‘Never Have I Ever’ Season 3: Ending, Explained: Does Devi Get To Live Her Dreams?

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After Mindy Kalling’s “Never Have I Ever” Season 3 has just launched on Netflix, we see things get way more steamy and fussy in Devi’s life. Though this series is surely the end of this franchise, the final episode still gives the story an endless vibe. After we saw Devi (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) getting stuck in a love triangle in Season 1 and hustling her love life with two boyfriends in Season 2, finally, in Season 3, we see her enjoying her relationship with Paxton in a proper romantic way. But whether it’s her dream man, Paxton, or her dream opportunity to study, she screws up in both phases of her life. But one thing that surely changes Devi’s life is her leaving the things that caused her pain. Although this show is all about that. “Never Have I Ever” is a cool teen drama that suggests all the adults out there to leave their past to live in the moment. But how you can earn the lesson from the show, well, that’s the journey! So let’s dive into it.

Spoilers Ahead


Why Is Devi Not A Fit For Paxton?

After we see the most romantic way Paxton (Darren Barnet) accepts Devi as his girlfriend in “Never Have I Ever” Season 2, we see the third Season begins with the charming aura of these two’s stunning chemistry. Seeing Devi and Paxton as a real couple for the first time, the whole school finds it hard to digest. But as we know, Devi’s love story is not complete without a few hurdles and her stupid self-realizations. We see her overthinking about being out of the league for Paxton. She even gets the slut-shame from the popular TikTok girls, which makes her doubt herself. Poor Devi reaches out to Dr. Ryan, where she gets the most valuable lesson of not letting anyone define her. She takes the advice in the wrong way, as she always did, and confronts them with her rage. But things get worse when the girls tell her that Paxton will leave her if she doesn’t get physically involved. This leads Devi to get so worried that she forces herself to have sex with Paxton, but finally, she realizes that she is not ready. And we see that Paxton turns out to be sweeter; he neither leaves her nor gets upset about that; rather, he takes it sportingly and gives her some time. But things get much weirder when Devi gets an anonymous text warning her about her boyfriend. With the help of Fabiola, Elenor, and Anissa, she investigates to find out who this is. But it turns out the anonymous texter is Paxton’s ex, Haley, who is a very attractive girl in school. While talking to Haley, Devi comes to know about Paxton’s dark side as he ghosted Haley after their intimacy. Now we see Devi is kind of stupid to get what maturity is, but she’s a strict feminist as well. So, without sitting quietly, she forces Paxton to apologize to Haley, which is pretty weird but not a bad influence though. And surprisingly, Paxton does exactly what his girlfriend demanded, and he sets out to apologize to Haley, but gets humiliated when there are many girls like Haley who come to rage on him. He eventually says sorry to every one of them and doesn’t even get mad at Devi for making him do all this. We see someone like Paxton, who is really in love with Devi, doing all these things just to keep her. But Devi is still not happy yet, as we see that as a result of her feminist movement, Paxton and Haley are now friends. Jealous Devi talks to her friend group about it, and we come to know about the girls in the group as well. We see Fabiola leaving Eve for their long-distance relationship, and Elenor and Trent are now together. Though Anissa and Ben seem kind of off to each other, that clearly gives off the vibe of an impending breakup. In “Never Have I Ever,” we still didn’t get more of Devi’s cousin, Kamala, as we expected, but we see her finally talking to her ex-fiancé about not wanting her to marry him. And now Nirmala, the grandmother, kind of puts the pressure of marriage on her head that Kamala cannot bear.

Back to Devi’s life, when she finds, her boyfriend is going to play paintball with Haley on his team, she decides to join the game as well, but while in the game, she is just about to knock Haley out, she gets hit by her boyfriend’s shot, which makes her off. But tragedy begins when Devi gets a huge lesson from Paxton when he breaks up with her. He says that he can’t be with someone who doesn’t love herself, which is the truest thing we realize about Devi, while she constantly talks about her relationship with Paxton not making sense to anyone. I mean, why is she worried about everyone and anyone? So, the truth hurts her badly, but people learn from their mistakes, and we see day by day how Devi evolves and accepts her breakup with Paxton.


Is Des Going To Be Devi’s Forever?

