After getting waitlisted — which is made all the more complicated by the fact that Devi’s best friend Fabiola (Lee Rodriguez) was accepted to Princeton, potentially taking a spot that could have gone to Devi — Devi tries to pretend that she actually got into every single Ivy, only for her secret to be revealed to her disappointed friends and furious mother. However, spurred on by her academic rival turned love interest Ben Gross (Jaren Lewison) and Princeton representative Akshara (Janina Gavankar), she writes one last personal essay… about her late father.
The death of Devi’s father Mohan — played in flashbacks by Sendhil Ramamurthy — is the inciting incident for the entire series, and writing a piece about losing him and his memory brings Devi’s mourning full circle as she recounts how she and her father always hoped she’d attend Princeton. (As a child, she says she wants to attend “Princess University,” so he suggests Princeton instead.) Before this moment, Devi feels like using her father’s death as an essay topic could be exploitative, but the fact that she actually writes this essay just shows how much she’s grown throughout the series.
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