Ranking The Characters In Netflix’s ‘Never Have I Ever’ From Least Shit To Devi
Devi's only two moods are violence and chaos.
In case you missed it, Mindy Kaling’s Netflix comedy Never Have I Ever has finally returned for its second season.
After Season 1 focused on Devi’s coming to terms with the untimely death of her father, her Indian identity, and her unpopularity at school, Season 2 hones in on Devi’s new-found struggle of dealing with two boyfriends at once.
When the first season of Never Have I Ever last left off, there was only one lingering question that mattered: Team Paxton or Team Ben? Sadly it was one simple decision that Devi, the most chaotic and selfish character ever written, couldn’t make in the second season.
During Season 2 we had to watch Devi ruin literally every relationship — both platonic and romantic — in her life. Hell-bent on making everyone’s life suck as much as her own, viewers basically ended the second season in the same place as the first with the Ben-Devi-Paxton love triangle.
one of the messiest main characters in existence 😭 pic.twitter.com/MGaGH2vaPo
— leoˣ (@ctrlgrlz) July 16, 2021
But surprisingly, even with Devi taking the cake for worst person ever, Never Have I Ever Season 2 actually introduced a whole bunch of new sucky people to make our main character not seem so bad.
Between Kamala’s new boss and Eleanor’s new Disney Channel boo, there are quite a few shitty Never Have I Ever characters now. So in honour of Devi’s life falling apart once again, we’ve decided to rank the Never Have I Ever characters from least shit to absolute demon spawn.
#15. Aneesa
Sweet, sweet Aneesa is definitely the least shit person on this cursed show and one of the best new additions to Season 2.
Every time Devi fucked up (which was often), Aneesa was always happy to bail her out. Even when Devi started the eating disorder rumour and then tried to act like the victim in the situation, Angel on Earth™️ Aneessa forgave her. We do not deserve Aneesa.
Shittiness level: -5/10.
#14. Dr. Jamie Ryan
Honestly, God bless Dr Jamie. As Devi’s psychologist, she literally the only thing keeping Devi from going completely off the deep end.
Shittiness level: 0/10.
#13. Prashant
Prashant did everything he could to accommodate Kamala and make their relationship work.
Despite being in an arranged marriage situation, he agreed to a regular dating process because he knew Kamala was uncomfortable. Once the relationship became more serious, he even uprooted his life and moved to LA for Kamala to make things work.
The only issue with Prashant was that he told Kamala to let the drama at work go this one time for the sake of her future career, which was actually very smart advice. Sometimes you need to choose your battles, especially when it comes to your job, but Kamala is selfish and didn’t like hearing that.
Shittiness level: 1/10.
#12. Manish Kulkarni
Manish is the cool teacher of Sherman Oaks, who “let down” Devi when he told her to leave campus when she was suspended for being so mean that a new student was ready to unenroll.
That doesn’t make him a bad person, though. In fact, anything to shit on Devi makes him even better in my books.
Shittiness level: 1.5/10.
#11. Fabiola
Between all of Devi’s friends, Fabiola is definitely the least shit.
However, during Season 2 Fabiola allowed herself to be controlled by Eve’s friends way too much and ended up losing herself in the process. On her new journey to popularity and to gain the Cricket Queen title, Fabiola let her robotics team down and lost her spot on the team which was actually quite sad.
Thankfully by the end of the season, Fabiola returned to her roots and Eve loved her even more.
Shittiness level: 2/10.
#10. Trent
Trent is the typical dumb stoner jock character and had no real personality in Season 1.
But in Season 2 we learned that Trent was actually a feminist and knows a whole lot about wine, which is cool. However, he did still continue to call Devi crazy throughout the series which, while true, was sort of mean.
Shittiness level: 2.5/10.
#9. Dr. Chris Jackson
While Dr Jackson originally came off quite rude, it’s clear that it was just his attempt at playful banter and flirting. Even though he was a bit of a dickhead at first, it all seems to have come from a place of love.
From gifting Nalini a car space after she complained to his total understanding of why the pair couldn’t date when Devi flipped out, Chris Jackson ended up actually being a pretty good guy.
Shittiness level: 3/10.
#8. Nalini
Nalini should be allowed to date whoever she wants, whenever she wants. Her decision to date Chris is not why she’s on this list at #8.
What Nalini shouldn’t be able to do is force her child to move to India just because Devi was caught kissing a boy and she wanted to prevent it from happening again.
While Devi’s mum was a lot more relaxed this season, she was still willing to uproot her child’s life and only changed her mind when she wasn’t happy that India didn’t match up to the fairytale in her mind.
Shittiness level: 4/10.
#7. Kamala
As much as I love Kamala, she literally left a proposal dinner with her current boyfriend to run to another man.
It’s very clear that Kamala has commitment issues. The fact that Prashant stuck by Kamala during her long lab nights and even moved for her was sad when she clearly already knew she didn’t want him anymore.
Prashant even brought date nights to the lab and flew his parents into town for a proposal dinner. But instead of Kamala just communicating that she wasn’t ready for marriage, she embarrassed Prashant and ran away from the dinner to find Mr Kulkarni, a man she had briefly met twice.
