Devi Vishmakumar is getting ready to graduate. Seven months after Netflix announced that Never Have I Ever had been renewed for season 3, creator Mindy Kaling revealed in March 2022 that the show had also gotten the green light for its fourth and final installment.
The raunchy teen comedy centers on Devi (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan), a 15-year-old Indian-American girl mourning the recent death of her father in addition to the usual high school stresses: attempting to seduce Paxton (Darren Barnett), the hottest boy in school, defeating her academic nemesis, Ben (Years Lewison), and navigating tensions with her best friends. On top of all that, Devi and her mother, Nalini (Poorna Jagannathan), are constantly at odds and her beautiful, perfect cousin Kamala (Richa Moorjani) has just moved in.
At the start of the first season, Devi is starting her sophomore year of high school and Kaling felt it was fitting to wrap things up around the time that she would graduate.
“Four seasons for a high school show felt like it made sense,” the Office alum told Entertainment Tonight in April 2022 about the decision to end the series. “There are some things are built-in doing a high school show that felt like, ‘OK this is time.’”
She continued: “But the truth is, we got to know the characters. The great thing about doing it on Netflix is that we got to tell stories that you wouldn’t necessarily be able to tell in traditional network shows and so we feel good. We really told the story of this 15-year-old girl and that felt like the perfect amount of time.”
Kaling and the rest of the writers will likely be able to pack a lot of drama and romance into those remaining seasons. Season 2 ended on a cliffhanger, with Paxton agreeing to officially be Devi’s boyfriend — just as Ben learns that she had feelings for him — which puts the teen in a position she’s never been in before.
“What’s Devi going to be as an actual girlfriend in a real relationship with someone who’s much more experienced than she is?” showrunner Lang Fisher wondered to ET in July 2021. “This has been her dream for the entire series. … And now she has one and he is the most popular boy in the school.”
She continued: “It’s like, ‘What is that going to be like?’ Is it going to be the dream that she had always imagined it would be or will it be more complicated? And probably it will be more complicated than that. There’s still these things like to explore in terms of sex and what do you do if you’re a nerd who’s done very little and you’re dating a much more experienced guy.”
Never Have I Ever’s central love triangle continued to play a part in season 3, as the finale ended on the cliffhanger of Devi and Ben having a one-night stand — which was confirmed in the final trailer for season 4.
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“There’s going to be definitely two sides that are like, ‘Yes!’ and then another side that’s like, ‘We don’t know, maybe it’s a no.’” Lewinson told ET in August 2022. “Season 4, where do you go from there depending on if it does or doesn’t happen? How does that change their relationship? There’s a lot to dive into, especially thinking about that fourth season… Can’t give too much away, but it’s wild.”
