‘Never Have I Ever’ Stars on Why “Satisfying” Ending “Really Does Make Sense”
[This story contains spoilers from the fourth and final season of Netflix’s Never Have I Ever.]
Netflix’s Never Have I Ever ended its fourth and final season with lead character Devi Vishwakumar (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) at her dream college, Princeton, and with the long-awaited resolution of the series-long love triangle between Devi, Paxton Hall-Yoshida (Darren Barnet) and Ben Gross (Jaren Lewison).
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Devi ends the show with Ben, with the pair cuddling together in Devi’s dorm room. The enemies-turned-friends-turned-lovers start off the final season having sex but after the awkward experience, the first time for both of them, they don’t immediately get together, with Ben dating art student Margot (Victoria Moroles) and Devi having a fling with bad boy Ethan (Michael Cimino). As their senior year progresses, Devi and Ben find themselves becoming friends again after not even speaking to each other for part of the fall, but it’s not until the final episode that the two finally couple up. In a When Harry Met Sally-esque moment, Ben races back from New York to Devi’s grandmother’s wedding, where he tells her that he loves her and she reveals she feels the same. After a romantic night together, they decide to give their relationship a real shot, with Ben at Columbia and Devi at Princeton.
While the ending to the series, created by Mindy Kaling and Lang Fisher, might be seen as a win for Team Ben and a disappointment for Team Paxton, the actors behind all corners of the love triangle seemed happy with the outcome.
“I do have my preferences. I am definitely Team Ben, so I’m happy with what the writers chose,” Ramakrishnan tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I’m happy for the two of them. Devi did find love. And that’s always fun. I was of course, for like the past year, always like, ‘Devi should end up with no one.’ But, hey, Devi, should live a little and why not, with your academic enemy turned rival turned friend back to enemy turned friend lover? They just had such a lovely roller coaster ride. It’s so satisfying to see them come together. So I think that’s pretty great. Also, they’re both the same kind of crazy, so that works.”
Though Lewison admits he’s “obviously biased,” he explains how his onscreen counterpart ending up with Devi “really does make sense.”
“Devi and Ben have this, like, magnetism to them,” he says. “Even in the first episode where Ben is so loud and obnoxious, you find out later that it’s really coming from a place of love. And for Ben, [Devi’s] sort of like one of the only people in his life that sees him and allows him to open up to her later in the series. And then every time there is adversity and they go through different trials and tribulations, for both of them, they find each other. And that’s what senior year is about, sort of finding who they want to be and deciding the relationships they want to have and preserve and invest in and I think that they find that, for them both, their relationship is something that’s very special and always has been.”
He cites specifically Devi giving Ben her shirt after he gets paint on his at the college fair and Ben being there for Devi when she finds out she didn’t get into college, not to mention Ben getting punched in the face while defending Devi at Princeton before the two share their mutual anxieties about being able to make it in college.
And their banter, he argues, just shows how comfortable they are with one another.
“Their banter is always so wonderful and everyone loves to see that, and the audience has really related to that. I think when you look underneath that, which is a great connection in general, the reason why they’re able to do that is because they care so much about each other and they know that no matter what, they’re always going to be there for each other,” he says. “I don’t know if that makes them soulmates or if that means that they’re in love or whatever emotions those are, especially in your senior year in high school, but I think that it does show a really complex depth for their foundation of care.”
While Lewison and Barnet admit that there are arguments for both Ben and Paxton, Barnet concedes that Devi and Ben have a bond she doesn’t have with Paxton.
“There’s something about Paxton that’s a whole opposites-attract thing,” Barnet tells THR. “But with her and Ben, I think they are the personality types who want someone who’s going to push them, and they push each other as well as push each other’s buttons. And that’s what keeps them excited and engaged in the relationship.”
Paxton and Devi do spend some time together after Paxton quickly drops out of Arizona State and returns to Sherman Oaks High as the assistant swim coach.
“There’s an enormous ego death with him not being the coolest guy on campus anymore,” Barnet says of why Paxton left ASU so quickly. “He was too used and accustomed to being the big man on campus, that top dog. He goes to a much bigger pond and he’s a much smaller fish. I don’t think an ego death is something he can handle, so that’s definitely what brings him back.”
Though Paxton and Devi kiss, their romance appears to be in the past, particularly since Paxton is now part of the faculty. But both Ramakrishnan and Barnet appreciate the characters’ supportive dynamic on display in season four.
