Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
CHURCH CHAT
Church Lady queries Ted Cruz (TAK) & Donald Trump (DAH)
— A Church Chat cold opening out of nowhere! Awesome.
— Some pretty funny comments from Church Lady in the segment with her snarking on celebrities’ attire at the then-recent Met Gala Ball.
— Dana Carvey’s still got his knack for playing off of the audience in his ad-libs, with his “Too soon?” ad-lib after the audience’s slightly-tepid reaction to his joke about Jay-Z’s “naughty parts”.
— The final appearance of Taran’s weak Ted Cruz impression, which will definitely not be missed by me.
— Ugh, there’s that annoying exaggerated “funny” laugh that Taran always does as Cruz, which never fails to come off to me like Taran’s trying way too hard to be funny. That laugh is particularly bad tonight, though that may be SNL’s way of intentionally foreshadowing a certain transformation Taran’s Cruz will go through later in this cold opening.
— Kinda interesting how this is actually the second time someone played Donald Trump as a guest on Church Chat. (Phil Hartman being the first to do that.)
— Hmm, I had no memory of Vanessa ever playing Ivanka Trump.
— After all of my negative comments about Taran in this cold opening (me criticizing Taran used to be almost unheard of in his previous seasons, which shows how downhill he’s gone this season), I do really like the turn with his Cruz re-entering this cold opening as a demon, complete with SNL using a vocal modifier to give him a demonic voice. Taran’s always good at playing this type of role.
— Jon playing a typical Jon Rudnitsky role, I see.
— When this originally aired, I remember the fact that Taran got the special honor of delivering a LFNY with Dana as Church Lady, coupled with the fact that Taran was previously also the only current cast member who got to play one of the four main Bill Brasky guys when the Brasky sketch was revived in Paul Rudd’s season 39 hosting stint, made me assume that SNL must feel very highly of Taran. Little did I know that, just a few months later, Taran would end up getting fired. I now look back at the special honor he got of delivering a LFNY with Church Lady as one of the last (if not THE last) big moments he ever got on SNL.
STARS: ***½
MONOLOGUE
on Mother’s Day eve, host, PED, KAM set up jokes by their moms [real]
— Pretty funny appearance from Beck.
— This is turning into Part 2 of the preceding season’s Reese Witherspoon monologue, only nowhere near as strong, and much more sloppy and rushed. This is still decent enough, though.
STARS: ***
PRESIDENT BARBIE
girls’ disinterest in President Barbie echoes Democratic nomination race
— I almost thought at first that this was a rerun of the Asian American Doll commercial from the preceding season.
— Now that the premise of this new commercial has been revealed, this does feel like an intentional companion piece to Asian American Doll.
— A good laugh from one of the little girls reacting to the President Barbie doll by saying a flat “Oh. Neat.”, and then immediately putting the doll down and moving onto something else.
— Cecily as the professional voice-over, in response to something one of the little girls said: “(mocking voice) I like Legos! (normal voice) That’s what you sound like.”
— Lots of other funny sarcastic quips that Cecily has to the little girls.
— While I feel this definitely doesn’t measure up to Asian American Doll, this is still pretty solid on its own merits and has good satire.
STARS: ****
NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE
Ms. Rafferty’s near-death experience suffered from inept guardian angel
— This sketch has officially become recurring…very needlessly, at that. They’ll never match the classic first installment of this sketch, which should’ve remained a one-off.
— I’m currently a little over two minutes into this, and, yeah, everything in it is just a very inferior rehash of the first installment (right down to having Kate say “Donald Ducking it” this time instead of “Porky Pigging it”). Inferior follow-ups/variations is apparently going to be a theme in tonight’s episode (e.g. President Barbie not being quite as strong as Asian American Doll, the Mother’s Day monologue being kind of a half-assed version of the Reese Witherspoon one, and even the Church Chat sketch, while fun, wasn’t as strong as usual).
— Kate is at least still getting SOME laughs from me with her performance, as well as when, in regards to her story about a bunch of dogs sniffing “her drainer and her stainer”, she says “Look, at least SOMEBODY’S interested.”
