Spoilers below for anyone who hasn’t yet watched at least the first two episodes of Peacock’s Bupkis, so be warned!
For anyone who may have expected Pete Davidson’s Bupkis, his first post-SNL TV series to showcase the popular comedian in a highly respectable light, the very first cold open for Bupkis decimated those expectations in short order. (Or not so short order, if all the convos about Davidson’s BDE are on point.) Peacock’s newest original comedy pretty much did the same thing with any assumptions that it wouldn’t feature a close-up of a penis, whether real or prosthetic. It’s a series that isn’t afraid to go anywhere for the sake of comedy and authenticity, and delivering on that dual-minded approach was part of what guided the creative process for showrunner Judah Miller.
CinemaBlend spoke with Miller ahead of Bupkis’ big streaming debut for the growing crowd rocking Peacock subscriptions, and I had to ask about the choice to kick off Davidson’s fictionalized world with such a bonkers opening sequence. (For those still reading without watching, it involves Pete enjoying himself to VR porn and unwittingly finishing on his non-flustered mom, as played by Edie Falco.) For Miller, part of the challenge in setting up such an unforgettable opening was knowing they would need to continue on that same pace throughout the season. In his words:
Yeah. I think part of our goal with the pilot was to make a pilot that was really funny, which is tricky sometimes when you're establishing a lot of characters and information. But with Pete, we felt like a lot of people are coming into this having preconceived notions about Pete, or knowing a little bit about Pete. so our goal was to make a really riotously funny pilot. And then I think the challenge for us was, can we start the way that we start, and then have a relentlessness, and an increasingly escalating build, off of that open? Which I also think we were able to do. Then to somehow turn something that didn't seem like it could be heartwarming, and make it heartwarming, was our goal. And I somehow feel like we were able to pull that off, even though when we were devising it, we weren't sure it was going to work or not.
I do love taking the idea of “You think you know Pete Davidson?” and immediately countering that with him blowing a load onto his mom’s shirt, which she was perfectly fine to continue wearing throughout the day as not to waste more laundry. If nothing else, it makes it clear that Bupkis offers a heightened world beyond Davidson’s actual reality, which is helped along by the sheer amount of famous cast members like Joe Pesci surrounding Davidson. That said, quite a bit of his personal experiences and family history are infused into the show, largely for emotional purposes. (Not to mention acting opposite his real-life girlfriend Chase Sui Wonders once more.)
But even with a bar set as high as “splooging on one’s own mother,” Judah Miller said sticking with the idea of being relentless with its stories helped create a season whose wildest moments somehow do live up to and possibly exceed the opening sequence. (Everyone’s mileage will vary.) As the showrunner put it:
Relentless was a word that we tossed around a lot when we were talking about the show. We wanted the show to have something that felt relentless in comedy and in emotion, and I think that was one of the forces that that made this the way it is. [Laughs.]
To say nothing of the madcap chaos that takes place in the later episodes, Bupkis delivered another peak NSFW scene in its second episode, “Do As I Say, Not As I Do,” when Bobby Cannavale’s Uncle Tommy showed Young Pete the proper way to approach peeing at a urinal, by way of unsheathing. While I’ll make no personal presumptions about the authenticity of the male genitalia shown on the screen, I did ask Judah Miller about where the line is drawn these days when it comes to showing a penis in a streaming comedy like this. According to the showrunner, that line has gone the way of the dodo, as he explained:
Yeah, I don't think there is a line anymore. I feel like in the world that we live in today, I think there used to be a line, but I feel like now, there is no boundary. I think part of what is people appreciate about Pete Davidson is that he is fearless and very open in exploring intimate aspects of his real life. And so I think that, I don't know, showing manhood seemed like it was part of the tone of what we were going for, I guess. Without being without, without being gratuitous about it. That's the challenge. Can we can we still keep it classy? Was our was our question. And I hope we did. Tasteful, tasteful manhood.
HBO is usually the spot where TV viewers can readily find male nudity on display, whether it involves Succession’s dick pics or dong-out monologues from Euphoria’s Eric Dane. I’m not entirely sure where those and other instances fall on the “tasteness” scale, but I feel like Bupkis’ bathroom scene somehow felt as non-salacious as such a moment can be. Although story context is 1000% necessary, since "older drunk guy taking his penis out in front of his underage nephew" could obviously also be the start of a true crime docuseries.
All eight episodes of the new comedy are available to stream now, with more fun coming to the 2023 TV premiere schedule when Bupkis is done.
