Never Have I Ever Season 1 Episode 1 Recap – Pilot

Sophomore student Devi Vishwakumar from Sherman Oaks, California prays to the gods to guide her as she prepares for the first day of school. She asks to be invited to a party with alcohol and drugs, for her arm hair to thin out, and to have a boyfriend.

This series gets narrated by legendary tennis player John McEnroe. He says Nalini and Mohan Vishwakumar moved to the US in September 2001. He narrates that Devi worshipped her father, and while he and her mother stayed true to being Indian, Devi was all-American. At Devi’s spring orchestra concert, Mohan suffers a heart attack that kills him, and a week later, Devi’s legs get paralyzed, so she gets stuck in a wheelchair. Devi has two best friends, Fabiola Torres, captain of the robotics team, and Eleanor Wong, drama club president. She has a big crush on Paxton Hall-Yoshida, the hottest guy in their school. Three months after her leg’s paralysis, while Devi is checking out Paxton from a distance, she unconsciously stands to get a better view, and from then on, her legs start working again.

Devi is about to leave for school when her attractive cousin Kamala stops her to give her the packed lunch she prepared herself. Kamala moved in with them after Mohan’s passing to complete her Ph.D. at CalTech, but Devi is not so pleased with her. She tells her that she does not bring lunch to school during Tuesdays. Nalani tells Devi not to be rude to her beautiful cousin.

Devi tells her mom that she cannot stand Kamala because she is so Indian. Nalini tells her she will stay as long as she finishes her studies because she is family, and she is making herself better. She even tells Devi that she might learn a bit from Kamala.

Once in school, Devi finds Fabiola and Eleanor. She tells them they have a problem: they are not cool. She says they need to be cool if they want a better high school experience. She tells them they are rebranding and embracing the fact that they are glamorous women of color who deserve a sexy high school life.

She tells Fabiola she should stop dressing like a helpful Honda guy and tells Eleanor that she stop show tune singing spontaneously. Fabiola and Eleanor both disagree with her, so she moves on to the next step to becoming cool: having boyfriends. She explains that she chose attainable, yet status-enhancing people for them to date. She assigns Alex Gomez to Fabiola, Boris Kozlov to Eleanor, and Jonah Sharpe to herself. She instructs them to sit beside their marks and lock them down.

Devi sits beside Jonah and tells him he smells great. Ben Gross, Devi’s nemesis, turns and looks at Devi when she says it, visibly disgusted. John narrates that Ben started calling Devi and her friends UN because they are ethnically diverse, academically focused dorks, which is widespread information in the school. He says Ben idolizes his father, Howard, a top entertainment attorney in Beverly Hills. Every year since first grade, Devi and Ben have been vying for the number one spot in class. History class begins, but before long, Paxton walks into the room. He failed History as a sophomore, so he retakes it with Devi and her classmates. He sits in front of Devi.

After class, Ben and Devi get called back in by Mt. Shapiro, their History teacher. He tells both of them to set aside their rivalry because it is not helpful to the learning environment of others. They agree with him. Then Devi walks out of the room; Ben catches up with her. He says watching Devi flirt with Jonah was the saddest thing he has ever seen. He tells her to give up, especially because many amazing people died as virgins. He says Devi and the rest of the UN are in good company. Devi tells him not to call them UN because it is racist and offensive. Ben stops her and tells her the UN does not mean United Nations but Unfuckable Nerds.

Devi goes into her regular session with Dr. Jamie Ryan, her therapist. Devi tells her that Ben called her unfuckable. She tells Devi that Ben sucks and that she should just ignore him. Devi tells her that people are still looking at her like she just faked her paralysis, so Dr. Ryan gives her a grief journal so she can write what she feels when they are too painful to say out loud.

