Story
How Does Never Have I Ever's Storyline Redresses Stereotypes?
On a superficial level, the show revolves around Indian-American high school student Devi Vishwakumar (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) who wants to elevate her social status without her friends, family, and feelings thwarting her plans. Devi vows to achieve this goal by losing her virginity to crush Paxton Hall-Yoshida (Darren Barnet), who she believes helped cure her mysterious leg paralysis.
Initially, Never Have I Ever seems to recycle clichés. (GIF via Tenor)
However, deeper themes lie behind the series’ lighthearted exterior. While Kaling pitches it as a rom-com loosely based on her childhood, the show is more of a coming-of-age story. As Devi pursues Paxton to cope with her father Mohan’s (Sendhil Ramamurthy) death, she overcomes struggles with her Indian identity and relationships with her mother Nalini (Poorna Jagannathan), cousin Kamala (Richa Moorjani) best friends Fabiola (Lee Rodriguez) and Eleanor (Ramona Young ), and rival Ben Gross (Jaren Lewison).