Bupkis S1E3: Picture
Pete Davidson is dead.
At least, that’s what the internet believes, as a fake story circulates on the internet as Pete sleeps unaware and Amy (his mom) freaks out. He quickly sets the record straight (at an environmental event with Al Gore and Jon Stewart, this week’s casting flexes. Also Charlie Day, who shows up as Pete’s therapist), but is more bothered by the unflattering photo every article used. They pulled it from Wikipedia, where a user named ImAScatMan76 keeps re-uploading it every time Pete gets his friendssistant Evan to take it down.
Everyone gives Pete the good advice to ignore the internet. He’s famous, people are going to talk shit, he can’t let one anonymous nobody get to him. (Apart from Grandpa Joe Pesci, who suggests they “go talk to the guy,” Staten Island style). But of course, Pete can’t let it go. Nor can Amy, who’s spending time at work (she’s a high school guidance counselor) trying to get students to help her track down ImAScatMan76 online, which she does.
There’s no way this ends well for Pete — either he just eggs on the troll, or he attacks him publicly and ends up looking like an asshole. Except the show cleverly sidesteps both obvious outcomes and spins off into a completely unexpected direction. Sitcom clichés are so ingrained at this point that we’ve seen every storyline and know where all of them are headed, which is the perfect opportunity to pull the rug out from under the audience.
The sitcom clichés (and subversion of same) largely works because at its heart, Bupkis is a family sitcom. Despite the show’s occasionally graphic R-rated humor, we’ve somehow come full circle from Seinfeld’s “no lessons, no hugs” ethos and back to what, at its heart, is a show about a basically decent guy who loves his family, gets into mischief every week, but learns valuable life lessons at the end.
That largely works because of Davidson himself. The best explanation for his success in comedy (and in dating celebrities) is that he’s a down-to-earth, self-effacing person who generally tries to be a good guy. Which doesn’t sound like much, but it’s a rarity in Hollywood — and the sitcom world, where the need for constant generally means characters have to behave like assholes to keep the story moving.
But this week’s story works because while Pete’s angry with his online troll, he’s more hurt by him. He’s spent his career being publicly vulnerable, and he seems mystified that someone would see that and decide to go after him, as if the concept of bullying — online or otherwise — is utterly foreign to him.
After one episode, the show seemed like what’s become a comedy staple — a gross-out comedy leavened by some obligatory sweetness. But it’s turning out to be something deeper than that. Davidson is still publicly wrestling with what it means to be Pete Davidson — both the famous comedian who never felt like he brought enough to the table on Saturday Night Live, and the wounded kid who still feels the loss of his dad — and the show is a more thoughtful exploration of his life, and life in general, than the “celebrity plays self” premise led us to expect. What could have very easily been a one-note show
Stray thoughts:
• One of the episode’s best moments is just a low-key throwaway bit where Pete and Amy are in a car staking out ImAScatMan76 and just start spouting cop-show stakeout cliches.
Pete Davidson is dead.
At least, that’s what the internet believes, as a fake story circulates on the internet as Pete sleeps unaware and Amy (his mom) freaks out. He quickly sets the record straight (at an environmental event with Al Gore and Jon Stewart, this week’s casting flexes. Also Charlie Day, who shows up as Pete’s therapist), but is more bothered by the unflattering photo every article used. They pulled it from Wikipedia, where a user named ImAScatMan76 keeps re-uploading it every time Pete gets his friendssistant Evan to take it down.
Everyone gives Pete the good advice to ignore the internet. He’s famous, people are going to talk shit, he can’t let one anonymous nobody get to him. (Apart from Grandpa Joe Pesci, who suggests they “go talk to the guy,” Staten Island style). But of course, Pete can’t let it go. Nor can Amy, who’s spending time at work (she’s a high school guidance counselor) trying to get students to help her track down ImAScatMan76 online, which she does.
There’s no way this ends well for Pete — either he just eggs on the troll, or he attacks him publicly and ends up looking like an asshole. Except the show cleverly sidesteps both obvious outcomes and spins off into a completely unexpected direction. Sitcom clichés are so ingrained at this point that we’ve seen every storyline and know where all of them are headed, which is the perfect opportunity to pull the rug out from under the audience.
The sitcom clichés (and subversion of same) largely works because at its heart, Bupkis is a family sitcom. Despite the show’s occasionally graphic R-rated humor, we’ve somehow come full circle from Seinfeld’s “no lessons, no hugs” ethos and back to what, at its heart, is a show about a basically decent guy who loves his family, gets into mischief every week, but learns valuable life lessons at the end.
That largely works because of Davidson himself. The best explanation for his success in comedy (and in dating celebrities) is that he’s a down-to-earth, self-effacing person who generally tries to be a good guy. Which doesn’t sound like much, but it’s a rarity in Hollywood — and the sitcom world, where the need for constant generally means characters have to behave like assholes to keep the story moving.
But this week’s story works because while Pete’s angry with his online troll, he’s more hurt by him. He’s spent his career being publicly vulnerable, and he seems mystified that someone would see that and decide to go after him, as if the concept of bullying — online or otherwise — is utterly foreign to him, so his response to the troll isn’t pettiness, the stock-in-trade of most sitcom characters. He gets angry because that’s what he feels like (and Joe Pesci tells him) he’s supposed to do, but he’s mostly just hurt.
After one episode, the show seemed like what’s become a comedy staple — a gross-out comedy leavened by some obligatory sweetness. But it’s turning out to be something deeper than that. Davidson is still publicly wrestling with what it means to be Pete Davidson — both the famous comedian who never felt like he brought enough to the table on Saturday Night Live, and the wounded kid who still feels the loss of his dad — and the show is a more thoughtful exploration of his life, and life in general, than the “celebrity plays self” premise led us to expect. What could have very easily been a one-note show has become something we’re looking forward to seeing more of, even if we’ll still have to wait to see if Pete Davidson can play someone other than Pete Davidson.
Stray thoughts:
• One of the episode’s best moments is just a low-key throwaway bit where Pete and Amy are in a car staking out ImAScatMan76 and just start spouting cop-show stakeout cliches.
• Al Gore lost the maddeningly close and voting-irregularity-heavy 2000 presidential election for many reasons (see also our Succession election-night episode review), one of which was that the media unanimously decided that he was a boring stick-in-the-mud, and that someone who “you can have a beer with” was the most important qualification to run the world’s largest economy and world’s most powerful military. Yet Gore has a surprisingly robust comedy resume in his post-political career, bringing his dry humor to this show, 30 Rock, and Futurama over the years.
