The Spring of Pete Davidson

Despite the leg-lock COVID-19 put on Hollywood early in the year, a few stars have managed to shine brightly still. Pete Davidson, especially, is in the midst of a capital-M Moment, riding into summer 2020 off of a particularly hot spring. There was the stand-up Netflix special Alive in New York in late February. In March he brought vigor to the coming-of-age trappings of Big Time Adolescence as a burnout, darkest-timeline version of Pete’s charming, wild-style manchild brand. SNL’s quarantine episodes seemingly reinvigorated his contribution to the show. And now in the waning days of the season those lines have blurred even further in the 8 Mile-esque sort-of-biopic King of Staten Island, co-written and directed by Judd Apatow, the patron saint of shaggy, manchild coming-of-age-stunted-growth dramedies. With King out today, Complex Pop Culture editors khal and Frazier take a look at Pete’s trajectory so far, and whether his moves have set him up to fully blast out of the Hollywood stratosphere.