Review: Never Have I Ever Season 2
Never Have I Ever Season 2 review: The show has really bloomed and found its footing in the second season. It seems to be following the trajectory of hit comedies like The Office and Parks and Recreation.
Never Have I Ever Season 2
Cast: Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Poorna Jagannathan and Darren Barnet
Creators: Lang Fisher, Mindy Kaling
Rating: 3.5 stars
‘Never Have I Ever’ Season 2 is Riddled with Disappointing Clichés. Never Have I Ever has a love triangle, female rivalry, an annual high school dance, and lots of drama.
Netflix’s teen drama about coming of age is back for a second season, promising more old-school American high school drama with some classic Indian tongue-in-cheek humour.
Never Have I Ever Season 2 story
Never Have I Ever appears to be free of the first-season curse, which plagues most comedies. Season 2 of the Netflix original series is bigger, wittier, and more intelligent than the first, and the laughs are timed to perfection. Devi Vishwakumar (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan), an Indian-American teen growing up in California, was introduced in the first season of Never Have I Ever. The show had a clever premise, but it was built on shaky ground. Season 2 is when the show really started to take off and find its footing. It appears to be following in the footsteps of The Office and Parks and Recreation, which both had disappointing first seasons but more than made up for it in subsequent seasons.
Devi’s straight-minded dedication endeared her to the audience in the first season — she was just as determined to have her first sexual encounter as she was to get straight ‘As’ on her report card. She was dealing with an overprotective mother, grieving after the recent death of her father, and juggling it all with the typical high school experience.Never Have I Ever Season 2 takes these stories even further, and things get a little crazy. Devi had kissed two boys on the same day and said goodbye to her father’s mortal remains when we last saw her. We also spoke with John McEnroe, the tennis legend who narrated Season 1 and is now back for Season 2.
When Drama Supersedes Trauma
Devi is navigating high school, dating shenanigans, curfew, and her typical overbearing Indian mother this time. Devi’s grandmother, who has recently moved in with them from Chennai, is also introduced. The plot of the show and the relative arcs of the ten-episode season are predictable at times, but the slick dialogue, clever banter, and outrageous pop culture references make it worth one’s time.
This is vintage Mindy Kaling. The whole season can serve as a primer for American pop culture for anyone needing a crash course. Kaling is known for this, be it her annoying character of Kelly Kapoor — which she helped write — in The Office, or her rendition of Dr Mindy Lahiri in The Mindy Project. Kaling’s writing is often the coup-de-grace that makes a show comedy gold. Kaling has brought out the big guns for Never Have I Ever season 2. We get references from K-Pop, Beyonce, Ferrero Rochers, Harry Styles, Jodie Foster, the Kardashians, LeBron James… phew. You name them and Kaling has lined them up for an appearance in her show.
Devi’s rebellious act of piercing her nose is explained by a fellow Indian-American student, Aneesa, as an attempt to “decolonize her nose” and break Western beauty stereotypes.
Both South Asian women and post-colonial narratives get a good score. Aneesa goes on to say that the act was a “halal moment of celebration” that was free of alcohol and boys. Both of these factors are kryptonite for South Asian parents who want their children to be straight A students on their way to Ivy League universities. The show is loosely based on Kaling’s own life, so it’s no surprise she gets these nuances to the T.
The ups and downs in Devi’s life can be seen in season 2 of Never Have I Ever. Maitreyi Ramakrishnan adopts Devi’s persona as if it were a second skin. I’m looking forward to seeing more of her work. Also, watch the show because it will take you back to a simpler time when the high-school winter dance was the pinnacle of your life and being suspended from school meant the end of your life.
