🤐 SPOILER ALERT 🤐

Maitreyi Ramakrishnan has a few words of wisdom for her Never Have I Ever character, brand new Southern California high school graduate Devi Vishwakumar: “Girl, congrats, but get ready for the rest of your life!”

By the end of the series, Devi had accomplished all of the goals she established for herself in the pilot: get a hot boyfriend (in her case, more than one!), get into Princeton (more difficult than anticipated!) and make memories with her best friends, Fabiola Torres (Lee Rodriguez) and Eleanor Wong (Ramona Young).

Season 1 of Never Have I Ever begins shortly after the death of Devi’s father, Mohan (Sendhil Ramamurthy). By the end of Season 4, both Devi and her mother, Nalini (Poorna Jagannathan), reach a place of peace — or at least a new phase of their grieving process. In the series finale, Devi and her closest friends spend quality time together at her grandmother’s wedding, as Nirmala (Ranjita Chakravarty) marries her boyfriend despite some reservations from cousin Kamala (Richa Moorjani).

The next day, Devi heads off to college in New Jersey and embarks on a long-distance relationship with her former academic rival, Ben Gross (Jaren Lewison), who’s going to Columbia in New York City. (So close, yet so far.) 

But Devi’s other big high school love, Paxton Hall-Yoshida (Darren Barnet), gets his own happy ending — and so do many of the other Sherman Oaks High Schoolers and members of Devi’s family we’ve come to know and love over the years. Read on to find out how Never Have I Ever ends for your favorite characters, and get the answers to your most burning questions.

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Does Devi go to Princeton? 

Boy, does she! But the process of getting to the Ivy League university wasn’t without its hardships. She was wait-listed at first — and rejected from every other school she applied to. 

A valedictorian at a highly competitive high school doesn’t get into any college at all? “We’re calling that TV magic,” jokes Ramakrishnan. “I’d like to think, canonically, all of her reports were actually sabotaged by a coyote mauling every single admissions officer. But I think it’s nice that she didn’t get in, because I think also it’s nice to fail. There’s nothing wrong with failure.”

Thanks to an extra essay about losing her father in front of her eyes, and with encouragement from Ben, Devi learns on the last day of senior year that she’d made it off the wait list.

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Does Devi end up with Paxton or Ben? 

While Devi and Ben wind up together in the end, there’s still room for a final romantic moment between her and Paxton. “There’s no way to really be unbiased about it, so I was rooting for team Paxton,” Barnet explains to Tudum. “But at the end of the day, I want Devi to be happy. I never want the message of the show to be that you need someone to make you happy. So I think part of the journey of the show is Devi finding happiness in herself.”

Lewison, who also admits his own bias, was rooting for Ben and Devi all along. “I think that Ben and Devi have always had this magnetism towards each other,” he says. “When Devi finally gets into Princeton, the first person that she goes to tell and gives a great big hug to is Ben. Throughout high school, they’ve always had this care and this foundation of love and respect for each other. Yeah, they sometimes make each other crazy, and they’ve made mistakes, but I think that it’s coming from a place of genuine love and I’m proud of their journey.”

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How do Devi and Ben get back together? 

After leaving immediately after high school graduation to take an internship in New York City, Ben realizes he loves Devi and flies back to surprise her at her grandmother’s wedding. 

“I think that he grew a lot,” Lewison says of his character. “You look at Ben in Season 1, and he’s someone who initially starts off as being very pretentious and unlikable, which Devi does tell him. He’s someone that’s hard to love originally. I give so much credit to the writers for creating a character who’s so complex, who goes on such a massive journey where you see moments of vulnerability.”

Such moments are a major step in Ben’s maturation, and one of the effects of his relationship with Devi. In the fourth episode of Season 4, when the class flies to New York to visit colleges, he realizes “that he’s not going to always be the smartest person in the room. But he can approach newer situations with more kindness and more patience for both himself and for others,” Lewison says. “He still has a bit of a ways to go, but that’s representative of real life. That’s what 18-year-olds are learning.”

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What happens to Paxton? 