On the other hand, we see a blooming love tension begin between Fabiola and Anissa after Ben breaks Anissa’s heart with his constantly supercilious attitude and his remaining feelings for Devi. But both Fab and Anissa are afraid to move forward with their friendship. Although later we see them trying their luck to make the move to be more than just friends, they eventually fail, so wisely, they keep it friendly. We see Devi’s mother, Nalini, catching up with a friend named Rhaya during the ceremony of Navratri. But here, we see Devi’s teacher, Manish, come to meet Kamala, and the two start dating each other. Although Nirmala finds it against their culture to be with an Indian guy who is not that culturally ritualistic. Manish still tries his best to impress her with his Wikipedia knowledge, but still, his attempts fail.

After breaking up with Paxton, Devi happily lives her single life until she finds out about Paxton’s getting moved on easily. Hearing Paxton has a new girlfriend makes her a little sad, but she doesn’t seem like being heartbroken. We realize it’s Devi who has actually moved on. At Navratri’s celebration at her house, she gets to wear a saree, but Elenor invites her to her boyfriend Trent’s birthday party, where Devi has to reach for the camera to show Paxton that she doesn’t care about him anymore. But Nalini lets her go under one condition: she has to take Rhya’s dorky son to the party. While, according to Rhya, her son is a bit nerdy and is bullied by his friends, it turns out not to be so when the dork finally arrives at the party. The dork turns out to be a handsome hunk Indian guy named Nirdesh, who surprises everyone at the party, and we are pretty much sure that he is not the bullied one. So why did Rhya lie? Is it the kind of lie that Indian parents use to protect their sons? It might be that, but now we have to focus on the buzzing chemistry that is about to build between Devi and Nirdesh, in short, Des. When Des suggests that Devi makes her ex-boyfriend jealous, instead focusing on Paxton, Devi kind of gets butterflies being with Des. But the next morning, Des doesn’t text Devi, and she is ghosted again. Without further thought, Devi starts to explore her sexuality with a random nerd guy by kissing him, but that makes her feel gross later.

On the other hand, we see Ben Gross’ (Jaren Lewison) story continues with Andy Samberg’s voiceover narrating his life. We see him stressed out with a heavy schedule of classes that he thinks would allow him to study in Colombia. We realize his hard work is for his father to be happy and proud of him. But as a result, he gets a medical issue that leaves him constipated for weeks. Although the savior, Paxton, helps Ben out to reach the hospital, we see two rivals in Devi’s previous game now getting close to each other in a friendly way. Even though Ben feels humiliated farting in front of Paxton, he helps him with writing an essay for the school. And we can’t agree more that Paxton is a nice guy who deserves a lot better. Ben finally realizes the reason for his stress, and he decides to leave everything that has caused his pain after his father finally appreciates his hard work. And we see Ben get over his obsession with going to Colombia and being with Devi as well. Now he’s even more into enjoying his youth with his friends.

Now we see Devi has a crush on Des, and Des has the same, so they start dating each other, but an interschool debate competition makes them two rival teams. Despite being in a relationship with Des, Devi isn’t even leaving him on the ground to win. When she discovers that her boyfriend’s private school has paralegals and jeopardy computers, she thinks of cheating in the competition by stealing their books. Though she doesn’t need the book as Manish gets it and changes their sides in the debate. But Devi brilliantly wins the competition through her research and intelligence. But being angry at her, Manish shows her up in her house but eventually decides not to complain to the principal about it. This nice gesture from him makes Nirmala melt, and she finally accepts him as Kamala’s lover and lets them take things slow. Devi makes a plan to finally hook up with Des, but when she throws a party to invite him, her ex-boyfriend Paxton comes over. Seeing Devi and him together in her room, Des ruins her plan to hook up and leaves sooner. Devi realizes that Des took it the wrong way, so she goes to his place to sort things out. But when they sort things out to finally hook up, Rhya catches them two in her son’s room. Nalini gets to know and shockingly allows them two to have their little affair go on as she likes Rhya and her son as well for being a cultural Indian family. So, she doesn’t blow that off.


‘Never Have I Ever’ Season 3: Ending Explained – Who Is Devi Going To End Up With?

