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Photo: Isabella B. Vosmikova / Netflix
The best teen dramas are the ones you can feel in your soul, the ones that make you cringe because they remind you of your young self. This episode fits perfectly into that tradition, with no shortage of moments that will make you want to scream on TV.
Devi wakes up with messages from Ben and Paxton, something she never imagined for herself a few weeks ago. The choice to make Devi have two boyfriends is an interesting one. Up until this point, she was a relatively sympathetic and down-to-earth protagonist. Her awkwardness made her accessible because who among us hasn’t felt like an outcast at some point in our teenage lives? But Devi’s double romances don’t exist in the gray area of plausible deniability. Her separate involvement with Ben and Paxton aren’t adventures or situations – she repeatedly calls them her boyfriend. It has no wiggle room, no “we never defined anything” excuse to hide behind. She is openly and proudly a cheater, which she and her friends readily accept. It’s the first thing she’s done that actively invites the viewer to take root against her. As she mercilessly alternates between Paxton and Ben, two ostensibly obnoxious characters, you even start to feel bad for them.
Logistically, the writers have made little effort to make Devi’s romantic escapades believable. Her friends explain that no one really cares about Devi and therefore no one has noticed that she is dating two people, something anyone who has gone to high school in the past 100 years would immediately recognize as unrealistic. High school students have a tendency to chat, and they will find any reason to do so. Why would Devi’s love triangle be exempt from it?
Whether the choice to make her a cheater pays off depends on individual interpretation. It seems completely out of left field, but all of the best TV characters are inherently complex. Just because Devi does bad things doesn’t make her a bad person. After all, she still mourns the recent death of her father. And besides, there is something uniquely refreshing about an Indian teenage girl being the object of the desire of two attractive romantic interests. Maybe I am biased; I thought I was ugly and unwanted until I saw Cece’s character on New girl when I was 15. Indian women are hardly ever described as sexually desirable, and when they are, there are often caveats – being a gorgeous model with so much to do wasn’t enough to keep Cece from being cheated by. the character that she would eventually get married a season later. I can only imagine what a show looks like I have never would have done for my self-esteem at that age. Yeah, cheating is wrong, but it’s still pretty cool to know that a young Indian could have the power to break anyone’s heart, let alone two.
The side stories in this episode are compelling, but not as compelling as Devi’s. That being said, this show does an amazing job of fleshing out individual characters beyond their connection to Devi.
Nalini flies to India to find apartments for her and Devi. Arriving in her hometown of Chennai, she reconnects with her parents, who are surprisingly apathetic that their daughter’s husband just died a few months ago. Reluctantly, she meets her stepmother, Nirmala, whom she has not spoken to since Mohan’s death. To her surprise, in her husband’s mother, she finds the emotional support she sought from her own parents. She decides then and there that she is not moving to India and chooses to bring Nirmala to America instead.
Fabiola also has her own crisis: she feels left out of her girlfriend’s friends Eve because they are so connected with queer culture in a way that she never has been. She worries about not looking cool in front of her new partner and tries to fit into the queer culture in order to impress him. Eve finally confronts her and, seeing how overwhelmed Fabiola is with her friends, suggests that they go out on a date instead.
As Devi prepares for her family’s move to India, her friends Eleanor and Fabiola offer to organize a “chic and intimate get-away party” with them and their romantic partners. When they ask which boyfriend she’s going to bring, Devi thinks for a minute. Ben is fancier and better at parties, she claims, but Paxton has a fake ID and could buy them some booze, so she decides to invite him over. Everything goes as planned until Eleanor accidentally invites Ben to the party too. Panicked at the thought of her two partners getting to know each other, Devi decides to unleash a full rage while her mother is away and invites everyone she knows, hoping there will be too many people for Ben and Paxton to notice. that they have the same day.
Unsurprisingly, things explode in his face at the party when Ben finds out that Devi cheated on him and confronts Paxton about it. Paxton walks away from Devi and, in his rage, doesn’t notice the car speeding down the road and being run over. It’s an incredibly abrupt and breathtaking moment, the kind of conclusion that makes you want to hit the “next episode” button just to see how the show can possibly recover.
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