On August 12, 2022, the third season of Never Have I Ever was released on Netflix. This article is dedicated to our dear readers who would have missed the first two trains and would have missed out on this series created by Mindy Kaling and located at the top of the basket of what Netflix offers best .

A real acid candy that is ultra-entertaining, funny and easy to binge-watch , Never Have I Ever is also a political and deep series in many ways. Here are the reasons that make it a real nugget, voted Netflix’s best teen series by Forbes magazine .

Everything we love, only better

If you’re looking for a terribly heartwarming series, you’ve come to the right place. The plot of Never Have I Ever is as stupid as the series is smarter than it seems: Devi, an Indian teenager living in California decides to change her status from an invisible nerd to become popular . All the ingredients of the feelgood teenager program are there: a high school, the life of a teenager, his friends and his family, scenes of parties and pajama parties , a love triangle and a handsome boy who is so handsome that it is unrealistic.

On paper, the series invites us to curl up in our comfort zone. Only, from this base composed of cliches of the genre (which we will definitely never get tired of), she brings in all discretion and in all humility an originality , an intelligence and a remarkable writing , which ultimately make it much more than a teen-series among others .

netflix first times

A writing masterclass

In addition to being very accessible entertainment , Never Have I Ever is extremely well written . Throughout the three seasons, there are no downtimes or lazy cliffhangers . Each episode is only twenty or thirty minutes long and seems to move at breakneck speed to the rhythm of clever, clever and sparkling dialogue . On the Internet, most viewers of the series testify to having devoured it in a weekend (and I add my own testimony, here we relate ).

We often catch ourselves laughing out loud and… crying . Because, yes: behind its apparent lightness, Never Have I Ever gives lessons in dramatic scenarios that promise to offer great moments of emotion.

The representation of mourning

Among the most surprising qualities of Never Have I Ever is the aptness with which the series deals with grief . Despite the attitude of avoidance displayed by an overexcited and overly talkative Devi, we learn that the heroine has lost her father , who died suddenly of a heart attack a year earlier.

On the surface, all is well for Devi, still determined to achieve her goals and resolve her heart and friendship issues through schemes and shenanigans. But quickly, the staging makes us understand that ignoring this trauma will do nothing to resolve it. This denial leads to sequences of great beauty , including when Devi’s legs simply stop working, or her father appears as a flashback or a caring presence when she needs him.

The series does not dispatch this mourning. She takes the time to let these different stages happen in all that they may have of bizarre , upsetting or disconcerting , again demonstrating a remarkable realism.

my first times netflix

An inclusive and largely female cast for a feminist series

When we take stock, we realize that in Never Have I Ever , there are mostly chicks . Devi is a radiant character. It takes about twelve seconds to identify with her . Filled with paradoxes, Devi is so control freak that she becomes clumsy. It sums up well all the contradictions that can cross us when we are a young woman . She must juggle between standards (of femininity, whiteness, etc.), her desires, the expectations of her loved ones, and the management of her traumas…

my first times

However, the secondary characters have nothing to envy him. From best friends Eleanor and Fabiola, to cousin Kamala or mother Nalini, the almost exclusively female cast offers portraits of women of rare wealth . From disability to coming out, passing through the question of marriage or career, the series deals with important feminine and feminist issues while avoiding stereotypes.

my first times netflux

Double culture, a real subject

FINALLY a series that deals correctly with origins, identity, cultural issues ! The series gives pride of place to Indian culture, in many moments of dialogue, marriage, meals, family… However, the questions that cross Devi are of such relevance that it is difficult not to identify with it, whatever the origins from which one oneself comes.

Unlike other programs (and in particular French films which love to present the cultures of origin as a place that rhymes only with oppression and suffering ), Never Have I Ever engages in a much more interesting and complex relationship, like of this reality .

my first times netflix