Devi, Ben, and the Power of Happy Endings
Never Have I Ever is about to go down in the history books as one of the most thematically rich coming of age stories produced in the streaming era.
While the thought of parting from my beloved, Devi Vishwakumar, makes me want to curl into a fetal position, I’ve been struck with the sudden inspiration to document my predictions. Every wild, outrageous opinion.
Maybe this post will be nothing more than fodder for your morning coffee Tumblr scroll, but my hope is that it will convey a sense of optimism. Not only do I think that Never Have I Ever will have an explicitly romantic ending for Ben and Devi, I think that it fundamentally has to. But we still have a long journey ahead.
1. Devi: T-minus 5 Seconds to Heartbreak
This is Devi Vishwakumar, walking into school for her first day of senior year, smiling like the lovestruck nerd that she is, having finally figured out that she wants to be with Ben.
I mean, just look at her gloat! This is the gloat of someone who is ready to join forces with her soulmate so they can terrorize the school with their combined obnoxiousness!
Only to walk in and see this:
Oh Ben… To quote the great Logan Echolls, “no one writes songs about the ones that come easy”.
2. To boink, or not to boink?
I’m not convinced that Ben and Devi had sex.
Let me first caveat and say that Never Have I Ever always manages to surprise me. While I can pick out the broad narrative strokes and character arcs they are aiming for, they manage to awe and delight me with the details.
I think that following through on the “one free boink” scene is the more interesting route, but it also makes the writers’ jobs much, much harder.
I cannot fathom Ben and Devi having sex and then Ben immediately rebounding to Margot. That level of womanizing would make Paxton Hall-Yoshida tremble in his tiny swim shorts. In order to keep the audience on Ben’s side, the writers would have to spend a considerable amount of time unpacking his trauma and explaining his perspective. It’s not impossible, but I’m dubious.
The show never rewards Devi for making a decision based on her own insecurities. She wants to have sex with Ben, but her catalyst for getting there is the sext Fabiola accidently sends to her instead of Addison (i.e Devi is insecure about being the only virgin in her friend group left).
Maitreyi confirmed that season 4 would pick up immediately where season 3 left off. Do I think we’re getting play-by-play? An under-the-cover post boink scene? Them starting to make-out then something happening? I’m betting on the latter.
Mid make-out, Devi casually lets slip that she is staying at Sherman Oaks for senior year. Suddenly, sex with the love of his life is an actual relationship that he has to contend with. All the trauma and pain from season 2 comes flooding back. And it’s important to remember that Ben was deeply traumatized from the events of season 2.
His actual brain catches up with his er… primal instincts, and they agree to see where things go. It’s just vague enough that Devi thinks they’re going to be together, but Ben is scared. Scared of being more in love with her than he already is and scared of being hurt again. He goes with the safer option of neglecting his feelings, because his arc of vulnerability has yet to be fully actualized.
This manages to set up the same conflict and angst between Ben and Devi and give Ben a starting point to make amends without having him abandon Devi right after she has sex for the first time.
It’s a much more palatable fallout for the “one free boink scene”, but I digress.
4. Never Have I Ever… Been a Wallflower
We catch up with Paxton in episode 3, narrated by Gigi Hadid, and he’s kind of shy?
He has always used his popularity as a crutch and now has to grapple with his new identity. Much like Devi and Ben, Paxton’s insecurities are an ongoing battle, as he realizes that his choice to go to college was partially defined by his desire to escape the “dumb jock” label. Tucked away in his dorm room, watching life pass him by, he realizes that he doesn’t need to prove anything to anyone else. He can pursue his athletic aspirations and still defy the labels that people have placed on him. By the end of the episode, Paxton makes the decision to come back to Sherman Oaks as a swim coach assistant.
I’ll admit, I think it’s a strange choice to reignite Devi and Paxton’s romance by making him a faculty member at the school. The writers might as well hold up a big red sign that says, “The only reason we can think of for Devi and Paxton to interact is if they are stuck in high school together”.
But I want to make one thing clear: I do not think this undoes his arc from season 3. To realize that just because you can do something doesn’t mean you have to is a very natural extension of gaining personal liberty.
And I, for one, am proud of him.
Also, I’m getting season 2 vibes from this scene.
Devi and Paxton fans can probably expect callbacks, sweet moments, a kiss, and an emphasis on how important they have been to each other’s personal growth.
5. Where are Ben and Devi?
Hidden behind a Michael Cimino-sized red herring. They are going to give us as little as they possibly can about Ben and Devi during promo season. The same way they have in *checks notes* every single season prior.
I’ve written about this before, but it is integral to their individual arcs that they are honest about their love for each other. It is the bedrock of the story. But between Michael Cimino’s washboard abs and closing out Paxton and Devi’s arc in a way that feels satisfying and emotionally resonant, I don’t think we’ll be seeing Ben and Devi’s domestic bliss phase.
