Pete Davidson is more than a comedian. Or rather, maybe he is less? First of all, I want to make it clear that I have a lot of respect for Pete Davidson. The man started doing standup at 16, came to Saturday Night Live at 20, has charisma, has talent. But at this point in his life, Pete “Kim-Kardashian-the-current-Ariana-Grande-current-ex-Kenyan-West-sworn-enemy” Davidson, is much more of a celeb than a comedian. And you can see it at the beginning in his new standup special on Netflix “The Best Friends”.
Only it’s not really a Pete Davidson special. The show, filmed as part of last month’s streaming service Netflix is a Joke comedy festival, features Pete hosting a 60-minute stand-up evening with some of his friends, with each one coming up and doing about ten minutes. But the special does start with Davidson, who at first demonstrates how much more famous he is than funny.
Davidson opens with “I Had a Strange Year” and the audience is already roaring with laughter. Because everyone knows he’s going to talk about how he started dating Kim Kardashian, which led her ex-husband Kenya West to threaten him with a number of songs and posts on social media. Pete talks about how hard it is for a huge rapper to hate you, and how all his standup friends react to it and that’s all very much… something that’s hard to identify with. A big part of this comedy is “Relativity” – a comedian takes the stage and says “Hey, do you know this piece?” And we laugh because we really know. But that part about a famous rapper attacking you and John Moline making a joke about it? I can not identify.
And yet, Davidson has a certain charm (still, the fact that he went out with all these women), and I found myself laughing once or twice from his opening set – say, when he talks about the respect he still has for West as a genius artist, or a reasonable pedophile joke about C ‘Perry Epstein. And maybe just Davidson keeps his really good material for the next real special, and not for this show where he shares the stage with friends.
And what about these friends really? Davidson brought him a group of young and not very well-known stand-up comedians, and what can I tell you? They’re pretty good! Oh, surprise! I do not know yet if I would like to see a whole special of any of them, but as a ten minute standup, they are definitely funny. And they also remind us how comedians usually tell jokes: we need a concept that we understand as an audience, that even if we can not identify with it, we can imagine ourselves in the situation. And need good punches. Two things that Davidson seems to be having a hard time with right now.
Davidson also brought with him two musicians. One is some kind of country singer / rapper named Big Watt, who performs a song with Pete at first that even the audience seems unable to flow with, and the other is of course Pete’s best friend, Machine Gun Kelly. When I heard that Machine Gun Kelly was coming to this special, I thought for some reason that he would also do a standup – a bit like in this part of the joke from work that they would bring in Arik Zeevi or something to do a standup for the first time. but no. He just did his reasonable pop-punk songs.
What can you actually learn from “The Best Friends”? Mainly that this format is actually a good idea for Netflix and can refresh their standup department a bit (and they do use this format, such as the Bill Bar special that also came out this month). One can also learn that Netflix should take a chance on people who are a little less familiar. And one can learn that sometimes being the greatest celeb in the world is the worst thing that can happen to a comedian. Like, in terms of his audience. I’m sure Pete himself is pleased.
“Pete Davidson Presents: Best Friends,” now available on Netflix