Mindy Kaling wrote a letter to Bono to get 'Beautiful Day' in the Never Have I Ever season 1 finale

A great music moment can make or break a television scene, so when it came time to end Never Have I Ever's first season with a heartfelt family moment of Kamala (Richa Moorjani), Nalini (Poorna Jagannathan), and Devi (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) spreading Mohan's (Sendhil Ramamurthy) ashes, series co-creator Mindy Kaling knew they had to have the right song. Only, when the right song is "Beautiful Day" by U2, things get complicated.

"We don't have a very huge budget on our show, and we really wanted to use that U2 song," Kaling says. In terms of cost, as Kaling puts it, U2 is "just under The Beatles." And to make matters worse, the band is very particular about who can use their music. "I had to write a letter to Bono to use that song in the scene when they're pouring the ashes out," Kaling says.

And it worked! "The fact that they said yes and that they made it so that we could afford it, it really touched me," says Kaling. "That kind of thing — the way that Mohan is proud of being an Indian but he also loves this country and he loves U2 and he loves John McEnroe — to me that feels so real to my own life, that kind of excitement about moving to this country. I really inherited that from my parents who moved here."

In the end, Kaling's letter helped create the perfect emotional moment to conclude the series' first season.

Read more from I Want My Teen TV, EW's summerlong celebration of teen shows past and present.

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