But this is the exact same thing that Kamala did in Season 1, where she broke up with her boyfriend when the handsome Prashant appeared. While a great person to family and friends, Kamala is selfish when it comes to relationships.
Shittiness level: 5.5/10.
#6. Ben
This Ben-Devi will they, won’t they romance is so boring.
The sad reality is Ben and Devi will never work because they really are the same person — snobby, selfish, and always thinking they’re better than every other person they meet.
Ben is only slightly better than Devi because he actually cares about people and can see the bigger picture. He was the one responsible for repairing Devi and Aneesa’s friendship and gave Devi a pep talk about deserving better than Paxton when she really didn’t deserve it.
But even though Ben is the “better choice” on paper, his decision to date Aneesa then immediately get upset when Devi got with Paxton is exactly what’s wrong with Ben. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
Shittiness level: 6/10.
#5. Paxton
Sure, Paxton is hot and eventually ended up getting over his fear of dating Devi publicly by the end of Never Have I Ever, but the fact that was even a concern at all is kind of fucked.
While Paxton said he felt hurt and betrayed by Devi “dating” two people at once, the reality is Paxton never wanted to claim Devi when they were “together” anyway, so can she reeaaaaaally be to blame here?
I can understand Paxton’s resentment towards Devi for lowkey causing him to get hit by a car, but to make Devi do all his homework to get him into college is fucked. Then, to publicly reject someone (mortifying!) and then climb through their window to make out that very same night (horny!), is a very mean thing to do.
As much as show producers want us to think Paxton had a lot of character growth and is now a ~good person~ because he put on a suit and went to a dance, Season 2 actually showed us that Paxton is still a pretty shitty guy.
Shittiness level: 7/10.
#4. Eleanor
I’m going to say it: Eleanor is a terrible person.
When Fabiola and Devi tried to warn her about Malcolm, Eleanor decided to stop being their friends. And when her step mum, Sharon, tried to do nice things for her, Eleanor treated her like garbage. Plus, Eleanor literally dumped her loving and adoring boyfriend because a new “famous” kid started at the school, but then still had the nerve to be upset when that boyfriend broke up with her!
Sure, she tried to help Devi as she juggled having two boyfriends at once and did tell Ben the truth at the school dance, but her true colours really shone through this season.
Shittiness level: 8/10.
#3. Evan, Dr Elgin Peters and the lab nerds
Everyone in Kamala’s new lab — except for that one dude that told her that Evan was lactose intolerant — sucks.
If you looked up “toxic insecure nerd” in the dictionary, I’m certain Evan’s name and photo would appear. From the second she entered the lab, Evan treated Kamala like an assistant and ordered her to do menial tasks no one else wanted to do.
But even once Kamala proved her talent and got involved in all of Evan’s nerdy past times to impress him, Evan was still so threatened by Kamala that he took her name off the research she spent all those long nights doing.
And as for Dr Elgin Peters, he’s just the older, more wrinkly version of Evan — self-obsessed, unwilling to listen to anyone around him, and just so far up his own ass.
Shittiness level: 9/10.
#2. Malcolm
Oh, to have the confidence of a former Disney Channel child star with an inflated sense of self-worth despite peaking at 13.
There’s just no denying that Malcolm sucks — both as a boyfriend to Eleanor and as a person in general. He’s a toxic, manipulative loser obsessed with name-dropping whenever he can and has literally zero redeeming qualities.
Sadly, Eleanor is superficial as hell so she ate it all up. But even though I don’t feel sorry for Eleanor in the slightest because she sucks too, Malcolm did break up with her over text after her friends rightfully called him out for cheating. Ouch.
Shittiness level: 10/10.
#1. Devi
Jesus Christ. Devi is a terrible friend, an even worse partner, and the queen of self-sabotage.
I know that Devi is the protagonist of Never Have I Ever, but there has never been a worse character in the history of television. She’s selfish, hurts everyone around her, never fails to make the worst decisions, and is just straight-up unhinged.
While I feel for Devi as she grieves the loss of her father, grief does not absolve you from responsibility. Devi used the excuse of potentially moving to India as a free pass to be a bad person at the start of Season 2, so it’s not like Devi doesn’t know what she’s doing. But in Devi’s world, only Devi is allowed to be a bad person without consequence.
She wouldn’t let her mum go on a date without stalking her, couldn’t give Aneesa an apology that didn’t focus on herself, basically caused Paxton to lose his college scholarship, and cheated in her charity race just to sabotage the happiness of her close friends.
Plus the fact that Devi tried to make herself the victim after not only cheating on two men, but also telling everyone her new best friend was anorexic is the perfect example of why she’s undoubtedly the worst character on Never Have I Ever.
Shittiness level: 100000/10.
You can stream Season 1 and 2 of ‘Never Have I Ever’ on Netflix now.
Michelle Rennex is a senior writer at Junkee. She’s firmly Team Paxton and tweets at @michellerennex.