#‘Dave’ Season 3 Finale: Dave Burd and GaTa Talk Guest Stars, Stalkers and Self-Love

[This story contains major spoilers for the Dave season 3 finale, “Looking for Love.”] 

If you’re a fan of Dave and you haven’t seen the finale, turn back now. You’re robbing yourself of a twisty, tense thrill ride if you read spoilers before seeing it. If you’re not yet a fan of Dave, go ahead and keep reading, because it might just be the push you need to add the show to your Hulu queue.

With that out of the way, the season three finale begins with Lil Dicky (Dave Burd) in bed with Rachel McAdams, who’s had a three-episode arc playing herself. They’re giggling and talking about their first loves before McAdams asks, “Are we crazy?” Dave replies, “I don’t know, but I would be crazy one million times over if it meant being crazy with you” before it’s revealed to be the “Mr. McAdams” music video shoot. In another scene with McAdams, Lil Dicky raps, “Maybe I’m your Brad Pitt” and actual Brad Pitt pops his head in.

It’s a “Ha! They got Brad Pitt to do a cameo!” moment — except, it’s not. He’s actually one of the leads of the episode, playing a version of himself who’s considering exploring music and comes over to Dave’s house to record only to become trapped in a hostage situation with a stalker. The actor gives Dave sage advice about loving himself and not chasing validation after being shot with a Looking for Love Tour-branded arrow from a crossbow Lil Dicky had used as a stage prop. After Dave escapes the superfan with the help of GaTa, some bear mace and his $7,000 sex doll, the episode cuts to him on a plane intertwined with a montage of updates on members of his inner circle and a voiceover of a message he’s written to someone.

“A wise man once told me that until you can love yourself you won’t be able to love anybody else,” Dave says. “It’s you. It’s always been you.” All signs point to his ex-girlfriend Robyn — including elephants roaming somewhere in West Africa as Dave gets out of a van with his luggage, a nod to one she virtually adopted for him as a birthday gift — but no. It’s Drake.

Ahead of the finale, Burd and GaTa talked to The Hollywood Reporter about whether Dave was really looking for love, how they landed the trifecta of guest stars in this episode, and why the stalker was a reflection of “endless ambition.”

Okay, let’s start with a question I never expected to ask: Did Brad Pitt survive the crossbow to the chest or is he dead in the Dave universe?

Burd: There was a lot of debate about how to play it. We even shot several versions of that outcome with Drake with us talking about, “Oh, he’s dead” and like, “No, he’s alive.” We had every iteration at our fingertips, but I chose to keep it slightly ambiguous. For me, as a viewer, if you look closely as the paramedics are running in, you can kind of see Brad’s hand go up and start to give the thumbs up. So, I take that as an indication that Brad will live on.

What do you think it says about Dave that after surviving this traumatic near-death experience that was directly a result of his fame, and Brad Pitt warning him about the dark side of being a superstar, that he doubles down and chooses to go chase Drake instead of Robyn.

Burd: What a twist, huh? I wanted to do something that was kind of a surprise. Not to oversimplify it, but every season we build toward this big decision. Am I going to do the right thing or the wrong thing? In season one and season two, I kind of did the right thing and in season three we were like, “What if he does the wrong thing?” We referred to it as “fame: dark side” in our writer’s room. That being said, it’s a little more complicated than that. It’s not just throwing [away] love and not learning anything the whole episode. I’ve been looking for love this whole season and I learned through this experience, and through Brad Pitt, that as confident as my character in his own greatness there’s clearly a gaping void in his soul that needs this validation. Until you actually love yourself and remedy yourself of that void, how can you possibly take on the love of another person? I look at it as letting Robyn go and not stringing her along knowing that, as much as I wanted to be looking for love, I wasn’t and I’m not ready yet. That awareness was at the the core of that final decision. I think I learned the lessons and was aware enough to realize that’s not where I was yet. So, in the meantime, I’m going to go to Drake.

GaTa, a lot of the season you’ve been pretty laser focused on building your own profile apart from Lil Dicky. At the end, it shows you doing something big for your mom. Was that always the goal? Or was that sparked by getting caught up in the hostage situation at Dave’s house?

Gata: It was definitely always the goal to take care of my family because I was adopted, you know. My mom is really my auntie, like I said in the show. So, I’m always trying to take care of my family no matter what it is. Whether I’m working on my mental health or going on Nut Haus to go win a million dollars, it’s really for me and my mom and my family because they took care of me and that’s all I know. So, I always gotta hold it down for ma dukes.

What did you think about the near-death crossbow sequence?

GaTa: It was just a great scene. I didn’t expect that to be the situation. I was like, “Wow, this is crazy. We got Brad Pitt on Pro Tools with auto-tune AND we ’bout to kill this man?” I still can’t believe it. It’s just surreal even talking about it, like we got Brad Pitt doing all this stuff. It’s crazy.

A lot of this show is pulled from your life, Dave. Was the whole stalker thing inspired in any way by a real interaction with a fan?

Burd: Thank goodness, no. No, I’ve never been in that situation.

GaTa: You have stalkers, though.

Burd: I have not had stalkers.

GaTa: Nobody dropped off Taco Bell?

