Never Have I Ever season 1 episode 5 recap: …started a nuclear war

Never Have I Ever episode 5 is packed full of surprises for the protagonists—not all of them pleasant. We examine all the events of the episode.

Devi may have survived Ganesh Puja in the previous episode of Never Have I Ever, but she’s still grounded—which pretty much translates into her mom, Nalini, giving her a ton of awful housework to do.

Needless to say, Devi needs to escape—and boring Model UN might just be her get-out-of-home-free card. But Devi’s ambition may be getting the better of her in this episode of Never Have I Ever.

Fabiola’s Secret

Over the last few episodes of Never Have I Ever, Fabiola has begun to accept that she is gay. Coming out to her family—particularly her parents—is a whole other matter though.

Fabiola tries to take the all-important first step—she gathers her parents together, along with her brother on a video call. She’s ready to tell them this important truth about herself—but when she looks at her parents’ hopeful, expectant faces, Fabiola is unable to go through with her plan.

Instead of coming out to her family, Fabiola tells them that she’s leaving AP French for AP Latin—somehow, this is a big deal for her parents. Imagine how they would have reacted if she had told them about being gay?

Despite this setback, Fabiola still has her loving friend Eleanor, who she is able to come out to. Eleanor is ecstatic for Fabiola and honored to be the one Fabiola has come out to. She even helps Fabiola figure out what kind of gay woman she likes—K-Stew from Twilight or K-Stew from Charlie’s Angels. Considering we’ve all met Fabiola’s crush Eve on Never Have I Ever, Fabiola is definitely the latter.

Mother!

Eleanor may be happy for Fabiola, but she’s dealing with some difficult matters of her own. We learn that Eleanor was pretty much abandoned by her mother when she was a child—her mother was an aspiring actress and left Eleanor to follow her dreams.

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Unfortunately, her dreams haven’t really been coming through—she’s auditioned for numerous roles but is resigned to doing bit parts on cruise-liners. At least she sends cool postcards to Eleanor from her trip.

Eleanor’s excitement is cut short, however—Paxton stops by to tell her how he’d met her mom at a restaurant nearby. She was serving dishes there and had a long chat with Paxton’s mother.

Obviously, Eleanor is furious and accuses Paxton of being racist and not being able to tell Asians apart. One problem with that theory—Paxton is part-Japanese. Eleanor immediately realizes her mistake, but this is apparently news to Paxton’s stoner friend Trent, who always thought Paxton’s dad was his neighbor. Why are you friends with this guy, Paxton?

Eleanor is shaken by this exchange and eventually acquiesces to going to the restaurant with Fabiola—if nothing else, at least she can prove Paxton wrong.

That is not to be—Eleanor finds her mother at the restaurant, in the server’s garb. Seems like Eleanor’s mom has been living a lie for a very long time.

Heartbroken though she is, Eleanor needs to go about her life and the auditions she’s got coming up. Eleanor’s sorrow about her mother fuels a performance so powerful that she not only gets praise from her drama teacher, but he offers her the lead role which she wasn’t even trying out for. At least some good has come out of this awful situation.

Model UN

Devi has never been part of Model UN because she and her rival Ben had divided up the school activities between them—we aren’t surprised by anything these hilarious rivals do on Never Have I Ever.

But being grounded has made her desperate and she really doesn’t care about some silly pact she made with Ben in sixth grade.

While Ben is repping the United States in Model UN, Devi is stuck as Equatorial Guinea. Ben thinks he has this in the bag—he hasn’t counted on Devi’s sheer awesomeness.

Devi practically wipes the floor with Ben and he tries to retaliate by bringing up how her being with Paxton doesn’t make her cool. Unfortunately for Devi, one of their fellow Model UN-ers hears the conversation.

Before Devi’s even got back to her room, half the school knows about Devi and Paxton—and the girls in Model UN are ready to accept Devi as their new god. Honesty can wait—Devi’s going to relish this.

Devi’s levels of coolness only increase when she and Ben find a stock of alcohol to share with their competitors—their teacher ends the party but not before cementing Devi as the coolest person in Model UN history.

There’s just one major hitch in Devi’s ascent on the school social ladder—news travels fast and it reaches Paxton, who is not happy.

Instead of accepting her mistake, Devi takes her anger out on Ben—they had decided to win Model UN together but Devi goes back on the plan and throws Ben to the wolves. She wins Model UN, but at what cost?

When Devi returns to school, she finds a deeply distressed Paxton who feels betrayed by his new friend—what little connection she had with him has gone down the drain.

And somehow Devi manages to make it even worse—Eleanor and Fabiola want to tell her about everything that’s been happening with them but Devi is so entangled in her own mess that she blows her friends off, extremely rudely, I may add.

At least her mom lifts her grounding when Devi gets home.

Final Thoughts

Another incredibly funny and layered episode of Never Have I Ever—episode 5 not only examines relationships, but it also showcases a protagonist who can be incredibly funny, but also self-centered.

It’s surprising to see a protagonist of a teen comedy who isn’t all perfect but this episode only proves how well-written and thought out this show is.

Devi is relatable in so many ways—she is bound to go down in the annals of teen TV history as one of the most memorable characters ever written. We cannot wait to see what happens next with these characters on the show.

Never Have I Ever is currently streaming on Netflix.