A Teen Drama? Never Has Netflix Ever...

Streaming giant’s latest teen show stands out from the genre 

Never have I ever enjoyed a modern teen drama—until now. It’s obvious that Netflix is no stranger to the genre. In fact,  the streaming company has embraced it wholeheartedly with both parts of “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” and “The Kissing Booth” to name a few.

But at the end of the day, most of this teen-centered content falls into two camps: underwhelming or unrealistic.

“Never Have I Ever,” one of Netflix’s latest original series, is different. It rips apart the tired coming of age story and puts it back together in a way that makes it a breakthrough moment for South Asian representation in Hollywood, while also telling the story of how grief manifests itself in a way that feels real. 

In stepping past the teen genre spotlight, this show delivers a storyline that is refreshingly different, surprisingly emotional and skilled at shattering Asian stereotypes.

Loosely based on the life of producer Mindy Kaling, “Never Have I Ever” features the first female South Asian lead in a mainstream U.S. sitcom.

Meet Devi Vishwakumar, a 15-year-old girl from the San Fernando Valley. Freshman year left her social status irreparably damaged when her father died suddenly at a school event, and then she lost the use of her legs for three months following the tragic event.

When the show starts, she’s a first-generation Indian-American entering her sophomore year of high school. More importantly, she’s determined to get a boyfriend and to get into Princeton. Enlisting her two equally socially challenged friends, Eleanor and Fabiola, Devi maps out a plan for them to become cool and elevate themselves socially through the act of securing boyfriends.

Instead, Devi ends up freaking out on her friends, lying to them about hooking up with Paxton, the most popular boy in school and entangling herself in a series of lies and emotions that leaves her at odds with nearly everyone in her life.

It is after all, a teen drama, sporting all of the usual hallmarks of the genre. The one-note side characters for purely comedic relief, the awkward teachers, the inexplicable amount of free time spent at school but not in class and the actors who seem just a tad too old to be playing teens.

It was important to Kaling that her cast be close in age to real high school students, and many of the actors are in their late teens and early twenties. But Darren Barnet, who plays Paxton, graduated high school in 2009 - a testmament to their casting plan. 

“Never Have I Ever” also finds a way to give depth and story arcs to the characters that surround Devi. We see her mom struggle with losing her husband, Devi’s older cousin Kamala wrestle with the prospect of an arranged marriage, Eleanor’s shaky relationship with her estranged mother and Fabiola’s reconciliation with her sexuality.

Ben Gross, Devi’s arch nemesis at the start of the series, even gets his own episode dedicated to his struggles with feeling lonely. 

Devi’s is also not your usual teen heroine. She isn’t the main character we’d normally root for in our teen shows. It’s not like she hasn’t done anything wrong and still ends up facing the problems of the world. She does a lot wrong—and we watch her do most of it.

Her personality is wrapped up in the title of the series and best described by Kaling in an interview as “a character whose ego is so caught up in the things she hasn’t done yet, hasn’t been exposed to yet.” 

Beyond Devi’s self-inflicted problems, that she avoids facing the grief of her father’s death gives the show a layer of emotional complexity that separates it from the rest of the emotionally superficial teen genre.

Another distinguishing factor—the breaking of Asian stereotypes commonly found in media. Devi sees a therapist, a diversion from the taboo that surrounds mental health in some Asian families. We also see flashbacks of Devi’s father being a loving and caring parent, rather than the immigrant father that is usually cast as strict and emotionally distant from his family.

All of this culminates in the final episode where instead of the usual internal monologue talking about how perfect everything is, we see a moment of true character growth for Devi.

From the outside looking in, it’s easy to see Devi’s self-inflicted mistakes. Her short fuse, questionable judgement and dangerous tendency for lashing out are the perfect cocktail for a hormonal teenager to drive a wedge between her and everyone she knows.

Looking inside Devi’s mind, through flashbacks of memories with her father, we see a person who's lost. She’s a young girl who never figured out how to process the emotions from her father’s death to the point where the new ones flooding in only make things worse. 

She is our textbook teen heroine that was dealt an unfair hand in life. But her story is more than just her’s. It’s her father’s American dream, her mother’s grief over the loss of her husband and her cousin’s careful balance of American culture and Indian familial expectations. We see her friend’s grow alongside her and find their own levels of personal growth.

“Never Have I Ever” was never just a teen drama. It’s a rule breaker that redefines today’s teen genre by giving it the depth, complexity and realism we rarely allow teen stories to have.