“There’s definitely love there. I’d say more platonic than not, but having a romantic history with anyone is never the most simple thing to deal with when you’re trying to maintain a friendship,” Barnet says. “I think there’s always gonna be that mutual love and respect.”
Ramakrishnan adds, “Devi and Paxton end on a beautiful, beautiful note of friendship. And I am always team platonic relationships are just as important as romantic. They end on such a beautiful friendship, and they’re so grateful for one another.”
Instead, Paxton’s on his own journey in season four, ultimately realizing he wants to teach, and he returns to ASU with that goal in mind. But Barnet isn’t sure if Paxton will stay.
“It’s funny, even when he goes back to ASU at the end, I’m not sure, as the character of Paxton, if he’s going to stick it out this time,” Barnet says, adding that Paxton could end up “dropping out and going, ‘I’m going to teach surf lessons in Hawaii and live a happy life.'”
As for what the future holds for Devi and Ben, Lewison isn’t so sure.
“The optimistic part of my brain says they’re soulmates, they always find each other; they’re meant to be. And even if they break off, maybe post-college, they’ll find each other again,” he says. “And then there’s another part of me that’s like, they’re still really learning who they are. They’re both at really smart schools where they have diverse populations that will really challenge the way that they think and the way they view the world, and maybe that will bring them closer together and maybe that will bring them further apart, I don’t know. I would like to think that, in a perfect world, they both have worked on themselves and figured themselves out and are happy doing whatever that might be, whether Ben is about to go to law school or going to go get an MBA or some kind of entrepreneurial business that he’s starting, or whatever he’s doing. And the same for Devi. But hopefully, it’s something they both have found a passion for and have found enjoyment in, and it winds up being successful for them.”
Beyond the love triangle, the fourth season shows Devi, Ben and Paxton all dealing with anxiety about college, something the three actors behind those characters acknowledged felt true.
“I think it’s a very real thing. In terms of like, young adults and college students; you start thinking you to have it all figured out,” Barnet says. “And people forget how young you are, that your whole life doesn’t need to be figured out. That you don’t need to get so down on yourself and feel like a failure if things crumble that were your original plan.”
And Devi in particular experiences setbacks on her journey to Princeton, getting deferred and then waitlisted before finally getting in, which Ramakrishnan appreciated seeing.
“I mean, college post secondary, it’s not an easy route. But I think, in general, anything that you really, really want, there isn’t an easy, clear-cut path right to get there,” she says. “But it’s nice to see, not failure, it’s only just different paths that you didn’t expect to take to get to the same end destination.”
For Devi, the final season also sees her continue to deal with the grief of losing her dad, who viewers discover, inspired her Princeton dream. As she’s getting ready to go to college, she sees her dad’s ghost and yells at him as she struggles to figure out what to pack, a moment that Ramakrishnan says reflects Devi’s ongoing grief.
“She still just misses him. She’s still in grief, but just in a different form,” she says. “Grief comes in so many different ways. So I think we’ve shown her in those different ways, how she’s grown to accept her dad’s loss and accept the person that she’s now going to become with his memory but not his presence.”
It’s Devi’s mom who helps her pack and, earlier, supports Devi amid her Princeton setbacks, showing how their relationship has strengthened since the tension of season one.
“It’s an empathetic relationship now, versus in the beginning when it was two people who just lived in the same house and were not communicating about their feelings. By the end, they’re able to communicate way more and recognize that they’re both works in progress. Devi recognizes, ‘Hey, my mom was going through it just as much as I am.’ And Nalini recognizes, ‘My daughter is a remarkable woman who’s really trying her best.’ So that’s really beautiful to see.”
And it’s Devi’s personal growth, including her finding a way to “channel her anger in a way that isn’t self destructive or hurtful to others,” that Ramakrishnan feels like is “the real ending.”
“I think the ending when she’s praying at the altar is the real ending, the ending that truly matters. Because it’s showing the real growth. She has learned how to be so grateful for everything in her life and the blessings and people around her,” says Ramakrishnan, reflecting on her previously saying that what happens in the final season is what she hoped for her character. “The thing I always wanted the most for her was that self love. And that self acceptance, where Devi could be at a point where she realizes, you know, she’s not perfect. And that’s okay. That she’s trying, and she’s not a bad person. She’s really trying to do good.”
She adds, “I just wanted her to be proud of herself. I think at the end of the series, she gets to that point. I feel like every person deserves to have that moment of feeling truly, truly in love with themselves in a healthy way, so that’s what I wanted for Devi.”
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