Why Is Pete Davidson Playing Himself So Funny to Watch?

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There are roughly 47,000—oh, wait, a new Netflix Original just dropped; make that 47,001—TV shows and movies coming out each week. At Obsessed, we consider it our social duty to help you see the best and skip the rest.

We’ve already got a variety of in-depth, exclusive coverage on all of your streaming favorites and new releases, but sometimes what you’re looking for is a simple Do or Don’t. That’s why we created See/Skip, to tell you exactly what our writers think you should See and what you can Skip from the past week’s crowded entertainment landscape.

See: Bupkis

Bupkis shows that Pete Davidson’s big, bold bro comedy works best in small doses, with the comedian joining the ranks of great actors who have played themselves to delightfully caustic effect—Davidson and Julia Roberts have so much in common!

Here’s Coleman Spilde’s take:

“Pete Davidson knows that you’ll likely be coming to his new Peacock original series, Bupkis, with some preconceived notions. In fact, he welcomes those biases. The premiere opens with Davidson Googling himself, the search delivering a deluge of absurd headlines. Some are just fake enough to arouse suspicion (‘12 Things Horribly Wrong with Pete Davidson’), and others are shockingly real (‘Pete Davidson and the Rise of the Scumbro’). Right out of the gate, Bupkis takes aim at its viewers, asking us to reflect upon which of these we may have seen, and which ones we may have even agreed with.

I Can’t Believe Pete Davidson’s TV Show Made Me Cry

Some might try to defy this trick, to place themselves above the gossip that likely brought Davidson into their pop-cultural consciousness in the first place. The show has plans for how to address them too, ending its cold open with a scene so surprisingly grotesque that it’s begging viewers to sympathize with the most vicious of headlines. Throughout its eight-episode first season, Bupkis consistently straddles this line of reality in its (lightly fictionalized) portrayal of Davidson’s life and the whirlwind that surrounds his brand of stardom, with a surprising amount of candor and depth.”

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See: The Great Season 3

The Great Season 3 ramps up Hulu’s historical comedy into a thrillingly funny, unapologetically horny romp, with leads Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult trading barbs as often as they exchange bloody, homicidal machinations.

Here’s Nick Schager’s take:

“Deliberately ahistorical period pieces are generally empty and useless (I’m looking your way, Bridgerton), since they obscure rather than reveal the truth about our pasts and ourselves.

‘The Great’ Remains TV’s Most Delightful Carnival of Bloodshed and Sex

Nonetheless, The Great is the exception to that reliable rule, as Tony McNamara’s manic Hulu hit employs its inaccurate vision of 18th-century Russia for delightfully daffy comedy that speaks directly to the issues at the heart of its, and our, era. It’s yesteryear reimagined as a theater of the absurd, and all the more winning for the way in which its ridiculousness is rooted in enduring personal, social, and political dynamics.”

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See: The Other Two Season 3

The Other Two Season 3 finds the already-elevated satire reaching new heights, juggling its constant barrage of blink-and-you’ll-miss-them punchlines with a necessary amount of character development and drama.

Here’s Fletcher Peters’ take:

“There’s a wise saying that goes a little something like this: ‘A good pop culture reference is hard to find.’ Maybe it’s in a book. Or was it just a short story? Surely this quote is a reference to something (maybe a Sufjan Stevens song?); I can’t remember where I heard it. But it is true: fantastic references to our culture, be it books, movies, celebs, music, whatever, are few and far between. That’s why the parodying in The Other Two is so remarkable. The comedy has some of the smartest satirizations and possibly the firmest grasp of the zeitgeist of any TV show airing today. Perhaps even of any sitcom ever made—The Other Two is boldly rivaling 30 Rock at this point.

‘The Other Two’ Returns to Brutally (and Hilariously) Satirize Hollywood

The plucky HBO Max series, which moved from Comedy Central to the fledgling HBO streamer in 2021, is one of the very few original titles that withstood the many cuts Warner Media made in the lead up to the launch of ‘Max,’ its new streamer. It’s what the show deserves. In fact, Warner’s goofy restructuring seems like something The Other Two would parody. And wouldn’t you know it, they do! In the very first episode of this third season, The Other Two teases the platform it airs on, tossing in a light roast about the hunt for VOD movies amidst a chaotic streaming landscape.”

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See: Succession

Succession’s final season is ramping up into its last installments. As the drama tightens its focus, so do its scripts, particularly in heated, pivotal scenes that highlight the broad character arcs that have been leading up to these final episodes.

Here’s Kevin Fallon’s take:

“Though we love them, the Roy children are not, as their father Logan famously said, serious people. Their parade of ineptitude and buffoonery, excused by their privilege and entitlement, is what makes them so sadistically entertaining to watch each week on Succession. Still, once in a while, the fact that these guys just really suck needs to be called out, probably for viewers’ sanity. And it’s so gratifying when it happens, as it did in Sunday night’s episode of the series, ‘Living+.’

The Gerri and Roman Argument Is an All-Time Great ‘Succession’ Scene

The hilarity of Kendall and Roman (Jeremy Strong and Kieran Culkin) being co-CEOs of Waystar Royco stems from the fact that they’re huge idiots, and everyone knows it. Lukas Mattsson (Alexander Skarsgard), who is in the process of purchasing the company, knows it. Their sister, Shiv (Sarah Snook), knows it, to the extent that she can barely keep a straight face any time her brothers talk seriously about business. Someone as lowbrow as Cousin Greg (Nicholas Braun) is even aware of it, and he’s Cousin Greg. But no one is as cognizant of this as the senior leadership team at Waystar, and it is such a blast to watch when they finally get to vent about it.”

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