‘Never Have I Ever’ Is the Best Teen Show on TV Right Now

Everything we can’t stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture. [Manage newsletters]( [View in browser]( [Image] with Kevin Fallon Everything we can’t stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture. This Week: - Crying about horny teens on TV, again. - The best sports take I have ever heard. - Outwit, outplay, outlast, and Angelina Jolie. - This week’s “Dolly Parton is perfect” update. - On teens and space travel... TV’s Nice, Relatable Teens vs. the Sexy, Terrifying Ones It’s a tricky feat to be as sweet but also as smart and observant as [Netflix’s Never Have I Ever](. That’s important praise because of the fact that it actually feels like you’re watching teenagers and their bubble-boiling lava field of emotions, anxieties, and mistakes unfold on screen. And it’s done without losing the television filter—wittier dialogue than anyone would ever actually speak, slightly exaggerated circumstances—that makes watching TV, well, fun. It’s kind of funny that the second season of Never Have I Ever came out last weekend amidst what seems to be [Gossip Girl reboot mania](. The two series are like polar opposites of the teen TV spectrum. There’s always been pop-culture tension between teen soap provocateurs [like Gossip Girl](—and The OC, Dawson’s Creek, and Beverly Hills: 90210 before it—and the more grounded fare, sometimes dismissed as juvenile, like Never Have I Ever. The series, [from Mindy Kaling](, centers around Devi (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan), a first-generation Indian American high school student grappling with the cultural tension between the discipline of her life at home—one rocked by the sudden death of her father—and the intoxicating barbarity with which the rest of her classmates seem to charge through life: hormones first, inhibitions seemingly never. Devi struggles through insecurities about her self-worth, her culture, her sexual experience, and her mental health, along the way blowing up relationships with her oldest friends, her newest friends, her mother, and her two boyfriends. Yes, Never Have I Ever doesn’t shy away from the hallmarks of the teen soap: At one point, Devi is in a love triangle, and it is messy. (You try to decide between an intellectual equal who may be your perfect match and walking washboard abs with a jawline, played by Paxton Hall-Yoshida, when the option is presented to you.) But no matter how heightened the plot twists or snappy the dialogue, Never Have I Ever never stops feeling real or relatable. Real and relatable are interesting concepts when it comes to teen series. While Never Have I Ever doesn’t shy away from the realities of partying, sexually active teens, it’s hardly the pearl clutcher that’s become the de facto depiction of Gen Z on TV in the likes of Riverdale, Euphoria, Genera+ion, or, now, the Gossip Girl reboot. Is it more realistic to portray teenagers as having narcotic-fueled orgies in between sneaking into clubs, lying about their ages on sex apps, and throwing raves so gritty and depraved you’d think you accidentally turned on a Tarantino movie? Or is the sunny universe of Never Have I Ever—or, in a similar vibe, Netflix’s Sex Education—more informative as a reflection of the times? As if the youths weren’t already terrifying enough, the impossibility to discern an accurate picture through pop culture makes them all the more intimidating. Take as case studies two standout LGBT-themed scenes that aired this week. Never Have I Ever had one of the most heartwarming, still hilarious gay storylines in an episode in which Fabiola (Lee Rodriguez) is afraid to introduce her girlfriend to her mother, not because her mother isn’t accepting, but because she’s become such an ally that Fabiola finds it embarrassing. Her greatest fear: Her mother will invite her girlfriend over to watch Carol. The excessive acceptance is genuinely funny. For a charity relay race, Fabiola’s mom gives her team the name “The Jodie Fasters.” (!!!) What’s remarkable about this storyline is that no one is the villain here. Fabiola’s worries are, while perhaps unfair, completely age-appropriate for a self-conscious teenager. And her mother obviously could not be doing more of the right thing, even if it is a bit much. A running throughline of the season is Fabiola’s frustration with understanding how she fits