Vague Spoilers ahead for Season 4 Never Have I Ever
The beauty of Never Have I Ever is that at the end of the day, the show concludes the journey towards healing the trauma that was the opening incident of the series: the tragic death of Devi’s father, which resulted in her temporary disability, and the sad, broken figure of the girl herself.
Episode to episode, the drama and narrative of the show focuses on the love triangles, teenage antics, the high school drama and competition, and applying to ivy league colleges. And while all of that story matters, by the time we get to the end, it’s the relationships that simmered along in the background that prove the be the most important. The emotional conclusion of the show circles back to the love shared between Devi and her father… and Devi and her mother.
The final episodes of the series in season 4 do end up creating a bit of a long goodbye, you can tell a mile off that this is a Final Season. But the satisfying thing about that is that it actually works to wrap up storylines and tie some tidy bows on the different characters’ arcs. (Although side note, it did feel like we wrapped up “Oh yeah, wasn’t Aneesa a character on this show?” with her showing up for five minutes to explain why the current plot threads don’t include her. )
And unlike so many teen dramas that drag love triangles on and on, with multiple break ups and make ups and switching partners and returning, Never Have I Ever allows us to properly say good bye to Paxton. It’s nice to imagine that breakups can be that kind, and result in a solid kind of friendship where friends legitimately want what’s best for each other and know that they themselves probably aren’t that any more.
It’s lovely.
This show is a picture perfect Watching High School show. It is purposefully 4 seasons – 4 years of high school: from Freshman to College. That is the story told here. That, and the journey from trauma, through grief, towards healing and self awareness.
If you didn’t cry at some point while Devi said her goodbyes, I don’t know what witch hexed your heart, but you should look into it. It’s manipulatively emotional to see Devi’s final form evolve in the final episodes of the series. But again, it’s lovely to see.
This series finale feels like it took the mandate to “wrap it up and give the audience closure” and just ran with it. To complete the series with the titular game of “never have I ever” at Nirmala’s wedding! It could have been cutesy, (and maybe it was, a bit) but honestly it worked. It was sweet and fun, it reminded us of all the things Devi and her friends have gone through and accomplished and bumbled into, all the things they have done to arrive at the moments of goodbye. As if to say, in closing, I lay before you Devi’s high school collection of “never have I ever” worthy events.
And it came at the end, when the story was ready to end. It wrapped up stories, highlighted friendships, and gave the characters a moment to pause and enjoy each others’ company, rather than inciting drama into the group dynamics.
It was a lovely end to a sweet, flawed, funny, but ultimately lovely show.
