Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Dave’ Season 3 on FXX, Where Lil Dicky Is On Tour And Looking For Love In All The Wrong Places

It’s season 3 of Dave (FXX; also streaming on Hulu), and Lil Dicky radio hits like “I’m Drunk” are blowing up as the rapper rolls through tour stops in his hot pink RV/tour bus. But can anyone know and love the Dave behind the Dicky? Expect jokes about rap, jokes about dicks, and jokey raps about dicks as that question is considered, with Dave Burd and his entire crew returning – GaTa, Andrew Santino, Christine Ko, Travis “Taco” Bennett, and Taylor Misiak. Dave season 3 will also feature rap world celeb cameos from Rick Ross, Usher, Demi Lovato, and Killer Mike.    

DAVE – SEASON 3: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

Opening Shot: At the latest stop on his “Looking for Love” US tour, Lil Dicky (Burd) is in his hotel suite with an adoring female fan (Savannah Young). “Hey good morning baby,” he raps, the sunlight catching on his orange dressing gown and popsicle pattern undies. “You need some java, baby?”  

The Gist: Leave it to Dave to present its protagonist as the binding agent between conventional sex rap and lyrics that shout out “spooning like soup” and his dire need for a new moisturizer. And even though he says “this is life when you’re young and wild” in a voice approximating Drake, what Dave feels is emotionally short-changed when his partner takes a selfie of them in bed. Would it be so wrong for a woman he meets on tour to love Dave and not just Dicky? GaTa doesn’t agree. (Like Burd/Lil Dicky, GaTa plays a version of his real-life self in Dave.) At a stop for refreshments, he encourages him to go hard on tour life – it’s good for the socials, good for the rap game optics. But he wonders if he’s just not cut out for extended bouts of random promiscuity. And as Dave suns his privates on the side of the road, he asks Emma (Christine Ko) not to include it in her documentary.  

With GaTa and DJ Elz (Travis “Taco” Bennett of Odd Future) entertaining the crowd at a nightclub in Texas, Dave is content to play hype man. But when they start chanting “LD,” he obliges with a performance of “I’m Drunk” that includes him and Mike (Andrew Santino) pouring tequila into the open mouths and eye sockets of the willing. “When we come to a town like this it’s their Super Bowl,” Elz says to Emma. And besides, white people will do anything when a camera is present.

After accepting a bust of his head in cement from a particularly intense fan (Tenea Intriago), Dave strikes up a conversation with Campbell (Jocelyn Hudon), a friendly local who seems oblivious to his Lil Dicky persona, and they ditch his entourage in favor of a house party in the sticks. But thinking he might get lucky with Campbell, Dave is also sure to don his “Scroguard,” an awkward latex device that purports to repel STDs. This is life when you’re young and wild. Right?

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? With hip-hop culture as its motor and a tendency to veer off in obsessive or weird directions, Dave can still feel like an alternate version of Atlanta. And figure in anything Lonely Island-related for Lil Dicky’s songcraft. But like Atlanta as well as High Maintenance (HBO Max), which shares with Dave a migration from web series to TV and a director in Brian Lannin, it’s the crisply defined character work surrounding the main guy that continually stands out here. 

Our Take: “Wait, you have a goat? You’re a goat owner? You’re, like, out of a fable…” Dave is at its funniest whenever series co-creator Dave Burd, as the Dave behind the rap persona of Lil Dicky, is reacting to the world around him with oversharing, ingrained awkwardness, and confusion over Millennial and Gen Z mores. Sure, being out on tour and having people lose their shit to his songs is what he always dreamed of doing. But as long as his relationship with girlfriend Ally (Taylor Misiak) seems to be on hold, Dave will be out here getting easily swayed by the various types of opportunists he meets on the road. (Misiak’s character is set to join Dave as the Lil Dicky tour and the show’s third season progresses.) It makes him a study in contrasts, and that enables Dave to further blur the lines between character, actor, real life, and the constructs of celebrity image-making and perceptions of masculinity in hip-hop.

And what about Dave’s penis (or Penith in album form), which according to him now looks like a manatee? Yes, when it comes to dick jokes, there is no shrinkage in Dave season 3. From a momentary freak out when his condom comes off inside – what about Lil Dicky-endorsed smaller condoms, for a more effective fit? – to his penis as a constant topic of conversation not only among he and his entourage, but with the fans and random people he finds on a Texas adventure with Campbell, Dave’s junk is never left in the trunk. In the early going of Dave season 3, it even gets to a point where those randoms want to see it, to view the sea cow-looking member Lil Dicky always raps about. But of course, all they end up finding is not the outsized and virile party animal of the stage, but a confused man clad only in a latex sex diaper.        

Sex and Skin: Bare butts (usually Dave’s); lots and lots (and lots) of talk about dicks.

Parting Shot: After being chased through the dark of rural Texas wearing nothing but latex, Dave has taken refuge at an all-night massage parlor. And while the proprietor might not understand Dave’s complicated descriptions of his manhood, she still offers him a full suite of services. 

Sleeper Star: As the slurring, aggressive Matty, Tanner Ray Rook (The Wilds) amplifies the unknowns and druggy energy of the random house party where Dave finds himself, and that’s before everyone starts to play a drinking game that involves a hot plate and Matty’s bare ass. 

Most Pilot-y Line: “I’ll tell you what it’s really like.” Dave is trying to explain life on tour as Lil Dicky to his new acquaintances. “Here’s what it’s like. I go around America and I meet people like you, and every single time they look at me exactly the way you guys are staring at me right now. It’s weird. And people have preconceived notions about the way that I behave, about the way that I fuck – “

A drunk yokel cuts him off. “I feel that. It fuckin’ ain’t easy, bro man…”

Our Call: STREAM IT. Maybe it never was, but with season 3 of Dave, it’s no longer possible to discern any lines between the Lil Dicky of TV, the real life/YouTube Lil Dicky, and Dave Burd – a real, human man who created both personas and is at his best when acting as the Dave behind the Dicky, a person who just wants to feel seen.

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges