Gleefully crude, oddly charming, and kind of all over the place, Bupkis is a fictionalized depiction of Pete Davidson’s life, a la Curb Your Enthusiasm, Louie, and Ramy, where autobiographical drama often merges seamlessly with surreal flights of fantasy. While there’s a loose continuity between episodes of Bupkis, this is a formally playful series that jumps around in time, tone, and genre from one episode to the next.
One early episode flashes back to a wedding from Davidson’s childhood where young Pete (Preston James Brodrick) gets a few life lessons from his favorite uncle (a magnetically macho Bobby Cannavale). Back in the present day, the adult Pete gets a moonlit dance number of his own after he smokes an undetermined substance procured at a Canadian bowling alley. Another episode morphs into a full-blown action flick when Davidson finds himself whisked away into a Fast and Furious-style car chase by a squeaky-voiced sleazebag named Crispy (Simon Rex).
Throughout the show, the line between fiction and reality is frequently blurred. When a newly sober John Mulaney meets up with Davidson to give him advice about rehab, the scene plays as both a poignant examination of addiction and a recreation of the iconic diner scene from Heat, with neither character acknowledging that they’re quoting lines from the Michael Mann film.
But no matter how strange or silly things gets, Bupkis keeps one foot on the ground thanks to its endearing central characters, including Pete’s mom, Amy (Edie Falco), a woman who’s no longer surprised by her son’s behavior, and his grandfather (Joe Pesci), who offers a steady stream of wise-guy wisdom from behind large sunglasses and a gentlemanly set of white whiskers.
At the center of it all is Davidson himself. Hunching awkwardly like a teenager after a growth spurt, he’s often pathetic but always sympathetic. And for large stretches of the series, he simply stares on, looking confused while crazy things happen around him and contorting his face into the bug-eyed expressions he mastered on Saturday Night Live.
Using absurdity and obscenity to patch over the painful parts of life has always been Davidson’s m.o., whether he’s riffing on his childhood traumas or talking about his struggles with drugs and depression. So while Bupkis is primarily a comedy, it manages to successfully weave these darker threads throughout its first season. The wedding episode homes in on the loss of Davidson’s father—a firefighter who died while rescuing people from the World Trade Center on 9/11—complete with a montage of the man’s childhood photos at the end. Another episode explores the daily stress of Amy always expecting a Google Alert telling her that her son is dead.
These somber moments are quickly broken by a morbid joke (like Pete sweetly promising his mom that he won’t commit suicide until after she’s dead) or a ridiculous sight-gag (like Cannavale performing a dance routine of terrifying intensity to “Cotton-Eyed Joe”). And yet, the humor isn’t a form of ironic detachment. Bupkis might prefer to remain light on its feet, but from its very first scene, the series is anchored in Davidson’s very real struggles. The zany humor, crude gags, and pitch-black one-liners never feel like a way of avoiding or obfuscating those struggles. Rather, they’re clearly the only way he can stand to talk about them.
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