YMMV / Never Have I Ever

• Adorkable: Kamala gets excited about the researcher whose lab she'll be working for. When Nalini and Devi don't recognize the name, she calls him the LeBron of stem cell research.
• Alternate Character Interpretation: Several.
  • Rebecca's disappointment when Paxton refuses to pursue a date or relationship with Devi because of his Big Man on Campus standing and Devi being a nerd and calling him "a douche" could also be attributed to her experiences being pitied or bullied for her Down Syndrome and that he isn't acting any better than her past tormentors.
  • On that note, Rebecca warming up to Devi and the idea of her being Paxton's girlfriend but not looking like his type because she isn't "a skank" is likely due to the fact that while Devi is nonchalant about Rebecca's disability, Paxton's ex-girlfriends were a few of Paxton's ex-friends who bullied her.
  • On one note, Joyce commiserating with Devi over "punching above their weight" in boyfriends could also refer to them both being slender women dating larger men (Paxton is muscular and cut while Nathan Lane is famously doughy).
• Base-Breaking Character: Devi herself became this as the seasons wore on. Plenty of comment sections on social media pages discussing the show veer into arguments over whether Devi's flaws for being rude, selfish, ungrateful, and a poor friend are justifiable due to her age and trauma, or whether they make her a stronger and more interesting protagonist. Some love her even more for her mistakes, while others give up on the show due to an inability to continue caring about her.
• Friendly Fandoms: Benvi shippers tend to like Anne of Green Gables, particularly the Anne with an E iteration, given that academic rivals to lovers ships are plenty indebted to the classic model set up by Anne Shirley/Gilbert Blythe.
• Funny Moments:
  • Nalini talks about how when Indians, even penny pinchers, come into a bit of money they buy a cement fountain, Kamala replies dreamily, "Oh I'd like a fountain" and later they drive a holy man to a nursery so he can buy a fountain. Maitreyi Ramakrishnan (Devi) actually said that after the first season wrapped up, her parents actually bought and installed a water fountain for their house.
  • When Ben and Kamala overhear Nalini and Devi arguing about Ben's presence in the house, with Devi predictably insulting him, Kamala decided to drop a pan to minimize the awkwardness. It barely clinks, prompting Kamala's apologetic comment, that she hoped it would be loud for longer.
  • Fabiola and Aneesa flirting so awkwardly that Paxton, who is present and doesn't know their situation, just gives them one look full of pity.
  • Nalini's reactions to find Devi with a boy, including Paxton "doctor walking HVP" and giving Ben "It's always the short ones!" in a very venomous tone.
  • Paxton and Ben in a hospital with Paxton relishing the fact that his rival is at the moment literally full of shit. A nurse gives him a tired look and sarcastically remarks "I love talking to teenagers".
• Hollywood Homely:
  • The school refers to Devi and her friends as "U.N." (Unfuckable Nerds) when the girls are reasonably attractive young women. Played With as Devi lampshades it and tells Ben (who calls them that) to "stop pretending to have standards" when he claims he doesn't notice her friends because they are "below a 6" on the attractiveness scale. Also justified as the cast lives in Sherman Oaks, a Valley suburb of Los Angeles, and Ben's father is a big-time agent in Hollywood where there exists a very skewed and narrow standard of beauty.
  • Parodied when Eleanor’s attractive mother said she punched above her weight dating Nathan Lane. Also again when Nalini commiserates with Kamala on her secret boyfriend.
  Nalini: I know there are some real hunks on the Caltech campus. I've watched Big Bang Theory.
• Ho Yay:
  • Trent and Paxton's relationship is... intense, particularly from Trent's side. Instances of straight men - including narrator John McEnroe - gushing about Paxton's hottness are also not uncommon.
  • Ben and Paxton's interactions in season 3 Ben-centric episode basically opened the fandom's eyes to the possibility that Benvi and Daxton aren't the only elligible ships in their Love Triangle with Devi.
  • Given Devi's reaction when she first sees Aneesa, one would think she was looking at her new love interest.
• I Knew It!: Although Word of God is that Ben and Devi's relationship wasn't even supposed to have any sort of romance in it until they witnessed Ramakrishnan and Lewison's chemistry together, it's hard not to see the romance coming. (Especially when you factor in the sorts of couples that Mindy Kaling has written in the past.) Maitreyi Ramakrishnan even states in an interview that she could see Ben and Devi developing romantic feelings for each other even just from the "unfuckable nerds" scene.
• Iron Woobie: Rebecca Hall-Yoshida had been bullied in the past for her Down Syndrome, but she is a very talented, confident, and stylish young woman who speaks her mind.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Ben is often rude, unkind, and pretentious. However, in his A Day in the Limelight episode, "... been the loneliest boy in the world", viewers learn more about his life. His parents neglect him and are always away, his girlfriend only uses him for his money and he has no real friends to spend any time with. He makes several attempts to find someone to attend a sports game with him, and can't find a single person. He gets catfished by an old pervert when trying to make a friend with similar interests online and finally ends up breaking down in Nalini's office when she mentions that the Vishwakumars have dinner together every night— something he hasn't had for a very long time. She ends up feeling so bad for him that she invites him to attend her family dinner out of sympathy, specifically commenting on how lonely he clearly is.
