Never Have I Ever Season 4 Review: Maitreyi Ramakrishnan's Netflix Series Bows Out With an Annoying and Predictable Finale (LatestLY Exclusive)

Never Have I Ever Season 4 Review: Every time I watch a new season of Never Have I Ever with a showrunner like Mindy Kaling behind it, I wonder how long will this ordeal continue. Luckily, this is the final one which remained painfully predictable and completely pointless. Never Have I Ever Season 3 Review: Maitreyi Ramakrishnan's Netflix Teen Series Surprisingly Manages To Be Most Inferior Of All Seasons (LatestLY Exclusive).

Devi (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) used her 'boink' card in the last episode of the last season with Ben Gross (Jaren Lewison). After a mutually agreed 'bad' time on the bed, the two of them behave weirdly with each other. Paxton Hall Yoshida (Darren Barnett) returns to High School as an assistant Swim Coach because the once-popular guy on school campus found himself at the bottom of the barrel in college. Fabiola (Lee Rodriguez) institutionalises an inclusive Robotics team and then lands a seat at Princeton, much to the chagrin of Devi who had her heart set on the college since she was a kid. Eleanor (Ramona Young) decides to take her first huge step toward her dream of being an actor.

It's so difficult to sieve through this series for the good parts. I will give it a shot. Devi is still not over her father's death which the audience is reminded of sporadically through the way she behaves. Devi has been spiraling since the first season, committing mistakes, making wrong choices, etc. These parts are well demonstrated by the narrative and the performance. Thankfully, there was no Ben Vs Paxton game which made the finale a lot bearable.

Now moving to the not 'dope' bits. Never Have I Ever started with the simple intention of being a teen drama with an Indian twist. For the most part, it was just another American teen drama with Indian flavour. It tried to address trauma, mental health, familial issues, anorexia and stuff. Despite the mundaneness, the previous seasons had some redeeming qualities. The final one has none. In fact, it ditches all the good parts from the earlier seasons as well to be the most inferior of them all. And I thought the third season had already managed to clinch that title.

All the characters have lost their shine. Eleanor, the girl who was the biggest asset of the third season, completely misses the magic here. Even the friendship between them is onenote and lacks warmth. Nalini's masterful and snappy comebacks were dumbed down in season three considerably, here she just makes a few comments and grunts. Every now and then, it tries to get to Devi's trauma by conveniently inserting a flashback scene with her father, played by a very dishy Sendhil Ramamurthy. Never Have I Ever Season 2 Review: Maitreyi Ramakrishnan's Netflix Teen Comedy Series Goes From Being Oddly Addictive To Excruciatingly Long (LatestLY Exclusive).

Watch the trailer of Never Have I Ever season 4

Nobody stands out in terms of performance. Maitreyi keeps the spunk intact as Devi, Ramona is usual as Eleanor and so is Lee Rodriguez as Fabiola. Poorna Jagannathan again gets a raw deal here as Nalini. In every season, I really miss that snappy mother of a teenager. The boys are just decent.

Final Thoughts

For the Gen-Z, bidding goodbye to Never Have I Ever Season 4 might be a tad emotional as it aligns with their thought process pretty well. For the rest, there's nothing much to watch. Never Have I Ever Season 4 streams on Netflix.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 09, 2023 02:28 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).