into a queer identity. She assumed that once she came out, she would suddenly know herself and everything would be great and easy. It’s a nuanced and rarely explored thread of the young LGBT experience. The whole arc is beautiful. Then there’s Gossip Girl, in which three queer men, all sexually frustrated with their feelings for each other, have a dramatic encounter while they are all fully naked in a Manhattan bath house. There is kissing. There is arguing. There is a demand to know why you won’t just fuck me already. There are butts. Iconic scene, all around. Which of these two storylines is more authentic to the teenage queer experience? I know my answer. Would you be shocked to learn it doesn’t involve walking out with my eight abs and bare ass into a steam room to dare my also-naked teacher to have sex with me after making out with my best friend? There is undeniable fun to be had with a series like Gossip Girl, and [I’ve written about how shrewdly]( it chronicles the pressures of coming to terms with a young person’s identity in the age of social media, privilege, and shame. But I’ve always found something like Never Have I Ever, which never loses its heartfelt empathy for its characters, not just to be fun, but rewarding, too. One particular scene in Season Two absolutely wrecked me. It made me feel seen and validated now as an adult, but, somehow, also retroactively as the scared, confused, hurting teenager I was all those years ago. Devi is speaking to her therapist, [played by Niecy Nash](. She is in tears, horrified by the realization that, given the ways in which she sabotaged so many areas of her life, she may be as crazy as the bullies say. The therapist shuts that down immediately. “Devi, you feel a lot,” she says. “Which means sometimes you’re gonna hurt a lot. But it also means you’re going to live a life that is emotionally rich and really beautiful.” Not me having a profound emotional breakthrough while bingeing a teen soap on a Sunday afternoon. But that’s the beauty of a show like Never Have I Ever. It’s why I hope its brand of sincerity and emotional earnestness never becomes overshadowed by the (admittedly addicting) shock and sensationalism of so many other teen series. In fact, I think it may be the best teen show on TV. The Only Worthy Olympics Hot Take Is 17 Years Old and About Badminton In the lead-up to [this summer’s Tokyo Olympics](, all so many of us want to do is rant. Rant about the ridiculousness of [having them during COVID](, with dozens of athletes testing positive for the virus and unable to play while the rest of the competitors cower on their bizarre [“anti-sex” beds]( just waiting to get it, like horny specimens sexually tortured in a petri dish. Rant about the fact that nothing will be done about the danger because the money from sponsorships outweighs logic and lives. Rant about this racist, sexist organization and their asinine, antiquated regulations, the collateral damage of which is the Olympic dreams of [singular talent and icon Sha’carri Richardson](. But those things are all a giant bummer, and I am frankly tired of giant bummers. I’d give my left arm for a day that is not defined by a giant bummer—which I guess, when you think about it, would also be a giant bummer. I’m quite fond of my left arm. Listen, ranting is a favorite pastime. It’s America’s pastime, really. So, theoretically, what would be more patriotic than ranting about the Olympics? For a less bummer-y screed, I turn to longtime sportscaster and Olympic commentator Mary Carillo. [Alternate text] The biggest thanks of my life to both Casey Morell, [who posted the video](, and Daniel Fienberg, who [retweeted it onto my timeline](, for bringing to my attention the greatest sports commentary I’ve seen in my entire life: Mary Carillo at the 2004 Athens Olympics ranting like hell about badminton. ([Watch it here](, and have your life changed.) The crux is her explaining, to increasing frustration, the difference between the Olympic version of the badminton sport, and the backyard fiasco that has ruined entire weekends at her home with her family. The way her story escalates is comedy-writing gold, a perfect monologue piece. She starts off by noting the distinction between the curated goosefeathers that line an Olympic-regulation shuttlecock and the plastic ones on hers at home: “Even though it doesn’t look sophisticated, it has a