The following contains major spoilers for the Season 3 finale of “Dave.”
Even by the standards of a TV show that’s seen high-profile cameos from the likes of Justin Bieber, Rick Ross and Doja Cat, the Season 3 finale of FX’s hip-hop comedy “Dave” delivers a wallop.
Two, in fact: Drake and Brad Pitt.
The former turns up, like so many before him in the series loosely based on musician and actor Dave Burd’s real-life experiences as the white rapper Lil Dicky, as a version of himself — in this case as he welcomes Dave to a remote village in West Africa to work on music after Dave has left his sort-of-girlfriend Robyn (Chloe Bennet) behind in Los Angeles.
Pitt, meanwhile, is similarly riffing on his movie star identity, though his role takes a far more surprising turn: After making an appearance in a music video for Dave’s song about wooing Rachel McAdams — whom the real Burd says “was in every single piece of film that portrayed my definition as a child of what love is” — Pitt drops by Dave’s house only to be held hostage and eventually shot in the chest by a crazed, crossbow-wielding fan played by Tenea Intriago. (Before he gets taken out, Pitt memorably hops in Dave’s recording booth and discovers the joys of Auto-Tune.)
Burd and his longtime hype man, Davionte “GaTa” Ganter, who plays himself on “Dave” and who unwittingly walks into the hostage situation in the finale, joined a Zoom call Wednesday morning to discuss the episode. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
So how’d you get Brad Pitt in the finale? You slide into his direct messages?
Burd: He’s not on social media — you can’t get to him through DM. I’d heard that Brad liked the show, and I ended up getting his email. Obviously, I took a big risk writing an entire episode — a finale of a season — where he’s like the main character. People in our writers room were like, “Man, seems a little reckless to put all your eggs in this Brad Pitt basket.” But I believed. Brad, Rachel, Drake — all these people do the show for no other reason than the fact that they love and respect the show. And that’s just so validating.
GaTa, you clearly knew Brad Pitt would be in the scene when your character first encounters him, but you still look genuinely surprised. You call him “Fight Club.”
GaTa: That was a real, genuine reaction. I was juiced up. It’s a big dog in the game, you know? He was a pleasure to work with — very humble guy. Made me appreciate my situation.
As he lies on the floor with an arrow through his heart, Pitt’s character says his real name is Luke, which isn’t true in real life. Where did that come from?
Burd: I love that gag. It was a late addition. There’s a lot of wheeling and dealing going on in the show as far as rewriting and tweaking things on the spot. But I remember I was like, “I wish this death scene with Brad had one more big laugh in it.” And credit to Brad — he was so game in every phase of the way. It was honestly incredible for me as a filmmaker to get entrusted by a guy like him — giving him direction and thinking he’s listening to me the way he’d listen to Tarantino and the Coen brothers.
How long was he on set?
Burd: Four days. And we’re talking, like, this man is shooting until 6 a.m. I was totally giving him every out: “Hey, I have this perfect body double…,” and he’s like, “What? Absolutely not.”
How much of his stuff was improvised?
Burd: Some of it was improvised, some of it was not. All week he was asking what the deal was with the Auto-Tune singing. He was like, “I’m not a great singer,” and I’m like, “Brad, it couldn’t matter less.” I said, “No matter what you do, it’s gonna sound perfect because that’s the technology.” I made a little demo the morning of, and he got that and was listening to it all day. And there were a few takes where I was in his ear — like, “Sing it this way,” and then he’d sing it that way. But he was truly the way his character in the scene was. I knew I didn’t want to do it in post. He needed to hear himself singing in Auto-Tune and understand, like, “This s— is f— cool.”
The finale isn’t the only episode in Season 3 to address the idea of the obsessive fan. Why was that on your mind?
Burd: There’s two big interweaving themes throughout the season: Dave’s quest for love and his quest for validation and fame. And there’s a lot of overlap between the two. We knew we wanted to have a fan from Episode 1 come back in Episode 10 as like a sick, twisted mirror — take the traits that are wrong and hyperbolize them to the nth degree.
In a very dark way, the fan — who we see working as a production assistant on Dave’s “Mr. McAdams” video — is striving just like Dave and GaTa always are.
Burd: I definitely wouldn’t pull a gun and take it to that level. But I wanted people to empathize with this character — like, “I could see if Dave wasn’t a famous rapper and he’d gotten time with Brad Pitt that he might have put a song on Brad Pitt’s computer.” I wanted people to be able to see Dave doing that, and we wanted my character to confront that at its most extreme. And, man, as great as all the cameos are, I don’t want to lose sight of the performance that Tinea put on in that role. To be scary but simultaneously hilarious is such a skill.
GaTa, in this season’s Episode 5 your character goes through a breakdown regarding a sex addiction. Are you happy to be the show’s emotional center?
GaTa: Definitely. When we have those scenes where I’m emotional, it’s usually driven by my real-life story. People connect with my upbringing — not knowing your real mom or your real dad. You got to have those pieces in the show for people to grab onto because not only do we want to make you laugh, we want to make you cry. We want to make the hair stand up. One of my favorite things to say is, “You see those? Those are real tears. Those aren’t menthol drops.”
Burd: He is the emotional core of the show. And I’m honored that he lends his story to the show. The amount of people that come up to me and thank me for putting all the mental health stuff into the show — I’m like, “Don’t thank me, thank GaTa.”
How has the character of Dave changed or developed from the beginning of Season 1 to the end of Season 3?
Burd: This show is a coming-of-age tale about people who, as cliche as it sounds, are trying to pursue happiness and the meaning of life. And I think this season, it really seems like he’s made a major step forward — like, he’s gonna take this experience [with the stalker] and go pursue the important things in life and go to Robyn and leave the career behind. And it’s a total curveball that he doesn’t, and I like that. Not to oversimplify it, but Season 1 and Season 2, I kind of did the right thing. Season 3 we wanted to be: What if he did maybe the wrong thing?
Dave Burd and Drake in the season finale of “Dave.”
(FX Networks)
Instead of reuniting with Robyn, Dave goes to Africa to make music with Drake.
Burd: And I don’t view that as, like, “F— love, I only care about being rich and cool with Drake.” I think it’s also a form of awareness to say, “Even though I’m as confident as I appear, obviously there’s a huge, gaping hole inside of me if I have this endless quest for validation.” Until you fill that void within yourself, you’re not ready to take on a relationship, and I think my character became aware of that and let Robyn go because the other way would be stringing her along. It’d be even worse.
Well, he’s also letting her go because he wants to pursue Rachel McAdams.
Burd: I feel like one of the best parts of the season is how we approach dating and gender norms and power. I don’t like to be preachy or whatever, but there’s a huge problem in society with dating. The power dynamic between men and women is by default imbalanced due to societal structures that have existed for hundreds of years that are unfair. And nowhere is it more extreme than when a famous guy is like, “I didn’t get girls growing up. Now I can get this girl — oh, but wait, can I get Rachel McAdams?”
In the scene where everything comes to a head with Robyn, she says, “Women aren’t achievements.” And I think a lot of men date from that perspective, especially with online dating, where it’s like, “I can do better, I can do better.” My character going on that journey with his lifelong dream woman is representative of that. I want people to watch and be like, “Am I like that? Is that wrong of me?”
Last thing: Dave the character says the best rapper alive is Drake. Who do the two of you pick?
Burd: Drake.
GaTa: Imma say Lil Wayne because Lil Wayne put Drake on. Lil Wayne the greatest of all time.