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Without even realizing it, Ive been missing teen TV rom-coms.
(Consider this fair warning the first season premieres in full on Netflix today.)
Devi wants a boyfriend.
She wants her arm hair to thin out; she knows its an Indian thing but its justtoo much.
She wants to go to Princeton.
It makesNever Have I Everpurposely, happily different from the previous white-kids-in-a-white-neighborhood teen rom-com default.
It is a defining, all-pervasive facet of what this show is.
It shapes Devis life in big ways and small, butNever Have I Everwields that knowledge deftly.
Her mixture of rebellion, resentment, and pride in her family background is complex and constantly shifting.
Her Indianness is something she owns happily in one moment and then ditches as quickly as possible in others.
The overall impression is the same real emotions, set inside a world thats just a little brighter.
The other major similarity toJane the Virginis inNever Have I Evers use of a narrator.
It couldve easily been a disaster.
The show isnt quite sure how to handle it.
Her friends say awkward things, and her mother worries.
But because this part of her trauma resolves so quickly, its almost treated as a shrug.
Its one of the rare moments thatNever Have I Everworks well on paper but fails in the execution.
Thematically, it makes sense.
In practice, its totally unnecessary, and becomes a strange distraction.
Its the one real misstep in an otherwise fantastic series, and after the first episode it hardly matters.
