On Netflix’s Pete Davidson Presents: The Best Friends, the comedian delivers the funniest Netflix special of 2022

If there is one thing we’ve learnt in the six months of 2022, it’s that it’s always Pete Davidson season. Since the beginning of the year, the 28-year-old comedian, actor, writer, and Saturday Night Live (SNL) star has been quite the tabloid fodder — in part due to the very unhinged Kanye West announcing his very public beef with the comedian for embarking on a romantic relationship with his ex-wife Kim Kardashian (a coupling that no one saw coming, which itself makes it all the more exciting). Weeks, after he taped this special — part of the lineup at the Netflix, is a Joke comedy festival — Davidson announced that he was leaving SNL, which lends Pete Davidson Presents: The Best Friends an added layer of significance. Put simply, it’s the first big post-SNL outing that the comedian helms and dissecting the showcase as an interpretation of Davidson’s personal comedic style proves to be massively rewarding.

For one, Davidson makes the idea of a comedy showcase — an hour set that sees a rotating line-up of comedians curated by him — seem like its own genre. That is to say, Pete Davidson Presents: The Best Friends doesn’t come across as a generic comedic anthology with a bunch of names and punchlines assembled together where each moving parts could have very existed on its own (as evidenced by two previous underwhelming showcases respectively helmed by Amy Schumer and Bill Burr). Instead, the special, distinctive in its voice, comic tone, and visual style, has purpose and individuality. Unlike Bill Burr and Schumer’s undertakings, Davidson’s curated one-hour show looks, feels, and sounds like it is helmed by none other than the Staten-island rockstar.

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Then there’s also the fact that Davidson completely utilises the format in both narrative and visual tone. The idea of the special is for a comedian to lead a showcase of comics who are also his friends and the promise is an intimate tone that remains consistent for an entire hour. Davidson and his squad of six comic friends and two musician friends destroy their sets, inventing a comedic language out of sheer chaotic energy. Most of all, the pleasures of the special lie in the fact that it really succeeds in evoking the feeling that even when we’re separated by pixels, it feels as if we’re hanging out with Davidson’s friends in his mother’s basement.

The special opens with an animated imagined group text between Davidson and his comedian friends, who all appear hyped for the showcase. The texts they exchange makes for a clever gag that announces the names on the lineup: rising comedian Neko White, SNL and King of Staten Island writer Dave Sirius, Big Time Adolescence actors Jordan Rock and Joey Gay, Davidson’s ex-girlfriend and Girl Code host Carly Aquilino (who texts about being the only girl on the lineup), Ramy actor Giulio Gallarotti. Big Wet, who guest-starred with Davidson in a couple of SNL music and best friend Machine Gun Kelly round off the lineup as its two musical acts.  

Davidson kicks off the proceedings with a hilarious set on Kanye West ft. impressions of Bill Burr and John Mulaney and a masterful joke about how his fate and that of his friends Chris Rock and Jon Stewart became intertwined at an eventful basketball match. Even though this set has been widely shared on the internet in the last few weeks, it is still exhilarating to watch Davidson absolutely destroy it. I genuinely can’t get enough of the opening AIDS scare bit that is worth the price of admission alone. Even better is the comedian’s closing joke about Jeffrey Epstein that results in a punchline about pedophiles that will go down as a classic.

Davidson’s friends equally stand up to the challenge: Neko White is easily the star of the show, delivering a sensational bit on trans rights that you really don’t see coming. White is a masterful storyteller and voice artist and the comedian relies on his dual gifts for his energetic, boisterous set. Giulio Gallaroti comes up with an insane bit about “white bros” that simultaneously critiques toxic masculinity and acknowledges its charms. Dave Sirius, who announces that he will be “our Jew for the evening,” does a storytelling-led bit about being that weird kid in school that lands a little uneven, primarily due to Siriuis appearing out of touch with his delivery.

Joey Gay brings his usual overenthusiastic energy that borders on yelling, recounting jokes about heart-attack related hospital visits and half-shaved penis that are immensely enjoyable. As the only girl in the lineup, Carly Aquilino proves to be enough of a competition for the remaining six comics. Her comedic style — chatty, conversational, and self-deprecating — really leans into a distinct feminine energy popularized by Ali Wong and Taylor Tomlinson. Jordan Rock comes out as the last act, delivering a bit about Black Lives Matter and blowjobs that is as racially-charged commentary as it is silly.

In a way, that’s the definitive trait of Pete Davidson Presents: The Best Friends c it is populated by comedians who are adept at inventing punchlines out of absolute tomfoolery, balancing the heavy with the downright silly.

What also stands out is the varied styles of each comedian who comes on stage and how easily we, as a viewer, can identify their comic leanings — even if we remain unfamiliar with their work. Much of that reason is the atmosphere that Davidson and director Jason Orley — who helmed Big Time Adolescence that starred Davidson — bring to the proceedings.  

The comedian for instance doesn’t come up on stage after every act, letting his friends instead introduce the act after them. All of the acts are interspersed with greenroom and backstage footage that further add in to the feeling of intimacy and friendship. The camera candidly captures the comedian and his squad react to the acts on stage, banter with each other, and deliver some deep truths (Sirius saying “It was fine” to the camera after his act is comedian code for him knowing that he bombed). You can almost sense the sheer chemistry between all of the comics, who seem genuinely fond of each other and Davidson. If you needed more reason to believe that it is indeed a Pete Davidson joint, the comedian, true to his homeless stoner chic reputation, lights up one on stage during Machine Gun Kelly’s thrilling performance.

If anything, Davidson achieves what he presumably set out to do with the showcase: make us believe that he has the coolest friends in the world. I for one, am sold. In fact, when Big Wet sings “Rolling with my squad. And we don’t try too hard,” he effectively ends up summarising exactly what makes Pete Davidson Presents: The Best Friends the funniest Netflix special of 2022.

Pete Davidson Presents: The Best Friend is streaming on Netflix

Poulomi Das is a film and culture writer, critic, and programmer. Follow more of her writing on  Twitter.

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