Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
THE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE
Donald Trump (Alec Baldwin) & Hillary Clinton (KAM) debate a la town hall
— Cecily seems to be attempting much more of an actual Martha Raddatz impression than Kate did when she previously played this role in a debate sketch during the election four years prior to this.
— Pretty fun entrance from Kate’s Hillary Clinton and Alec Baldwin’s Donald Trump.
— Alex’s Anderson Cooper: “Do you feel you’re modeling appropriate or positive behavior for today’s youth?” Alec’s Trump: “(bluntly and quickly) No. Next.”
— I like Kate-as-Hillary’s fake-out teary reaction to Alec’s Trump bringing out the mistresses of her husband Bill.
— A decent spoof of the much-talked-about moment from the real debate where Trump creepily loomed behind Hillary while she was speaking at one point.
— Some funny lines from Alec’s Trump, as usual in these early appearances of his.
— Ugh, the Ken Bone part. I never got people’s fascination with this guy at the time, and not even SNL’s spoof here of the media’s glorification of him is doing much for me. Bobby is at least fun in the role, though.
— Alex’s portrayal of Anderson Cooper is coming off much better than Jon Rudnitsky’s infamous take from a year prior, despite Alex flubbing one line early on and pausing a long time before delivering another.
— As usual when looking back at this election season of SNL, I have to ignore a lot of the poorly-aged “Hillary has already won this election” assumptions to enjoy this.
STARS: ***½
MONOLOGUE
host & cast members implore audience to “Get Happy” with cookies & puppies
— An okay idea for a feel-good monologue during rough times. There’s certainly an air of corniness and sappiness here (even if that’s intentional), but it’s countered by my goodwill towards the good-natured intentions, as well the occasional humor thrown in.
— Oddly, Emily Blunt called Pete “Mikey” just now. I think I recall hearing that Melissa McCarthy makes a similar gaffe in her monologue later this same season, where she calls Mikey “Kyle” or something like that (I can’t remember the exact detail), but I myself have no memory of seeing that gaffe of hers.
STARS: ***
ESCORTS
in a hotel room, escorts (host) & (LEJ) lay out their unsexy ground rules
— Yikes. When the characters sit down after Emily and Leslie’s entrance, Alex completely blanked on his line, leading to a few seconds of awkward dead air, and then Emily, the freakin’ HOST, had to say Alex’s line for him to keep the sketch moving, and then, in an apparent ad-lib, she even tells Alex in character to relax. Wow. I like Alex a lot as a cast member, but between his occasional flubbiness in this episode’s cold opening and now this, Alex is definitely showing some “new cast member greenness” signs in this episode. That’s actually interesting to look at in hindsight, knowing how very good he would go on to be on SNL (even if SNL themselves don’t seem to be fully aware of that, from what I hear about how underutilized he’s been in the more current seasons). I’m not sure, but I think the botched portion of this Escorts sketch would later be replaced with the dress rehearsal version in reruns and the online version of this sketch, but I might be wrong.
— A delayed camera cut kinda ruined Emily’s tongue-sticking-out gag.
— A good laugh from Leslie sultrily telling Mikey “I’m gonna rag-doll you, man.” I also like how, in hindsight, that part feels like a precursor to the married couple Leslie and Mikey would play on Update a year or so later.
— Very funny reveal from Leslie that Stewie from Family Guy is the only voice she can do during role-playing.
— This sketch isn’t bad so far, but something about the pacing of it feels a bit sluggish, making this sketch feel a little out of place in the post-monologue lead-off spot.
— Heh, Emily can’t ever seem to say that “Oopsy-doopsy, I muffed it up again!” line without cracking up.
— Good ending.
STARS: ***
MELANIANADE
Donald Trump’s (Alec Baldwin) women channel Beyonce in “Melanianade”
— When this originally aired, I thought for sure that this spoof of Beyonce’s Lemonade was written by Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider, especially since they previously wrote the Beyonce-themed Beygency and The Day Beyonce Turned Black pre-tapes. However, it would end up being revealed that James Anderson and Kent Sublette wrote this, which shocked me, as they didn’t usually attempt stuff like this.
— A very well-filmed, well-performed, and catchy-sounding Lemonade spoof, even if I’ve never seen the actual Lemonade video. However, if this is intended to make me laugh, it ain’t working much so far. Also not helping is the fact that, much like the “A Day Off with Kellyanne Conway” piece from the preceding episode, I can’t get behind SNL’s misguided attempt to make people like Ivanka Trump and Kellyanne come off as victims, and make us root for and feel sympathy for them. I could at least look past that TO AN EXTENT in the aforementioned “A Day Off with Kellyanne Conway” piece, because the humor itself in that was solid, but that isn’t the case in this Melanianade short.
— Okay, the whole bit right now with Beck’s Mike Pence is at least funny.
— Is it wrong that I’m starting to feel that Vanessa looks a little out of place in some sketches this season? Not to the same extent that Bobby seems a little out of place this season, and this certainly doesn’t mean that I’m knocking Vanessa’s (nor Bobby’s) performances this season (and I’m well aware that some of Vanessa’s all-time greatest moments are still to come this season), but I’ve sometimes been having a surprised “Oh, that’s right, she’s still on the show” reaction when seeing her in some segments in my rewatch of this season. Part of that could be because of the then-recent loss of her fellow “Class of 2010” members Taran Killam and Jay Pharoah.
STARS: **
SHORT FILM FESTIVAL
short film festival attendee (VAB) is only person not in cast or crew
— I sometimes get this film festival sketch confused with the one from the season 44 Seth Meyers-hosted episode, even though I can’t remember the premise of that one.
— Hilarious reveal of the cast and crew of the featured short film being the ENTIRE audience, minus Vanessa.
— I love Vanessa’s smiley awkwardness when being the only person to have to ask the cast and crew all the questions. She’s always perfect for this type of role.
— Solid running bit with the cast and crew, one-by-one, having to pass the microphone down the line to the person who’s about to speak.
— Very funny how Vanessa has now gotten to the point where she asks her next question without even getting up, and instead just grabs the microphone stand over to her while she remains seated.
— During the sequence with all the cast and crew, one-by-one, stating that their next project is nothing, I got a laugh from Kate’s announcement being that she’s doing some grocery shopping later tonight.
— Great surprise reveal at the end that Emily was playing herself in this sketch all along.
STARS: ****
CHONK
women’s clothing store Chonk sends mixed messages about female body image
— Surprisingly, this is the first traditional fake ad all season.
— Yet another commercial featuring excellent voice-over work from Cecily. The different comical voices she delivers the word “CHONK!” in throughout this commercial are a riot.
— I really like Sasheer’s puzzled and offended delivery of “Unique?!?” in response to the voice-over’s line about “your unique body”.
— The extremely brief “Lil Chonk” part that Aidy angrily puts a stop to is priceless.
— A hilarious simplistic part with the “Normal Clothes” section for men.
— Overall, it was well worth the somewhat long wait for SNL’s first fake ad of the season, as I found this ad to be perfect.
STARS: *****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “24K Magic”
— One of the absolute most uniquely-structured and fun musical performances in recent years, if not ever.
WEEKEND UPDATE
Olya Povlatsky considers impact of the election on USA-Russia relations
Laura Parsons is aware of the election’s motif of mistreatment of women
— I’ve noticed that one of the changes on Update this season is that neither Colin nor Michael say the usual “Here are tonight’s top stories” during their sign-on, probably because of the new style Update has adopted since the last third of the preceding season, where the first few minutes of every Update feature Colin and Michael taking turns doing long-form rants about one specific topic (usually about Trump). That “long-form rants about one topic” approach is just one of the things that refreshingly separates this Update era from most of the others, and is the style that they should’ve had Colin Quinn regularly do his ENTIRE Updates in back in the day, because, as likable as he always was, his delivery was not suited for the usual Update style of “simple set-up and punchline, move on to the next news story, lather-rinse-repeat”.
— This ends up being Olya Povlatsky’s final appearance on Update, though she has one more appearance in general remaining after this episode, in a Vladmir Putin cold opening later this season.
— I got a huge laugh from Kate’s Olya demonstrating the bizarre, indescribable noise she makes when she wakes up.
— While I’m definitely still enjoying this Olya Povlatsky commentary, I’m starting to think that they chose the right time to retire her from Update, because her routine is feeling quite been-there-done-that tonight.
— Yikes, a huge technical error with the photo graphic next to Colin while he’s doing the Nobel Prize joke. After a few seconds of this technical gaffe, the people in the control room just give up and remove the graphic, leaving no photo next to Colin while he’s still telling the joke (the second-to-last above screencap for this Update).
— Vanessa’s prominence in tonight’s episode is making her feel less out-of-place to me.
— The usual big laughs from Vanessa’s Laura Parsons so far, especially her line about how, in regards to the Donald Trump/Access Hollywood scandal, Billy Bush “might get 10 million dollars…..FROM THIS NETWORK!”
— A hilarious ending to Laura Parsons commentary, with the payoff of her clown story.
STARS: ****
DRIVE-THRU WINDOW
a long limo containing eccentric artists visits a Burger King drive-thru
— When this originally aired, I remember saying that this sketch was basically just the whole cast playing Kevin Roberts-like characters, particularly Mikey, who’s hair and costume here is quite Kevin Roberts-esque. Little did I know at the time that the following week’s episode would have a sketch that would go on to be the most well-known Kevin Roberts-type sketch ever, a certain Halloween-themed one.
— Also when this originally aired, I honestly thought Emily was Kate, until Kate appeared later in this sketch, confusing the hell out of me.
— Speaking of Emily, something about the look of her character seems very familiar, as if SNL previously used that same wig, glasses, and clothing for another character, perhaps one played by Amy Poehler or Kristen Wiig. Can’t put my finger on which character I’m thinking of, though. I don’t think it’s Kristen’s (dreadful) Trina character (a.k.a. the oddball lady who always says “Thomaaaaas!”), though I do see the physical similarities.
— Kenan’s mere look when his window rolled down cracked me up so much. Pete is clearly tickled by it, too.
— Like Kenan, Bobby is also very funny with his characterization, even if this feels like a role that he’s played multiple times before. (Another sign that he’s on his way out.)
— I like Kate and Cecily’s creepy characters oddly requesting “4 foods and a nibble.”
— Something about Beck’s delivery and pronunciation of “Peace!” (sounding kinda like “Payce!”) at the end of his scene tickled me so much.
— The writing of this sketch isn’t up to much, but the performances are making this fun for me.
STARS: ***½
THE SINK
host voices a self-aware & self-critical bathroom fixture
— A very unique use of a host, and this particular instance is very fitting for Emily Blunt.
— I’m loving the tone of this, and the humor is perfect.
— Hilarious interruption with the sink suddenly being used by someone when it was in the middle of its speech to us.
— A huge laugh from the visual of the comically brief ending credit scroll (the last above screencap).
— Overall, this was oddly brilliant. Yet another creative, very funny, and extremely strong Julio Torres-written pre-tape.
STARS: *****
HONDA ROBOTICS
Honda smartbots (MID) & (host) malfunction while serving hors d’oeuvres
— SNL continues to get mileage out of the vocal modifier that they’ve suddenly been using a lot ever since the homestretch of the preceding season. And as usual, there’s some minor glitches with the vocal modifier, where it briefly stops working and the performer’s natural voice is temporarily heard.
— This era seems to have a lot of robot sketches. The airplane stewardesses one with Scarlett Johansson and Vanessa, the “3D printed man” one with Matthew McConaughey, a sketch from the Casey Affleck episode later this season about stereotypically gay robots that…oof, let’s just say I’m gonna have things to say about THAT sketch, if it’s as bad as I remember.
— Funny back-and-forths between Emily and Kate, and at this point of Kate’s tenure, it’s rare seeing a host make HER crack up, when it’s usually the other way around (e.g. Ryan Gosling, Margot Robbie).
— Solid comical acting from Mikey when his robot character is malfunctioning.
— Emily’s vocal-modified delivery of lines like “mini, ooey-gooey quesadilla” is cracking me up.
STARS: ***½
MELANIA MOMENTS
Melania Trump (CES) yearns for The Prince & The Pauper shot
— Yet another strong and very Deep Thoughts-esque Melania Moments piece.
— I just now noticed that even Beck’s tender voice-over in these Melania Moments pieces sounds rather identical to Jack Handey’s voice in the aforementioned Deep Thoughts.
STARS: ****½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Chunky”
THE GREAT BRITISH BAKE OFF
chavs (host) & (CES) wanted Big Brother gig
— Pretty funny dignified British accents from the supporting performers in this.
— Another “Cecily does an accent” sketch, which would’ve felt right at home in season 39, which felt rampant with those sketches.
— Very accurate crude British accents from Emily and Cecily, though perhaps TOO accurate, as my American ears are having a hard time understanding a lot of the words and British terms they’re saying. I’m still getting some chuckles from their performances and what little I can understand them saying, but I feel like I’m not enjoying this sketch as much as I should be.
STARS: **½
HAMSTERS
(KYM)’s hamsters (BEB), (KAM), (ALM), (host) ape Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?
— An interesting oddball concept.
— Something about the tone of this sketch makes me wonder if Julio Torres wrote or co-wrote this. If so, man, for such a new writer, he’s been killing it this season. I feel like it’s rare in recent seasons like this for a new writer to be so prolific.
— Kate and (especially) Beck’s comically-tense acting is solid.
— A laugh from Emily’s line about a hamster being buried in a New Balance shoebox.
STARS: ***½
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A mostly good episode. After a nothing-too-special first 20 or so minutes, this episode seemed to take off starting with the Short Film Festival sketch.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
CHONK
The Sink
Melania Moments
Short Film Festival
Weekend Update
Hamsters
The Presidential Debate
Honda Robotics
Drive-Thru Window
Escorts
Monologue
The Great British Bake Off
Melanianade
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Lin-Manuel Miranda)
a step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
SNL hosting legend Tom Hanks, in his second consecutive hosting stint that has followed a 10-year gap
I only remembered the cold open and the drive through sketch.
Okay comment readers…any questions about tomorrow?
Also, really glad that Hanks’s next hosting gap wasn’t another ten years. Granted it was a non-performing gig, but it counts dammit
I don’t say that counts. If Hanks never hosts again (and I hope he does, but would rather he go out on top than have an episode like Goodman in 2013), his last ep can be tomorrow’s classic, not an episode where he only shows up to do a monologue that can be most charitably described as “cute”.
I prefer to count that episode, mostly because it rounds Tom’s tenure off at an even ten, and because it’s such a historically important episode.
“Hamsters” is definitely a Julio Torres piece. That is all.
Saturday Night Taped (Episodes from S39 on where the top 2 or more highest ranked sketches are pre-taped): 15
Anderlettedowns (Jost era episodes where Anderlette have the only sub-par material): 7 (will amend this back to 6 if they didn’t do Bake Off, but believe that’s them).
Julio Torres and Anna Drezen co-wrote the hamster sketch.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/13/arts/television/meet-julio-torres-the-new-snl-star-no-one-sees.html
I think that’s Drezen in the background of the third cap from the Robots sketch.
To latch onto Bronwyn, a highlight for me this ep is the return of writer-spotting. Joining Drezen as extras in the Robots sketch were Nick Kocher, Sudi Green and Fran Gillespie:
https://i.imgur.com/zGWAJv2.png
Were all three Melania Moments meant to air in one episode as a runner? I remember reading that somewhere.
“I can’t get behind SNL’s misguided attempt to make us feel sympathy towards and root for people like Ivanka Trump and Kellyanne.”
This was a huge problem with the political material for the next four seasons, even more than the cameo overdose. They’re so inconsistent and out of touch with who the “good guys” are that it makes the sketches feel absolutely meaningless from a satirical perspective. Instead of parodying all viewpoints, it just feels like it has no viewpoint at all because the writers don’t seem to care about politics. The cameos that are coming up soon feel less like a ratings grab and more like a fog machine to hide the fact that they have nothing concrete to say politically.
Also, agree on not getting Ken Bone at all. I remember shortly after this people combed through his Reddit comment history and found out he was kind of an ass, and thus ended those 15 minutes of fame ?
Ken Bone made a brief return to fame, thanks to an ever-desperate media, last year, going on about not knowing who to vote for before announcing that he was going to vote libertarian. The best thing I can say about him is he gave me a good-bad laugh via this Laura Parsons commentary – “HE SAID HE LIKED HER BUTTHOLE!!!”
Outside of the odd bubble Kate’s impressions live in (where Jeff Sessions and Theresa May are apparently endearing) I think little by little the show did realize throughout seasons 42 and 43 that these people were wretched, it’s just that they still had no real idea how to write for them, or how to write political material, period, which is how we get into the material where Mueller is treated as a god (as he was by much of the media and the liberal social media sphere, to be fair…).
With that said, as much as I bash this period for being overly sympathetic to these vultures, I don’t entirely interpret Melaninade that way. They pay lip service to being done with Trump, but in the end they all fall right back into line. They aren’t painted as being trapped (which they are in various other Melania and Kellyanne pieces in these two seasons) as much as they take a path closer to the Complicit pretape from Scarjo’s episode later this season (although that was written by someone else, presumably).
Huh, looks like I actually did get what I asked for considering how you shared your brief thoughts on the gay robot sketch from the Casey Affleck episode, which is weird because I remember finding it to be funny when I first saw it. (Something about Beck’s delivery made it enjoyable, but also the premise of robots having sexual feelings was hilarious to me.) If it actually is as bad as you remember, then let’s just say that Fred Armisen really didn’t have a good night that night, considering the fact that that’s the episode with the Dictator’s Two Best Friends from Growing Up making their final appearance. (Thankfully, those are his only cameos that entire season.)
As for tomorrow’s episode, it’ll be fun to see you talk about David Pumpkins, but it’ll also be fun to see you talk about Black Jeopardy and Funny New Sitcom.
A couple more notes: the rate at which you post your reviews is gonna be confusing considering that I’m typing this at 1:22 a.m. At what time do you expect to post your next review?
Also, is it just me or does Alex kinda look eerily similar to Anderson in the cold opening?
The “24K Magic” performance helps me to realize that a good musical guest can elevate an episode’s memorability (for example, the U2 end credits performance lifting an otherwise meh Luke Wilson ep in ’04, and pretty much most of the performances in the wretched 6th and 20th season). Honestly, the musical guests seemingly decided to up their game in these first few episodes of the season, as if they knew people would be watching because of the election parodies and figuring they didn’t want them disappointed. Though not all of them in this particular season were perfect- I remember the Ed Sheeran performance being a bit tepid in particular.
Sasheer never really clicks into the live sketch format (not that she ever had that many opportunities), but she adds a special gift to various pre-tapes this season – so much so that I’m sorry she never got a big starring pre-tape piece all her own. Her vague discomfort tips Chonk over the edge into true classic status (there’s so much to love about Chonk), and she brings some real flair to her Omarosa segment, wringing more value out of that “no last name” spiel than most could have.
I did notice when watching this season last year that Vanessa (especially in the first half to three-fourths of this season) feels out of place – not helped by much of her material being established and retired (for instance, you can hear so much Miley in her Tiffany Trump, which is ironic, as some fans were begging the show to have Miley cameo as Tiffany this season). It’s only natural, I suppose. It’s when we see her with Melissa, who also perpetually feels out of place, that things get even odder, although I don’t think she has much left with Melissa.
I keep trying to figure out who Emily’s character in the Burger King sketch resembles, now that you’ve pointed it out – for some reason I keep going back to some kind of awkward teen character that Vanessa, Nasim or Kate may have played in a pre-tape?
Emily is a good host, but what I appreciate about her in this episode is that she does not have any of the polish you might expect of a well-trained, acclaimed actress. She just goes out there and has fun, which helps to add some freshness to several middling sketches – Leslie does some heavy lifting in the escorts sketch (probably one of her earliest hints at being able to give a confident, committed sketch performance), but it’s Emily’s goofiness and breaking that give me a smile. And while Mikey’s physical humor is a highlight, it’s Emily trying to fluster Kate and chasing Beck around that I will remember fondly.
If Anderlette did write both Melanianade and the bakeoff sketch, then it’s a mockery and affirmation of my view that Cecily was their most accomplished translator. I don’t find Melanianade to be funny, but Cecily is incredibly transfixing to watch in places, especially the weird head movements done in homage to the original video. (I also love Beck’s Pence cameo – one of his best uses in the role). By contrast, I can’t make it all the way through the bakeoff sketch – it has that awful “dead” feeling that just goes right through me.
The one live sketch of the night that clicks into place for me is the film festival. The pacing is top-notch, as are the performances, and the ending is absolutely perfect.
This is going to sound like a weird question, but is the secular version of “Get Happy” they use in the monologue something the show came up with, or is that actually a thing? (the Judy/Summer Stock version is not religious, but still has lyrics like “the Lord is waiting to take your hand” and “we’re going to the promised land” that are changed here) These days such revisions would probably get no end of performative outrage…
The Burger King sketch underwent a great deal of scrutiny last year when some activists/self-appointed journalist figures who see SNL as destructive and excessively corporate got into it with Streeter Seidell on Twitter about whether a holiday family shopping pre-tape he wrote was paid for by Macy’s or not. This led to another debate over the article from 2016 about branded content.
https://mashable.com/2016/04/26/snl-less-commercials-more-branded-content/
Streeter, I believe, claimed the deal didn’t go through (it’s been a while though so I may be wrong), but if it ever did happen, then the Burger King sketch would be a believable place for it. This feels like some very thrown together character bits thinly framed around the Burger King references. It’s not awful, but I get more amusement out of the difficult time rolling the windows down and how much the set shakes at the end.
There’s a lot I like about hamsters (the performances are strong, and Kyle is as ever very believable as a child), but the ending does not work for me.
Promo:
The escorts sketch seems like the bridge between Shana and the dirty talk character Melissa plays.
I think this may be unavoidable in doing sketches about Donald Trump, but both the 2016 debate and the 2020 debate sketches featuring him (and, well, a lot of the sketches about his presidency) basically just reenact weird, crazy stuff he did. I will say that at least in my opinion these sketches were better about that than some of the later ones (and the 2020 ones in my opinion are death).
The Honda Robots sketch really points out how little Kate plays small supporting roles by this point in her tenure. Starting around here, Kate’s star power on the show reached the point where all her parts are either as the lead or a significant/oddball walk-on bit. The only time from here to the present I can recall her in a sketch where she wasn’t a focus is the Ouija Demon piece from Season 44.
She played a supporting role in Heidi’s movie quote sketch from last season, and almost tanked it by breaking the whole time.
I Don’t Know IF That Is The Fortune Teller Because Kate Said That There Would Be Some Plague And The Whole World Would Stay AT Home And Every Body Would Be Depressed ! Those Are MY Words Because I Can Not Remember The Exact Words ! Any Way, I Think That Would Be Season 45 And NOT Season 44 Because The Corona Virus Had NOT Happened Yet !
More good timing as Bruno Mars just released a new single from his upcoming album.
I loved Bruno Mars’ entrance from his first set!