Finally, Devi’s orchestral ceremony appears, where she’s about to play the harp. When she is expecting her guests in the audience, she deludes her father, which traumatizes her again. While Rhya goes to the washroom, she finds Devi sitting there and crying about the trauma she has just experienced. As we see Rhya there trying to help her overcome all this, but on the contrary, outside of the hall, she calls her son Des to end things with her for her delusions. Actually, this is the reality: the more people see your vulnerability, the more they assume you’re weak and eventually talk behind your back. But being such a good nutritionist, she shouldn’t be doing this to a person who just needs help. But luckily, all of the conversations the mother and son had were heard by Ben Gross, who thinks he must inform Devi about this. We see the momma’s boy, Des, trying to ghost Devi as his mother disapproved, so suspicious Devi talks to her friends. While Ben informs her about the conversation he heard, Devi doesn’t trust him and rather insults him. But when Fab finds out about Des lying to Devi, Devi decides to show up in front of him when he is out with his friend. While Devi demands an answer from him, he denies letting his mom down as she pays his bills. Angry Devi throws iced coffee on Des and again gets caught up in Rhya’s eyes. But the plot twist is Nalini’s when she takes her daughter’s side and drives away Rhya and her son from her house. Although Devi’s heart gets shattered again, she realizes that problems are not within her but within these people who think she has a problem. We see the final day of school arrive, and we see that Fabiola and Anissa are now only friends in a platonic way. Trent fails the exam, which eventually makes Elenor happy that he’s staying another year, and Paxton is moving to Arizona for college. Devi, too, gets a dazzling opportunity to study at Shrubland School in Colorado, but she doesn’t want to leave her friends yet. Her friends don’t want either. But when she’s suggested she only go to Colorado to see the school, she unwillingly agrees to do so. Having reached Shrubland in Colorado, she has to change her mind when she finally sees her kind of students everywhere. She finally gets an opportunity to study for real, while in Sherman Oaks, we have seen the teacher used to burn a bra to teach women empowerment. But here, she is going to learn real things, like she even notices how everyone in a meeting discusses their studies that she never got a chance to do. So she makes up her mind on the way back and informs Nalini that she’s going.

When she finally arrives at school to bid goodbye to her friends, upset Fabeola and Elenor accept her farewell, but Ben, on the other hand, confesses about missing her, and Devi gets butterflies again. In the graduation speech, while Paxton mentions Devi’s help in front of the school, she doesn’t get any such feelings. So, we’ve just realized that Ben turns out to be Devi’s lobster. Later, we see Paxton also comes to her to talk, and while she sees him with his parents happy together, she runs to her mom to cancel the plan of her going to Shrubland as she now wants to be with her mother for a while. Both get emotional, and her mother calls it off to be in Colorado. But does she really change her mind about her mother? Or does she have something more steamy to do for a whole year? So, she again runs after Ben to finally fulfill her dream of being in a relationship.


Final Words: Does Devi Really Need to Stay at Sherman Oaks?

Although the ending doesn’t really teach us something, still, notably, it was pretty clear from “Never Have I Ever” Season 2 that Devi’s endgame was going to be Ben. But it is true that “Never Have I Ever” is a series that can be enjoyed comfortably for three hours without thinking too much. The main reason is its interesting plotline, which gives one surprise after another. Though it is predictable in some places, it never ceases to delight us. Some life lessons we get throughout Devi’s journey teach us how she learned from her mistakes or how she developed herself from all the past traumas. And we see her finally accepting herself which is all we need to see.

Even throughout the series, we see Devi only chasing love, but at the end, we see her choosing her studies and family. Although her encounter with Ben is questionable as to how much she will be focused on her dreams again, However, even at the last moment, we doubt whether Devi does have any dreams. Maybe if Devi was sent to study in Shrubland instead of being in Sherman Oaks and in a relationship with Ben, we wouldn’t be asking that question. But we are disappointed because of the lack of effort. Instead, watching Paxton choose the brighter path to his future makes us grateful to the series. But overall, this series might be your guilty pleasure in some instances. Even though it will start dragging up a little from the middle episodes, if you are an old fan of “Never Have I Ever,” you are bound to watch this show till the end. Therefore, the coming-of-age teen drama can easily occupy a place on the watchlist of Netflix, so you can’t unsee it.


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Poulami Nanda
Poulami Nanda
Poulami is an artist and an aspiring screenwriter both by profession and passion. Apart from writing stories, poems and songs, studying cinema is her obsession. She is also a freelance painter yet it is the world of cinema that fascinates her the most.

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