During dinner, Nalini asks Devi about her first day. Devi says she got all the classes she wanted and a prime locker location, but Ben  Gross is still a prick. Her mom tells her she should not let Ben rile her up because he’s only 5’2”. She announces that Kamal’s parents have found her a marriage match — Prashant, an engineer. Kamala doesn’t seem so pleased about the news. She sarcastically says it’s wonderful to have a stranger for a husband and frowns.

Devi rants about how Kamala does nothing and gets a husband in the mail while she’s trying to trick a gay guy into sleeping with her. She says she is too jealous to eat with Kamala, so she goes to eat upstairs. She falls asleep and dreams that when she goes downstairs again, her dad is watching TV, so he asks her to sit beside him. He tells him he’s watching John McEnroe, his favorite player of all time. He says John does not let anyone push him around. She begins to cry and asks her father if she is ugly. Mohan tells her she’s the most beautiful girl in the world, so she should stand up for herself. He asks her to fight back with her spirit. She hugs her dad and asks him why he’s there. He tells her that he’s better, and then she wakes up.

The following day, Devi dresses up sexily. She comes to school in heels, a sleeveless top, and a miniskirt. Fabiola tells her she looks like an Indian Kardashian. Fabiola says she dressed medium instead of large, while Eleanor sports a flapper girl outfit in response to her instructions to dress hot that day. Devi reminds them of their goal for the day: to make conversations. They head to their classroom, but not before Devi trips and falls because of her heels.

In the classroom, Devi puts a bandage over her scraped knee. Ben tells her she is getting her blood into the chair, and it’s unsanitary because she might be spreading AIDS. She asks Ben how she’d have AIDS when he says that no one would want to have sex with her. They continue bickering until Mr. Shapiro tells them to stop and reminds them of their agreement to set aside their rivalry. They both get sent to the principal’s office.

Principal Grubbs tells them to report to her office every day after school to do unpaid work as their punishment. Ben tries to avoid it, saying he must cheer on his girlfriend’s field hockey practice. Principal Grubbs tells him he just wants to watch many teenage boobs bounce around. Devi laughs and tells him he’s a pervert. The principal then calls her out for how short her skirt is. She tells them to get their acts together or else she will call all the Ivys and tell them not to admit both of them.

While doing their unpaid work, Ben and Devi are tasked to bring some monitors and some boxes into the computer lab. There, they find Eleanor kissing Oliver Martinez. Eleanor tells Devi that Oliver is her boyfriend. She didn’t tell her because she didn’t want to upstage her while she was trying to get her own boyfriend. She says Fabiola also knows, and she is sorry. She tells her that she doesn’t want to upset her.

Devi walks home, changes her clothes, and throws her blessed Geometry book into the window in a fit of rage. Kamala and Nalini rush to Devi’s room, so Devi lies and tells them that a bird hit her window. Nalini looks outside and sees the book on the ground. She tells Devi to stop lying to her and bringing shame to an innocent bird.

She runs and goes straight to Dr. Ryan’s office. Dr. Ryan is about to go on a date, so she is wearing a sexy dress. Devi tells her she needs her help because she is losing it. After all, Eleanor has a secret boyfriend, so she and Fabiola kept it from her. She says it affects how she looks because she wants to look like a normal girl who could have a boyfriend. She says she wants a boyfriend so bad that she does not care who he is as long as he wants to be with her. Dr. Ryan tells her that having just any boyfriend will not make her happy or change who she is. She says she might not even be a good girlfriend at the moment, so she should focus on feeling good about herself.

Devi goes to school right away and introduces herself to Paxton, tells him she’s into him, and finally asks him to have sex with her. To her surprise, Paxton agrees.

Our Thoughts

So Devi, our protagonist, seems to be controlling. Surprisingly, her friends allow her to control them. I wonder how long the kind of friendship they have would last. In this episode, we see her not hesitating to approach Paxton, and I think it is badass. I am a bit worried about the storyline we’ll follow here because I do not see anything interesting yet. It may be too early to say such, but we’ll see.