Put another way: The love triangle and push-and-pull romance is not a side story, it’s a source of narrative conflict that’s integral to the plot. Would you resolve the final battle in a fantasy series three episodes before the finale? Resolving the Ben and Devi plot early would be like sucking all of the tension out of the story. It would not give us the euphoric high of Ben and Devi blurting out that they love each other at the eleventh hour after trying to suppress their feelings. The show has always saved these big moments for finales, and this season will be no different.
But for anyone worried that Ben and Devi will be fighting the entire season, I think we’re in for our most Benvi-centric season yet, filled with great moments and their trademark banter.
They go to New York to visit colleges. Neither of them admits it, but they are relieved to know that they will remain constants in each others’ lives.
They study for finals together while bantering, skirting around the topic of prom, and just generally being the only two idiots who don’t know they are in love. *Buries self under 10 pounds of cement*
This time, Ben asks her to dance. The angst, unspoken feelings and tension are palpable.
They fight over valedictorian and it’s practically foreplay. Devi wins, and Ben is proud of her, underscoring his growth and ability to put aside his competitive nature to be supportive.
And that is just a fraction of what’s in store for our obnoxious, loveable nerds.
6. 🎶 It’s the circle of life 🎶
“Hey, gods. It’s Devi Vishwakumar, your favorite Hindu girl in the San Fernando Valley. What’s a-poppin’? It’s the first day of school, and I thought we should have a check in. I think we can all agree that last year sucked for a number of reasons. So I thought of a few ways you guys can make it up to me.”
“One: I’d like to be invited to a party with alcohol and hard drugs. I’m not gonna do them. I’d just like the opportunity to say: ‘No cocaine for me, thanks. I’m good.’”
John Mcenroe Voice: Devi, you seem a little drunk.
“Two: I’d love for my arm hair to thin out. I know it’s an Indian thing, but my forearms look like the frigging floor of a barber shop.”
The mehndi on her hands symbolizes her love for her family and heritage. Juxtaposed with her western clothes, it signifies her acceptance of her intersectionality.
“And lastly, most importantly, I’d really, really like a boyfriend, but not some nerd from one of AP classes.”
The picture that I want to get my hands on is currently stashed away in Netflix’s top-secret headquarters, but I’ll settle for this one of Ben’s adorable, dopey smile.
7. The Finale: Why Devi and Ben Must Have an Unambiguously Happy Ending
For the longest time, I believed that Never Have I Ever would go the way of its spiritual successor Crazy-Ex Girlfriend and give Devi the “I choose myself” ending” with hints of her ending up with Ben in the future.
It was only when watching the season 3 finale that I realized how wrong I was. In fact, I was so fundamentally wrong that I overlooked the obvious: Never Have I Ever has never done anything halfway. The writers of Never Have I Ever know something about the audience that we often fail to recognize ourselves, which is that we desperately want a happy ending.
Season one could have ended with Devi’s heartfelt goodbye to her father and reconciliation with her mother. What do we get instead? A sweeping, romantic shot of Malibu while Devi and Ben share their first kiss.
In the season 2 finale, Devi proclaims that she will not settle for “some weird secret thing behind closed doors” and that she wants to be “someone’s public girlfriend.” And what does she get? Exactly what she wants.
But it’s only in season 3 when this pattern becomes apparent. The season could have easily ended with her deciding to stay at Sherman Oaks. We had already said our farewell to Paxton, and gotten this chemistry-choked, almost-love-confession between our favourite dorks:
And we think that maybe, just maybe, the season will end with Devi single and ready for her senior year. But the show says “subtlety be damned”. It demands a triumphant ending, with Devi showing up at Ben’s door, leading to what will certainly be one of the most intimate moments in the entire show.
Tonally, the story makes bold choices, and the reaction from fans is always electric. In a world of being told “no” and being conditioned to temper our expectations, Never Have I Ever is like a warm hug reminding us that even the most broken people can heal and find love.
And this brings us back to “the Ben problem”, the idea is that he must overcome his fear and confess his love to Devi. And Devi, in turn, must love herself before being able to embrace her narrative mirror.
On a show that prides itself on big endings, escapism, and romance it seems unfathomable, and almost cruel, for Devi and Ben to be in love and not be together.
The writers do not want people finishing the show, shrugging, and saying “that was a realistic ending.” They want us to watch the finale with grins too big for our faces, our hearts bursting with excitement. They want us to know that all of Ben and Devi’s suffering over the past four seasons meant something, that when Devi finally makes the right decisions, she “will find someone who loves her exactly as she is.”
Love, unvarnished and without fear. That is the true narrative promise of Never Have I Ever.
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