tree-seeking device implanted in it somewhere.” What follows is a tale of a neighborhood-wide effort to hurl every piece of sports equipment in the garage up into the tree to try to knock the birdie down. “You got Colleen Clark up in the tree trying to get down a Spongebob Squarepants beach ball with a hockey stick! There’s pool sticks flying through the air like javelins, and you hear yourself saying, ‘Somebody’s gonna poke an eye out!’” It is the hardest I’ve laughed all week (and I even [screened Ted Lasso Season Two]( this week). Please enjoy. The Hottest Hollywood Invite Was a 2018 Survivor Viewing Party Are you watching The White Lotus? My god, watch The White Lotus. It is strange and brilliant and my favorite TV series of the summer, a Sunday afternoon treat [centered around Jennifer Coolidge’s brilliance](, as the Lord’s intended for his holy day. Anyway, writer-director-actor Mike White (Enlightened) is the creative mastermind behind the HBO series, and he was [interviewed this week by The New Yorker](, during which he discussed “money, status, and appearing on Survivor.” Yes, the key curious fact that makes Mike White’s sensibility make sense is that, in addition to his Hollywood success, he earnestly appeared as a contestant on both Survivor and The Amazing Race. He was asked about what his high-brow Tinseltown friends think of the strange detour to reality TV. First he details being at a party thrown by Courteney Cox during which Jennifer Aniston reacted with seeming bafflement to the news that he’d be on The Amazing Race. But then came the anecdote to end all anecdotes: When his season of Survivor was airing, he threw a watch party for an episode that was attended by his fellow contestants...as well as Diane Keaton and Angelina Jolie. As my friend Matt Jacobs [demanded on Twitter](: “An oral history of the party Mike White threw for the Survivor cast and Angelina Jolie.” But seriously, oral history of that night when? Dolly Parton Owns #HotGirlSummer. Everyone Else Is a Homely Troll. Did you think that Dolly Parton was going to recreate the outfit she wore on a 1978 cover of Playboy for a photo shoot to surprise her husband of 57 years, Carl, on his birthday and that I wouldn’t spend every third second of this week thinking about it? [Alternate text] Especially after she [shared the story in a video]( on social media, she captioned it with the hashtag #HotGirlSummer? Or when her monologue to the camera included the most scorching shade of the jarring decline of print media that I’ve heard this year? “Remember sometime back I said I was going to pose on the cover of Playboy magazine when I was 75? Well, I’m 75 and they don’t have a magazine anymore.” Anyway, this has been your weekly Dolly Parton bulletin. Oh, You Think You’re Fancy, Space Boy? Look, we can all dunk on the 18-year-old who became [the youngest person to go to space](, an undeniable triumph of prodigy, the human spirit, and daddy’s money. But as someone who moved to New York City at age 18 before there were smartphones or real-time Google Maps directions and managed to find his way around the subway, I know a little something about accomplishment in the field of science, mathematics, and the wild frontier of travel at a young age. Such prowess is a heavy cross to bear, so let’s show him a little grace. [Alternate text] [Alternate text] - Ted Lasso: We all deserve this. (Friday on Apple TV+) - Old: I’m a M. Night Shyamalan apologist. (Friday in theaters) - Jolt: I’m also a Kate Beckinsale as a kickass action hero apologist. (Friday on Amazon) - Behind the Music: As someone who can remember where he was when Left Eye talked about burning down the house, I’m excited for this reboot. (Thu. on Paramount+) [Alternate text] - FBoy Island: I get the appeal of escapist TV, but I don’t get who watches these shows. (Thursday on HBO Max) - The Last Letter From Your Lover: Give Shailene Woodley a Good Movie Challenge! (Friday on Netflix) Max) Advertisement [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Instagram]( © Copyright 2021 The Daily Beast Company LLC 555 W. 18th Street, New York NY 10011 [Privacy Policy]( If you are on a mobile device or cannot view the images in this message, [click here]( to view this email in your browser. To ensure delivery of these emails, please add emails@thedailybeast.com to your address book. 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