STARS: **
BABY SHOWER
fellow moms at (host)’s baby shower welcome her to haircut sisterhood
— Good to see the perpetually-underused Sasheer getting a pretty good amount of lines and screen time here, which makes sense, as I recall hearing that she co-wrote this sketch (as well as the sequel/variation that appears the following Mother’s Day, in a Melissa McCarthy-hosted episode). I think I heard that Julio Torres was one of the co-writers of this, and that this was one of the very first things he ever wrote for SNL, but I’m not 100% sure.
— A solid premise, and great execution. If Julio Torres indeed co-wrote this, then this is an early sign of many great things to come from him over the next few seasons.
— Particularly strong delivery from Vanessa when disclosing how she received her calling to get “the cut”.
— A very good mock-dramatic, thriller-y turn with Brie Larson slowly and uncontrollably succumbing to motherly traits.
STARS: ****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “In Common”
WEEKEND UPDATE
guest anchor Laura Parsons applies innocent delivery to serious subjects
SAZ discusses the use of the N-word by Larry Wilmore & others
PED is embarrassed when his mom [real] defends him on Twitter
— A solid breakdown from Colin and Michael of the infamous “Donald Trump eating a taco bowl” photo.
— Notably, Colin makes a prediction that Trump will win the presidency, and gives some interesting reasons for why.
— Trump talk has been absolutely dominating tonight’s Update so far (understandably so), with even Vanessa’s Laura Parsons commentary starting off with her talking about him.
— As usual in Laura Parson’s commentaries, there’s a lot of good laughs from her delivering disturbing, kid-unfriendly stories in her typical upbeat, child actor-y delivery, and some funny subversions with her initially making it seem like she doesn’t know what the stories mean, only for her to reveal she does.
— Tonight’s Laura Parsons commentary ends with Michael panickedly cutting her off when she segues into her next news story by saying “Speaking of smelly fingers…”. Was the “smelly fingers” thing a reference to a particular news story from that week?
— Wow, not only did a sketch that Sasheer co-wrote and co-starred in get on the air earlier tonight, but now she even gets her own Update commentary.
— Sasheer is oddly giggly throughout this commentary. Normally, that wouldn’t be too much of a hindrance in an Update commentary that someone is doing as themselves, but something about Sasheer’s giggling here seems very awkward and inauthentic, like she’s fake-laughing to hide her possible nervousness.
— And now, in addition to her strange, seemingly unnatural giggliness, Sasheer is ad-libbing lots of odd asides and making lots of awkward long pauses throughout this commentary, as if she’s trying too hard to milk extra laughs from the audience. What’s going on here? I sense a huge lack of confidence from her in this, and it’s ruining her commentary for me. Has her lack of airtime this season crushed her spirit THAT much by this point? She previously did an Update commentary as herself the preceding season, and came off much more confident, smooth, and comfortable than she is in tonight’s commentary.
— Well, Sasheer’s commentary at least ends in a very noteworthy fashion, with her saying the N-word.
— Ah, Sasheer mentions it’s her birthday. I wonder if that’s the reason why she’s been getting more airtime than usual tonight. If so, I really wish this Update commentary went better for her. I’m sure she’s fully aware of how badly it went.
— When this episode originally aired, given the fact that this was the third-to-last episode of the season, I assumed at the time that, with this badly-executed Update commentary of hers, Sasheer completely blew her last chance to save herself and be asked back to SNL the following season. As we know now, she surprisingly ended up being brought back that season anyway.
— I like Pete’s dig at how some people incorrectly refer to Lorne as “Lauren”. (Justin Bieber being one of those people, in the caption of a photo he posted on social media of himself and Lorne the week he hosted SNL.)
— The usual good Pete commentary, and nice involvement from his mom at the end, further establishing her relationship with SNL.
STARS: ****
GAME OF THRONES
Jon Snow’s (PED) revival is protracted & telegraphed
— I’ve never watched Game of Thrones, and thus, I’m not familiar with the character that Taran’s playing, but I really like the vocal mannerisms Taran’s using here.