Although Paxton was one of the most popular guys at Sherman Oaks High, he doesn’t immediately find a group of friends at Arizona State University and ends up moving home to coach the swim team at his alma mater. But through that process, he realizes he loves teaching. By the end of the season, he reenrolls at ASU in the education program. 

“He’s ridden on his charm and good looks and being athletic, but also never having really high expectations set for himself. He had to find out how far he was really willing to push himself,” Barnet tells Tudum. 

But although Paxton’s ego takes a hit when he leaves ASU, realizing he has possibilities he’d never considered before is something many young adults have to experience, Barnet reflects. “I think the biggest challenge, and maybe a mistake at a young age, is feeling like you have to have it all figured out when you graduate high school, or even when you graduate college. You just don’t. I think as much as you’re trying to figure yourself out at 22, you’re going to be in the same place at 32, rolling with the punches, and just finding what you love and chasing it.”

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How does Devi’s mom, Nalini, feel about her daughter leaving for college? 

Season 4 leaves empty-nester Nalini embracing new possibilities in her life, an outcome that left Jagannathan “thrilled.” Although Nalini has dated a bit throughout the series, she finds love with the father of one of Devi’s classmates. “In Season 1, Nalini wasn’t ready to say goodbye to the person she lost. It just happened. Season 4, she’s ready,” Jagannathan tells Tudum. “The second chance at love with her daughter’s approval — it’s such a great message to say that even though there’s a [difficult] chapter that’s been written, you can rewrite. I think Nalini has learned how to let go of her daughter, let go of her grief, let go of cultural values that aren’t serving her anymore, let go of this idea that this isn’t home anymore — in Season 2, she was back in India — and invite in a whole new chapter.”

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What’s next for Fabiola and Eleanor? 

Fab and her robot, Gears Brosnan, are headed off to Howard University and the school’s award-winning robotics team. Devi, Fab and Eleanor “have still a little nerd in them, but they did a lot of fun stuff and went to parties and got in a lot of silly situations,” Rodriguez tells Tudum. “So I feel like they set out what they wanted to do, which was have a really great high school experience.”

Eleanor, for her part, graduates a semester early and begins her Hollywood career not just as an actor, but a director as well. By her side is lovable boyfriend Trent (Benjamin Norris).

“I love the way Trent’s story ends,” says Norris, who turned his multiple-episode arc into an entire series run. “Look, when you have a relationship in high school, you think that this is it. You hope that this is it. But it’s not always like that. And I think it’s important for kids to understand that it’s not always like that, and there’s so much more to life than high school and whatnot. With that being said, Trent and Eleanor belong together. They just do.”

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What happens to Devi’s cousin, Kamala, and grandmother, Nirmala? 

Nirmala and her boyfriend get married — “She’s not just a cranky old person. She’s open to possibilities. She’s open to doing the American thing,” Chakravarty says. That inspires Kamala to follow her heart as well and move to Baltimore for a new job — along with boyfriend Manish (Utkarsh Ambudkar). 

Moorjani tells Tudum that Manish is the “perfect complement” to her character. “She found him on her own terms, and he’s more like a best friend to her — and not to mention, extremely supportive. I mean, he literally goes to Maryland with her when she decides to go! That’s exactly the kind of person that she needed to be with. To see her be able to fight through all the pressure and navigate the expectations of her family, but still learn to put herself first and to stand up for herself, is really inspiring.”

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Could there be a Never Have I Ever Season 5?

John McEnroe’s narration informs the audience that Devi and Ben end up together as they begin their college careers… “for now.” Wait, what? Does that mean we could get a continuation of Devi’s adventures? 

Not necessarily. While this is the final season of the show, the “for now” indicates that the characters are still growing and learning. 

“Devi’s still a work in progress,” Ramakrishnan says. “I’m happy that it ends on a happy note, but I think also a realistic one where it’s like, ‘But life is going to continue on, and you’re going to continue to have more coming-of-age moments.’ You should be worried if you’re not coming of age constantly and growing. So I’m excited that it ends on a nice ending, but also excited that it’s very clear this is just one of many chapters in a young woman’s life.”

Additional reporting by Ariana Romero.