Never Have I Ever season 2 review: Mindy Kaling’s back with cringe and sincerity

For a comedy about awkward, messy youngsters, By no means Have I Ever is astonishingly assured. In its second season, the Netflix comedy builds on a poignant, humorous first season by persevering with to nail a difficult stability between heartfelt realism and Disney Channel absurdism. It’s the sort of comedy that may delve right into a tear-jerking meditation on grief in a single scene, then seamlessly transition to over-the-top bodily gags the place a jock will get hit by a automobile. This stability makes it ridiculous, but in addition plausible. It’s a comedy that’s laborious to withstand devouring in a single sitting, solely partly due to unbelievable narration from tennis celebrity John McEnroe.

Created by Mindy Kaling and Lang Fisher, By no means Have I Ever follows the continued exploits of Devi Vishwakumar (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan), a Los Angeles excessive schooler mourning the lack of her father and juggling a love triangle between cute nerd Ben Gross (Jaren Lewison) and dreamboat jock Paxton Corridor-Yoshida (Darren Barnet). One of many joys of the present’s first season was its enjoyment of complicating these inventory teen archetypes. No character on the present is only one factor: Devi’s mates aren’t simply theater nerds and robotics membership captains; they’re additionally navigating sophisticated private lives, normally fairly badly.

By no means Have I Ever’s characters are messy and uncooked in ways in which really feel true, even once they’re loud and elevated. Devi is a bookish first-generation immigrant, however she’s additionally egocentric and thoughtless. She begins rumors, spies by way of a stranger’s skylight when she suspects her mother of happening a date, and tries to this point each her crushes on the identical time with out both of them figuring out. Devi is a scorching mess, however her at instances outlandish habits is levied with moments that go straight for Friday Night time Lights-level sincerity. Devi weeps for the dad she misplaced, she feels alienated by being one of many solely Indian children in her college (but in addition relishes that it makes her really feel distinctive), she needs to be regular, she needs to be herself.

This care extends to each different character in season 2. Paxton Corridor-Yoshida needs to be seen as greater than a jock, however is scared in regards to the lack of social clout that may come from being herself. Devi’s pal Eleanor (Ramona Younger) is a theater child who loves performing and finally ends up relationship Malcolm (a murderously humorous Tyler Alvarez), a classmate who simply got here again from a stint as a Disney Channel star. On the identical time, Eleanor wrestles with accepting her new stepmom. Fabiola (Lee Rodriguez) is captain of the robotics crew and used to feeling deeply uncool, however now that she’s out and relationship a woman, she’s confronted with a hip queer tradition she seems like she has to suit into.

By no means Have I Ever takes its characters’ emotions critically, and its writers work very laborious to verify the viewers understands them. That approach, once they do ridiculous issues — like staging a marching-band apology efficiency, or making an attempt to take two boys on a date to the identical occasion, with out alerting both one — viewers can snort on the extra, however keep hooked as a result of they perceive.

That is primary good TV storytelling, but it surely’s extraordinarily laborious to tug off. The method wants everybody on either side of the digicam to agree about what to take critically and what to goof off with. By no means Have I Ever is likely one of the greatest exhibits on Netflix as a result of it nails that stability, and showcases a highschool that’s nothing like highschool, however nonetheless feels prefer it. It’s an interesting fantasy as a result of it performs to such a well-known feeling.A part of the rationale highschool is hard is that it’s nothing like what the flicks promised it could be. However what often made it enjoyable — and what By no means Have I Ever acknowledges — is the sensation that perhaps, at any second, it may be.

By no means Have I Ever seasons 1 and a pair of at the moment are streaming on Netflix.