— Meh, I’m not crazy about the premise of Brie and Cecily’s characters being audience surrogates pointing out the annoying slow pacing of Game of Thrones’ scenes.
— Kenan’s delivery of “Whaaaaaat???” made me laugh.
— Kenan got another good laugh from me just now, with his angry, sorta-staccato delivery of “PICK UP…THE PACE…WOMAN!!!”
— Blah at that ending.
STARS: **
QUIZ WHIZ 2018
contestants in the future (TAK) & (host) have forgotten about Ted Cruz
— Third consecutive episode with a game show sketch.
— I’m always interested in premises that take place in the future.
— More and more as this sketch goes on, I’m loving it. A clever concept, and the performances are on-point.
— Kenan’s delivery continues to kill in tonight’s episode, as his lines on the other end of the phone are cracking me up.
— Great reveal of Brie’s character being Ted Cruz’s wife, which is presumably SNL’s way of acknowledging the resemblance that a lot of people online pointed out that Ted Cruz’s wife and Brie have to each other.
STARS: ****
KICKSTARTER
Chris Fitzpatrick & bandmates (BEB) & (host) are crowdfunding a movie
— An interesting change of pace for Kyle’s Chris Fitzpatrick shorts (the second of which [from the preceding season’s Cameron Diaz episode] I now feel I underrated in my review).
— Wow, I absolutely love the voice Beck’s using here. It sounds nothing like his normal voice, and I’ve never heard him use that voice any other time besides this short.
— These Chris Fitzpatrick shorts continue to be spot-on at capturing the spirit of “edgy” teens.
— A very funny clip of Brie’s character awkwardly shoehorning a fan’s name into her personalized rap.
STARS: ****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Hallelujah”
DEAD BOPZ
album features dead singers’ holograms doing modern-day songs
— Odd how the final two comedy segments of tonight’s episode (the Chris Fitzpatrick short and this commercial) are pre-taped.
— Solid performance from Beck as the spokesperson, a hologram Bing Crosby.
— Good concept to this commercial.
— A funny little bit with Beck-as-Crosby’s failed attempt to grab the Dead Bopz CD because he’s a hologram.
— Sasheer gets even more airtime tonight, with her good Eartha Kitt scene here.
— Brie is coming off really well in her scene here.
— A particularly funny scene of Jay as Tupac singing “Shake It Off”.
STARS: ***½
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A good episode, even if it had kind of an unassuming, not very memorable feel to me (maybe because of the host, Brie Larson, though that’s not a knock on her, as she did absolutely fine).
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
Baby Shower
Quiz Whiz 2018
President Barbie
Kickstarter
Weekend Update
Church Chat
Dead Bopz
Monologue
Near-Death Experience
Game of Thrones
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Julia Louis-Dreyfus)
a slight step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Drake
I don’t know the whole story but Taran and Jay getting fired always leaves a bad taste in the mouth. I wonder if he was growing increasingly unhappy behind the scenes or if it was his firing that made him look back on the show unfondly in retrospect.
One of Taran’s complaints was that this season was too heavy on pretapes, which is a bizarre criticism to me. Outside of the occasional season 10 critic I’ve never heard anyone bristle at SNL being too pretape heavy. The more common criticism is that with modern episodes the pretapes are routinely better than the live sketches (I’m predicting Anthony Peter Coleman’s “Saturday Night Taped” tally will grow exponentially in the next few months.)
Taran was a very dynamic live performer (especially in his first 2-3 seasons), so I can see where he would resent a shift to pre-tapes, where he did not have a foothold that, say, Beck and Kyle would have had. With that said, going through this season (admittedly not as closely as I should because something about the cast dynamics and the use/misuse of certain performers wears me down), I don’t feel like it is is especially pre-tape heavy compared to seasons 39 or 40? I guess if his problems started then (which I would say they did), he might be critical as a whole, not just this season.
To your point, quite a few episodes so far have been like today’s Drake episode where Update was the only thing that saved it from counting, and I’m sure that will continue to be the case pretty often as well.
