Fast X Includes a Ridiculous Cameo That’s Baffling Fans

Warning: The below article contains full spoilers for Fast X.

Fast X is full of wild choices as an overstuffed tenth installment of the Fast franchise that feels like it mostly exists to lay the runway for the next movie coming in 2025. But its most unexpected twist is a short cameo from a bleach-blond Pete Davidson, playing a black market dealer named Bowie who runs his operation out of a back-alley PC cafe in East London. 

It’s one of many cameos throughout the movie, kicking off with the iconic Rita Moreno as Dom Toretto’s mother giving a lovely speech to #family at the backyard BBQ over a couple Corona’s in the present day after the Fast 5 heist rehash. And then there was Gal Gadot, who returned as Giselle at the very end. The other major appearance comes in a mid-credits scene featuring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as Luke Hobbs, a recurring character throughout the Fast movies as an antagonist of Dom and the crew. 

But Davidson’s appearance seems to have received the most tepid response of all the many celebrity appearances. The former SNL star shows up about halfway through Fast X, after the bogus operation in Rome that nearly blew up the Vatican is pinned on the Fast Fam, instantly becoming international fugitives with a hefty bounty on their heads.

Roman (Tyrese Gibson), Tej (Chris “Ludacris” Staples), Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel), and Han (Sung Kang) — the crew baited into the Italian job by Jason Momoa’s villain Dante Reyes — book git on a shipping container (full of strong cologne) to London where Ramsey knows a guy who can get them guns and transportation to reunite with Dom. The guy, a tweaked-out hacker who offers the crew psychedelic muffins, is Davidson. 

Within all of five minutes, Han microdosed on a “fun muffin,” Roman asked for receipts on Tej’s vending machine purchase, and Bowie reported the group’s whereabouts to the Agency for the reward money, leaving the four minutes to escape before getting swarmed by armed men and, likely, taken to a black site, just like Letty. Ramsey catches him and decks him before taking off to find someone else who can help without ratting them out. 

Based on the reactions, people who saw Fast X over its opening weekend were more baffled than pleased by Davidson’s cameo. 

IM LOSING MY MIND WHY IS PETE DAVIDSON ON DISCORD????
FAST X SUCKS pic.twitter.com/Jn2yzHhsG7

— isaac² (@isaacwhom) May 22, 2023

FAST X is a true cinematic fever dream but I still can’t get over the scene where they randomly go to an Internet cafe run by Pete Davidson and Sung Kang accidentally eats a psychedelic muffin (?) while someone is visibly playing Final Fantasy 14 in the background

— AJ Moser (@Radmure) May 22, 2023

entire theater groaned when pete davidson showed up in fast x

— monica ? (@monalbums) May 21, 2023

In an interview with Esquire, Sung Kang had very nice things to say about working with Davidson. “The experience with Pete Davidson reminds me of the phrase, ‘Never judge a book by its cover.’ You see what you read and see on TV, but Pete was the ultimate professional,” he said. “It’s great to have someone that has a mastery of comedy and timing, and is able to weave that into a new group of people. Give credit to the Fast family, because everyone is always so welcoming—we know it’s power in numbers. It’s pretty awesome that Fast can merit bringing in these huge cameos and have guests like Pete add their magic sauce.”

That Davidson would be joining the Fast cast was actually announced last June, via The Sun, but who can keep track when he’s been popping up in action franchises all year?

Pete Davidson has cameos in Guardians of the Galaxy 3, Fast X *and* Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, that is lowkey too much Pete even from someone who likes Pete

— rgs (@okitsRGS) May 22, 2023

In James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy 3, Davidson pops up near the end of the movie as Phlektik, an alien henchman for Chukwudi Iwuji’s High Evolutionary. (He also had his face blown off in the opening scene of Gunn’s redo of The Suicide Squad in 2021.) According to a tweet from Gunn, Davidson visited the set in Atlanta for a day. 

I voiced the beautiful Lambshank. I don’t want to show her here because she’s too gorgeous & I don’t want folks to feel bad about themselves in comparison. And my friend Pete not only voiced but actually came to visit us in Atlanta for a day and played Phlektik on set. https://t.co/tyVPU7GsZg pic.twitter.com/2cKamjHqxS

— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) May 7, 2023

He also briefly appeared in Transformers: Rise of the Beast earlier this year as the Autobot Mirage, first revealed in a trailer that aired during the Super Bowl. 

Davidson’s latest starring project, the Peacock series Bupkis loosely based on his own life, references the Fast and the Furious deal, per Variety, which falls through in Episode 4 after getting caught doing whippets at the White House Correspondents Dinner.