Bupkis Review: Doesn’t Live Up To The Hype – Looper

The first six episodes are mostly about Pete Davidson’s everyday life, whether he’s spending time with his grandpa Poppy (Joe Pesci), hanging out with his friends, or ejaculating on his mother (Edie Falco) after an unfortunate instance of virtual reality banging. These episodes are marked by two things: interactions, mostly fraught, with his family; or interactions, mostly awesome, with his friends. Then there are the seventh and eighth episodes which deal with him realizing he has to go to rehab and then finally going — the first episodes that connect in any real way.

Because of the way the episodes are presented, they can feel oddly disjointed. We know they’re all about “Davidson’s” life in some way but they all have a different impact. The second episode showcases a young Davidson at his uncle’s wedding learning about new things, especially drugs, while the fourth episode showcases him and his friends getting into a car chase in a perfect approximation of “The Fast and the Furious” series. Then, in the fifth episode, he tries to demonstrate he can be a good dad by taking a young girl that his friend Nikki (Chase Sui Wonders) knows to a local amusement park. There isn’t much of a throughline to the episodes and, as such, the whole can feel a little slapdash outside of the penultimate and final episodes.

Moreover, because of this varied approach to the different episodes, they all have different levels of success. For example, I liked the third and the seventh episodes while many of the others I couldn’t stand or, at best, I found passably watchable. Your impressions may vary. Either way, the show seems designed to hit almost everyone’s sweet spot at least some of the time. The rest of the time though, it’s anyone’s guess. My impression is Davidson and company threw everything at the wall to find out what worked. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make for a successful show. Good shows have a point of view and something to say. “Bupkis” on the other hand seems to have some loose ideas but nothing solid enough to set a whole TV series around. It’s possible the show just hasn’t gelled yet, and future seasons (should they happen) will have a stronger perspective. As it stands now, it’s mostly a loose group of thoughts without a point.