In the season 2 finale, Dave pondered which Dave is the Dave-iest.
At the end ofDave’s second season, everything goes wrong for Dave.
A surprise Ariana Grande release ripples all over his VMAs debut.
Dave Burd and GaTa in the ‘Dave’ season 2 finale.Byron Cohen/FX
Now those relationships are frayed.
Ex-girlfriend Ally (Taylor Misiak) has a new guy.
Mike (Andrew Santino) won’t be joining the tour.
He only has himself to blame.
ButDave’s season 2 finale isn’t a bummer.
Coming after an amazing run of episodes, the episode ends with a soaring climax that swells with joy.
Hell, Dave isn’t even the only Dave.
The rapper more or less plays himself and his real name is Davionte Ganter.
Burd and GaTa are actual real-life friends, though.
It’s artistically symmetrical only because it’s cosmically symmetrical.
So the episode’s title, “Dave,” is a double reference.
Lil Dicky is suffering some privileged calamities.
He’s got no support from the label.
The VMAs want to chop his performance.
People don’t care about his billboard.
Meanwhile, GaTa is struggling for every dollar.
He sells off friends-and-family wristbands for the album-release party.
He borrows $8,000 to buy a nice car for his music video.
His mother (Carlease Burke) worries he’s cycling into a bipolar episode.
This leads to a brutal argument between Dave and GaTa.
The conversation runs almost five minutes, from “Hey, man, you good?”
to “Get the f— outta here!”
“I make music for me, myself, and I!”
GaTa says, pointing to the tiny closet that is his recording studio.
Davecan perform brazen conceptual stunts.
When you move past all the showbiz gutter-glitter,Davesucceeds because of its precision focus on its characters.
Every Mike scene turned into a mini-masterpiece of hilarious sadsackery.
And the GaTa-Dave argument was one of this TV year’s best conversations becauseevery jab felt earned.
But it also tracked how Dave’s selfish dedication to his own brand keeps wrecking his social life.
Even his attempts at connection turned selfish.
He wanted Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to write him a nice profile.
He wrote a tender breakup song about Ally, and got upset when she didn’t love it.
Now here’s GaTa throwing all that back in his face.
“You don’t even treat me like an equal,” he says.
There’s a tricky paradox underlying this pivotal moment in Dave’s career.
He’s at a just-about-to-break-through phase, when hangers-on start sticking their claws into his success.
you could tell how real his true friends are specifically because they’re abandoning him.
The finale’s only minor misstep comes earlier.
(Paul Urcioli returns fromDave’s very first scene as a confounded urologist.)
The script, credited to Burd, saves the real pyrotechnics for later.
We see the other main characters watching the VMAs as Dave prepares to perform.
Their performance segues into a club somewhere in Delaware.
The audience is small, but they’re having a hell of a good time.
Misiak is great, too, and I worry that post-breakup emotional realism will keep reducing her presence further.
Conversely: How fun are Gina Hecht and David Paymer as Dave’s parents?
And wasn’t Doja Cat awesome?
Confession: I did not know who Doja Cat was before that episode.
Some ofDave’s hip-hop/internet/anything-teens-know-about references probably go way over my head.
But season 2 confirmed that Burd and co-creator Jeff Schaffer can balance heartfelt sitcom hilarity with willful experimentation.
The show has a merry time tracking Dave’s ascension into life as a public figure.
That’s right, I said it.
I likeDave’s private parts.
Finale grade: A-Season 2 grade: A
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