Burd: I have had fans leave things at my house, you know, and like notes. Nothing like like this. The stalker in this episode (Tenea Intriago) did an incredible job and kind of stole the show, honestly. She didn’t even have to be a fan of mine in the show for it all to make sense. She’s like the mirror of having endless ambition and what will you do at all costs to make your dreams come true. Like my character, GaTa’s character, we’re doing whatever we can at all times to achieve these things. She is like a mirror of what that is times 100 when it’s taken way too far. I thought that was like a really cool way to weave in the themes of the season to have like a sick, twisted mirror held right up in front of me. I want people to empathize. If Dave wasn’t a famous rapper and he was at Drake’s house by chance, maybe he would leave something on Drake’s computer. I wanted people to like see both sides of the coin.

How did those three guest spots, Rachel McAdams, Brad Pitt and Drake, come together?

Burd: People keep asking “How did you pull it off?” It really speaks to the greatness of the show that all three of them just independently are huge fans of the show. Everyone who works on the show should feel like they got Brad and Rachel and Drake. The reason we got them is because they loved the first two seasons of the show. I had never met Rachel or Brad before. I had heard that both of them like the show through the grapevine. It was a little reckless to anchor an entire three episode arc with Rachel McAdams and an entire finale on Brad Pitt, but for the themes that we’re talking about there is no one better. What better representation of like hopeless romanticism and love is there than Rachel McAdams, who was like my generation’s dream woman and who has been in films that have totally defined my interpretation of what love is supposed to be? Same with Brad Pitt. What better person to teach you a lesson about fame and validation than like the star of all stars, Brad Pitt? Drake is like the top of the mountain top musically and as a rapper. I had met Drake and he pulled me aside and told me the show is one of the more important shows of our generation and I knew he was a fan.

With all of them, my writers room was like, “This is kind of crazy that you’re putting all your eggs in these baskets because what if they say no?” These people don’t even do TV. Drake hasn’t done TV since Degrassi. Honestly, I think the show can have a tendency to get overlooked. Once you sit down and watch, it’s kind of objectively a great show. These are like the biggest stars of our time validating our show. There’s a lot of pride in the people that make this show and everyone on set had such a sense of purpose the days that these people were on set. Everyone who makes the show loves cinema and storytelling. We’re at the top of our craft when these people are joining in and being like what you guys are doing is worth our talent and our time. For Brad to be getting direction from me and trusting me like the way I know he trusts like [Quentin] Tarantino and the Coen brothers was incredibly rewarding and something that I’ll never forget.

GaTa, what has the growth of your on-screen character been like for you over the course of this season?

GaTa: The growth on screen for me has been dope. I’m always able to share real stories and channel into my past emotions and trauma to bring out current topics, like the sex addiction and being on the panel, struggling with too many women, having two girls fighting over me and stuff like that. It’s been dope and I like how I’m being received on the television show. It’s led me to a bunch of opportunities. I went to Australia to film a movie with Sydney Sweeney. The growth is amazing. I’m able to display my talent, my passion, my drive, and I get to push my brand and do it with my best friend. It’s everything I ever wanted. I always wanted to work hard, to get acknowledged, and to be able to chase my dreams and to plant seeds and share my story. I get to do that through the television show at the highest level. I got Brad Pitt watching, Drake, Rachel McAdams, Don Cheadle. Let’s not forget about Don Cheadle.

Never, that episode was wild. Speaking of planting seeds, at the end there was a montage that seemed to give a bit of a preview of where everybody is headed. To the extent that you’re able to talk about that, what do you see for the future of this group?

Burd: People keep saying, “How are you gonna move forward? Like what can you do next?” I think, because of the epicness of the story that’s told and the stars that are telling it, there’s a sense of finality to it, but I don’t really see it that way. Let’s just say, I have really a great plan in place for how to take it from here. I can’t really share it, but I’ve got it mapped out and I don’t feel daunted. After season one ended, I was like, “How am I going to top that finale?” And then we ended season two and I was like, “How am I going to top that finale?” Now, I don’t feel that level of daunt because this time I kind of have a vision.

When you’re talking to people who haven’t seen the show, what do you recommend as their entry episode? Is it the pilot or is it another one?

Burd: Do I think the pilot is the best episode of the show? Absolutely not, but I’m such a believer of watching the show in order. So, if you ask me, I’m going to say start with episode one. But if I was in a room with like Jay-Z and he had never seen the show and I had one episode to show him, I’d probably show him this finale at this point. If we took that off the table, maybe I’d show him episode nine of last year when I go to Rick Rubin’s house. That episode gave me so much confidence. That was such a non-traditional episode of Dave where I took a big tonal swing with a totally different vibe and it succeeded so well. It gave me confidence to then this season be like, we’re going on tour and every episode is its own short film and its own genre.

I think the thing I’m the most proud of this season is not even necessarily the celebrity cameos, but every episode is its own totally different tone and vibe. We’re in Philadelphia doing everything handheld style. Then we’re in a hurricane and it’s like a horror episode. Then we’re wandering the desert in like an epic saga. Then we’re doing something that’s rooted in the documentary. Then we’re doing something that’s like a fucking thriller with Brad Pitt. I don’t know many other shows that could take every single week and do something totally tonally different and that’s what I’m the most proud of.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

All three seasons of Dave are currently streaming on Hulu.