  • Devi and Nalini, especially when they miss Mohan.
• Retroactive Recognition: London Thor played a small role in Season 3 as Stella, an alt girl who catches Ben's attention. A year later, she got her big break as the female form of Jordan Li in The Boys' hit spin-off Gen V.
• Ron the Death Eater: Ben is seen as The Bully by some fans who don't ship him with Devi, even though he and Devi both consistently swap cutting barbs with each other (such as her unintentionally cruel remark about how she wished "Nazis would kill him" before realizing Ben is Jewish and how anti-Semitic she was actually being).
• Ship-to-Ship Combat: Team Ben vs. Team Paxton. Just a few days since the show's premiere and numerous debates and articles have popped up online about it. However, cast members Maitreyi Ramakrishnan (Devi), Lee Rodriguez (Fabiola), and Ramona Young (Eleanor) have said they would like for Devi to pursue internal happiness above all, putting them on "Team Devi."
• Spiritual Successor: Some people see the show as the one to fill the void left by Jane the Virgin ending. Both series feature a virginal young woman/girl of color as the protagonist plus depictions of their respective cultures (and how topics like sex can be stigmatized in said cultures); a Love Triangle; heightened emotions in a soap opera-like environment^note For instance, the Deus ex Machina in the Never Have I Ever S01 finale is tennis star John McEnroe suddenly appearing to save the day. This can be chalked up to a cultural commonality; both Latin America and India are well-known for their melodramatic or heightened-reality TV shows.; a male narrator who turns out to be more relevant to the story than initially presented; themes of grief; and bright, colorful aesthetics. The main difference is, of course, that one is an adult show and the other is a Coming of Age Story.
• Tearjerker:
  • The Reveal in Episode 1, that John McEnroe is the show's narrator because he's the favorite athlete of Devi's dead father.
  • The fact that Ben used to be part of a idiosyncratic friend trio, just like Devi, but that he lost touch with his two buddies as they all ended up going to different high schools. That he used to have friends somehow makes his lonely life sadder than if he'd come from a truly Friendless Background.
  • In Episode 8, Devi's huge fight with Fabi and Eleanor during Ben's party. She tries to stop Fabi from embarrassing herself, only for her good deed to go wrong. Fabi snaps and delivers a painful yet true speech about how she doesn't recognize Devi anymore and how selfish she's been lately. Devi tries defending herself that her father died, but Fabi remarks that's no excuse for treating them horribly and accidentally outs herself due to being on a tangent (humiliating herself when everyone watching is shocked). Eleanor then simply adds on how Devi just seems "lost." Adding salt to the wound, Devi tries walking away with just a shred of dignity left... only to fall into the pool, making everyone laugh at her.
  • Devi being haunted with flashbacks of the night her father died and her mother saying terrible things about her in Episode 9. The fact that she’s forced to further suppress those painful memories, from Nalini herself saying “no Devi nonsense”, until it all boils over at the end is a hard thing to watch.
  • Devi tearfully apologizing to her mother after wishing she'd died instead of her father. Her mother immediately forgives her and says she wishes it too sometimes.
  • Devi still keeps voice mails from her father which she often listens to, usually in moments of stress.
  • The story of Paxton's Japanese-American grandfather, which is unfortunately Truth in Television. Even though he was born in the US, he was ripped from his home at the age of five during World War II and sent to Manzanar. Especially poignant is when Paxton asks him what the hardest part was.
    Ted: Seeing my father's heart break. He was a proud man. But when they made him a prisoner, they stole his dignity, and I don't think he ever recovered from that.
  • Doubling as a Heartwarming Moment. In season 3, Des and Devi break up because his mom Rhyah looks down on Devi for her trauma and perceives her as difficult. While crying, Devi admits to Nalini that she's scared that no one will ever love her because she's always too much. Nalini replies, "You're never too much and you're always enough. And one day you will find someone who loves you exactly as you are, just like I do."
• Unpopular Popular Character: Devi herself. She does something really messed up or goes off at someone roughly every ten minutes of the show, and both the people in-universe and viewers acknowledge that she is problematic. Yet she is relatable and entertaining enough, that many fans root for her and comments stating something along the lines: "I support women wrongs when it's Devi" are quite common. In fact, when The Summer I Turned Pretty became one of the most popular teen shows after Never Have I Ever ended, a lot of people brought up Devi in comparison to Belly. For the people who dislike Belly, they think Devi is a much more compelling and enjoyable example of a flawed young protagonist dealing with grief. She does problematic things, but she learns from them, she has a life outside romance, and she's funny.
• Why Would Anyone Take Her Back?: Devi herself after the infamous two-timing arc in early season two. True, both of her love interests make her jump through some hoops until they are willing to even speak to her again, and she has to prove she can be a decent person, but not much more that that. Yet at the end of the season both boys are back to liking her romantically despite Devi never really making up to them for cheating.

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