The happy ending in the Maitreyi Ramakrishnan-starring Netflix series could have just been brought down a notch.
Never Have I Ever Season 4
Story:
It's time for the senior year of high school. Devi (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) and her gang are prepared for the future, given their identity difficulties, college challenges, and lingering crushes.
Review:
One of the Netflix series that has consistently released its season every year since 2020 is Never Have I Ever. The series, which Mindy Kaling and Lang Fisher created, has been a treat for anyone looking for a light watch and doesn't hesitate to make the audience share a love-hate relationship with the lead character.
When it started three years ago, there was an urge for the series to be called out given that it had a slight stereotypical representation of the Indians. However, as the show progressed, it got better as they got away with the way Indians are shown and became more of a teenage drama based on the life of an American of Indian descent.
The final season comes together and solves the mysterious puzzles of Devi's future. She has been among the problematic students at Sherman Oaks High School and always makes her mother, Nalini (Poorna Jagannathan), frown even with her one glance. Throughout the series, we have seen that in her senior year, she has been nothing but a mess, be it being a bully to a fellow American-Indian classmate, hitting another with her car and making him out of the swim team, lying to her mom and also her friends around; well, the streak continues. However, this would make one feel that her life won't be a smooth ride in her final year of high school. Well, that's more or less far from the truth.
Devi can't have it all, which is what the first half of every season aspires to; however, as the infamous Sima Taparia talks about the stars getting aligned, it does this time too for her. The first five minutes of Never Have I Ever Season 4 talk about the "one free boink," wherein she loses her virginity to her arch-rival of 12 years, Ben Gross (Jaren Lewison). However, it isn't a smooth experience for both, who, after the incident, don't face each other for a few weeks.
Thus, Devi once again gets into a revenge spree by calling Ben out in front of the whole school for having sex with her and then immediately continuing his relationship with Margot (Victoria Moroles). With no surprise to anyone in the school, the incident starts fading away with a few repercussions that stay till the end of the show. Well, things just have to pile up for Devi, as her journey is a domino effect from one incident to the next.
In no time, we are introduced to a bad guy who is a closeted bad person, Ethan (Michael Cimino). While Ben and Paxton Hall-Yoshida (Darren Barnet) are constants for Devi, we can't even call it a love triangle any more. This season, it's Ethan, Devi's new boyfriend, who arrives in her life, only to make it more complicated. Is it that tough to be a teenager in America? Mindy makes it quite obvious.
It just doesn't stop; however, that doesn't stop the series from being entertaining enough. Through Devi's journey, the gossip monger in me, whom I try my level best to hide, has become more curious about how far a major screw-up can go.
Very conveniently, we see Devi ticking off her bucket list one by one, even with a lot of hurdles. The messer becomes the mess, but the writing makes it a clean-up drive to get closure. The penultimate episode, with prom and the biggest lie coming out in the open, gives hope that there can be an open ending. But the satisfactory climax leaves you unsatisfied to an extent. There could be something bittersweet, but it was chocolate milk with marshmallows.
All four seasons, I wait for Mohan Vishwakumar (Sendhil Ramamurthy), Devi's deceased father, to make an appearance, as just his mere presence not only makes her life better but also soothes me as a viewer. Naturally, the series starts with his death, so to come full circle, that should be the very reason for making things slightly smoother for Devi. He is the calm in the chaos, but this time, something else could have been the reason, in my opinion.
However, it was Nalini's arc that gave some sort of satisfaction to all the characters in the series. We have seen her over the years as a mother to a rebellious teenager who just doesn't understand what it is to be a single mother in a country where she didn't wish to be in the first place. But seeing her adapt to everything, even Devi's lifestyle, is palpable to watch, and that has just made her the strongest character in the entire series. Hands down, Poorna Jagannathan is the best part of this season.
Jaren Lewison as Ben Gross follows this. The whole "sex" incident with Devi makes him look like a jerk, as we see in the whole series, wherein he is filled with ego and pride in being the best among the rest. However, this season, there's an emotional depth shown in his character arc, with him also facing failure at a point in his academic life.
Coming to Devi, she still continues to stereotyping herself as an American-Indian by only kind of respecting the people from her community when she is in need. She has still not draped a saree, but she doesn't think of learning even for a bit that it's a lehenga. However, that's the beauty of her character, which stays till the end: she is ignorant and expects that things will always be in her favour. The whims and fancies, hopefully, will be broken once she enters college life. But will we know? Never! We have seen Maitreyi grow as an actor in these four years, and yes, she has gotten better.
The relatability factor drops in the fourth season, and I am glad I took my own sweet time to write this review, as the freshly and completely wrapped season made me feel that this is satisfying. Well, now I am thinking otherwise and hope the happy ending could have just been brought down a notch.
Verdict:
Never Have I Ever Season 4 works more on the predictability factor, and it seems like Lang Fisher and Mindy Kaling were under some fan pressure to give full closure to each and every character. However, maybe not everyone wanted to see how this series ended. But, nevertheless, the game Never Have I Ever also relies more on predictability when played with your closed ones, so it's easy to call them out!
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