Tomorrow’s episode was apparently so bad, it was referenced in the “live” segment of The Simpsons the very next day (essentially, it was live-animated, with viewers advised to call in or e-mail to Fox their questions for him. He opened the segment by joking “To show this is live, last night on SNL, Drake was terrible.” Of course, they may not be one to complain given their fan division, but that’s not here or there.) Though, admittedly, that may have been overblown, though it is a bit telling that he hasn’t even come back to PERFORM since. Maybe everyone was disappointed he didn’t sing Hotline Bling, that song was fucking EVERYWHERE at that time.
I thought Taran quit cause he wanted to take time off to film a movie and Lorne wouldn’t let him.
He let’s Cecily, Aidy, And Mike Myers all take time off but not Taran for some reason.
I think Taran was directing the movie (Killing Gunther), and he wanted to be involved in post-production which would have cut into the start of the season. Also with Cecily and Aidy, their projects would have filmed over the summer in a COVID-less world, so you can assume there’s some grace to be had.
As much as I love Taran and Jay, and as bitter as I am (still!) about them getting no closure to their time on SNL, looking at this season’s reviews I am starting to better understand why they were let go. I still don’t like it, but I understand. Hopefully the bridges haven’t burned completely, though I wouldn’t be surprised if they were. Maybe come next anniversary special Taran, Jay, Lorne, and all the parties involved will be at peace…
Lorne is also a producer on Aidy’s and Cecily’s shows.
Jay went to Eddie Murphy’s episode and Taran had some positive things to say for his 10th anniversary of joining the show – it would be nice if they did get to have a proper goodbye on-air someday, although they’ve both stayed pretty busy so if they want to leave SNL behind them, I would understand why.
I vaguely recall Mike Myers saying in an interview that Lorne was pretty mad that he had to miss shows during the first half of season 18.
I’ve heard people say part of why Taran didn’t get some leeway for Killing Gunther was that Lorne wasn’t involved with it. So the conclusion you could draw is that Lorne was mad about Mike missing shows since he didn’t have a production credit on So I Married an Axe Murderer like he does with Shrill or the show Cecily Strong missed shows for. Still, Pete Davidson was allowed to miss nearly all of season 45 for Suicide Squad.
Cut sketch (Aidy and Brie are kind of fun, even if this is rictus grin material – the ending lets it down, and the whole thing is done to better effect with the funeral sketch in Scarjo’s season 42 episode):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IWGxphJItY
Promos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9vIPCHyNII
(Taran’s last promo)
It may be hearing Phil Hartman’s voice on SNL one last time, but there’s something very sad underneath the Church Lady cold open.
There are probably a lot of reasons – Taran’s last weeks as a cast member, the choice to (similar to the Fey and Hammond cold open a few months earlier) portray Trump as tough/funny and on the winning end of the writing, the sense that this cold open is a big harbinger for the next 5 seasons (it’s so unnecessarily bloated and you can feel the audience die off), and, while Dana does a great deal to modulate his performance (he does not try to match his old levels of athleticism or energy, and changes his delivery on some of the old catchphrases), it still leaves you a little empty to see the audience barely react to something that was last a main part of the show 25 years earlier. It doesn’t help that the “Could it be…Satan??” line, which on paper was probably very clever because Cruz-as-Satan appears, feels rushed here. I wonder if Lorne also felt unsatisfied with the result, given that the Church Lady returns one last time early in season 42 (and even though the audience may be even quieter that time around, if memory serves, Dana is in good form and it’s a satisfying capper to the character).
I was disappointed they dragged out/explained the joke a few too many times in the Barbie pre-tape, because most of the way through it’s a funny, cutting look at Hillary’s difficulties in running for President. My favorite part is the “There was a time where Barbie couldn’t even be President.” “I wasn’t alive then.” “Good for you!” Terrific work from Cecily Strong- setting us up for several fantastic voiceover outings from her in season 42.
This is the Vintage SNL This week
Brie’s “Dead Bopz” segment (Lesley Gore) is a huge viral clip as of mid-2021. I was surprised to see it was from such an old episode.