hand I'm glad the writers didn't give Devi a whole new serious relationship in the final season but at the same time this guy just completely disappeared and I really assumed he'd be a bigger part of the storyline. This may seem like only a small complaint but I think it's more because it was the final season and I wanted things to wrap up properly, not focus on new characters and forget old ones.
Paxton (Darren Barnet, Love Hard) definitely had an interesting storyline this season and I'm glad that he was still brought back despite graduating last year. Struggling to find his place in college and no longer having his popularity to prop him up, Paxton then quits and returns to school as the new assistant swim coach. Here he then retakes his place at the top of the food chain and despite now being a teacher continues to hang out with his former friends, complicating things when he then goes too far and has to reminded he's no longer on the same level as the students despite the similar ages. I really enjoyed Paxton's storyline here and it felt very similar to that of Finn's in Glee, discovering his passion for teaching and learning how to grow up and move past high school. Paxton was definitely used to being top dog and I think reality really hit him in college and for the first time he did struggle with being liked and actually having to work for something. I really loved the progression of his relationship with Devi here and definitely agree that the pair are much better as friends, able to really bring out the best in each other.
After four long years we finally got the resolution to Devi's love triangle and I for one am very glad she chose Ben, having been on his team since early season two. I think the pair's chemistry and verbal sparring has always been on point and even if we've never seen the pair together for any extended time dating I still think they're a perfect match and loved how everything ended up. Even with other romantic interests getting in the way the pair have always had that connection, constantly trying to outdo each other and being able to relate to each other massively because of their intellectual struggles. I think Devi never really felt like herself around Paxton and they worker much better as friends whereas Ben and Margot, whilst cute, didn't always gel together because of their largely different interests. Ben and Devi however just work and I'm really excited for their future together, even if I can't see it for myself!
Overall I really enjoyed this fourth and final season of Never Have I Ever and loved the final journey's for all of our characters and where they ended up. Across the four years Devi has been a downright messy protagonist and I've loved every single second with her, going on a real emotional journey following the death of her Father (Sendhil Ramamurthy, The Flash). In season four we got to see everybody leaving for college and the dramas that came with applications and despite some rocky starts I'm really happy where everyone ended up and how things ended, a real gem of a teen drama show.
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