October 7, 2017 – Gal Gadot / Sam Smith (S43 E2)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

“I WON’T BACK DOWN”
Jason Aldean [real] marks Las Vegas shootings with “I Won’t Back Down”

— Another nice tribute from SNL after a mass shooting. Boy, were the 2010s a horrible decade in terms of shooting tragedies.
— A rare instance (especially in recent eras) of a cold opening being a full-fledged performance from a musical artist.
STARS: N/A (not a ratable segment)

MONOLOGUE
Times Square Wonder Woman (LEJ) compares herself to host’s version

— I didn’t even notice Gal Gadot’s accent here until she pointed it out.
— Leslie’s her usual funny and charming self as the Times Square Wonder Woman, and she has some pretty funny comparisons between herself and Gal’s Wonder Woman.
STARS: ***

E! NEW FALL LINEUP
E! offers brainless entertainment with Kendall Jenner (host) & others

— Pretty amusing how Gal’s playing two different roles in the same scene.
— A pretty good laugh from Gal’s Kendall Jenner using Alexa to find out her own identity.
— After sadly being shut out of his first episode the preceding week, Luke Null finally makes his very first appearance, and it’s not even live. His natural likability is still shining through in this role, though.
— A decent spoof of E! programming. The “Where’s Kanye” portion is standing out the most.
STARS: ***

FIRST DATE
no-longer-imprisoned O.J. Simpson (KET) has a dinner date with (host)

— A priceless reveal of Kenan playing a fresh-out-of-prison O.J. Simpson.
— Much like in his first episode, Chris Redd has the ability to get a big laugh out of me in just a small role.
— A lot of laughs from Kenan’s O.J. taking advantage of the fact that Gal doesn’t know who he is.
— Lots of other hilarious bits throughout this sketch, such as the reveal of Kenan’s O.J. having been given a plastic knife “for some reason”, Kenan’s O.J. expressing his anger over not being able to get back his trophies, and the reveal of a whole bunch of other restaurant patrons filming Kenan’s O.J. on their phones.
— Love the ending with Kenan’s O.J. saying “Still got it” into the camera.
STARS: ****½

THE CHOSEN ONE
fantasy world barely holds attention of pool boy Chad

— SNL continues to place Chad in good new settings in each short he appears in. I also like how this particular setting offers a change of pace from the previous Chad shorts’ premise of someone being in love with Chad.
— A particularly funny part where, after Cecily tells Chad she’ll gift him with her virginity, Chad responds “Dope!” and IMMEDIATELY drops his pants.
STARS: ***½

MIRAGE
mirage of (host) & Jamba Juice appears to (KET) & (BEB) in the desert

 

— Kenan in his old “Kenan & Kel”-era hairstyle, I see. He also used to wear a similar wig quite a bit way back in his earlier seasons on SNL, such as in the Good Morning Meth sketch from season 31.

— Another funny scene-stealing appearance from Leslie.
— All of the contrasts between the Gal mirages and the Kyle/Mikey mirages are pretty funny.
STARS: ***½

SAFELITE AUTOGLASS
Safelite AutoGlass worker (BEB) breaks windshields to be near teen (MEV)

— Oh, here’s a notorious piece. This would end up receiving complaints from Safelite due to the controversial content, resulting in SNL removing this commercial from both online (I think) and televised reruns. In the televised reruns, this Safelite commercial would be replaced with a cut-after-dress Beck/Kyle pre-tape.
— I think I recall that, during the aforementioned controversy over this commercial, it was even revealed that SNL modeled Beck’s character after a real-life Safelite worker seen in commercials, which would explain why Beck was given such a specific look for this.
— Beck is good in his performance as this creep, but I’m not finding this commercial all that great. I’m not HATING it, but there have been other times where SNL has done a better job of pulling off this kind of risky humor.
STARS: **

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Too Good At Goodbyes”

WEEKEND UPDATE
Ruth Bader Ginsburg (KAM) burns her fellow Supreme Court justices

PED’s mental health would improve if more of his material made it on SNL

— Much like in the Weekend Update from the season 41 Amy Schumer episode, Colin and Michael are getting funny points out of the touchy subject of gun control.
— As much as I don’t like the always-tiresome “Ginsburned” dance breaks in Kate’s RBG commentaries, there’s a pretty funny gaffe & ensuing ad-libbing in regards to Kate’s glasses accidentally flying off during one of her dance breaks.
— Tonight’s overall RBG commentary mostly got only mild laughs from me, but there were some good lines towards the end.
— Oh, this is shortly after Pete was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder.
— A lot of laughs from the concept of Pete trying to guilt SNL into helping his depression by doing more of his sketches.
— Pete, on why he doesn’t write sketches more often: “My sketches SUCK, because they’re all written by a depressed person. (pause) Lorne said that!”
— One of the requests in the note from Pete’s “doctor:” “Use more of [Pete’s] rap videos.” Looks like SNL would eventually fulfill that request, starting the following season, I believe.
— Pete, at the very end of his commentary while the audience is applauding: “How have I not been fired?!?”
STARS: ****

THE MAIDEN AND THE MICE
ballgown made from detritus by fairy tale mice doesn’t wow maiden (host)

— The mere sketch concept of a storybook character speaking to three magically-appearing tiny characters initially has me a little worried, thanks to those awful Kinky Elves sketches that I had to suffer through the last few seasons prior to this, but this sketch seems to be going its own route, thankfully.
— A pretty funny line from Aidy responding to Gal pointing out the shoddiness of the dress with “Well…yeah. We’re workin’ on a budget of zero dollars.”
— Another good line, from Kate saying “We only live for a year. We basically gave you our 20s.”
— Didn’t care much for the ending, and Beck’s role reminded me a little too much of his role in that The Princess And The Curse pre-tape from the preceding season’s Felicity Jones episode.
STARS: ***

ESPIONAGE
sexy webcam show of (CES) & (AIB) interferes with online ransom drop

— Live Luke! It’s about time. Unfortunately, Luke’s live role here is just a minor, non-comedic one.
— The various “sexy” actions that Cecily and Aidy are performing on their webcam are pretty funny.
— Good bit at the end with the 40 million dollars that Alex sends ending up unintentionally going to Cecily & Aidy instead of Gal.
STARS: ***

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Pray”

THEMYSCIRA
lesbians (AIB) & (KAM) are disappointed Diana (host) & Amazons aren’t gay

— Kate and Aidy are pretty funny in their constant frustration over the unintentionally homoerotic actions being performed by the non-lesbian Amazons. I especially like Aidy’s line, “It’s like we’re in a porn, but the plumber is just genuinely there to fix the pipes.”
— Gal: “Lay your head…on my tits.” Heh, that line came out of nowhere. I also think I recall hearing that the word “tits” in that line would later be bleeped-out (or muted-out) in a rebroadcast later that same night. If that’s true, that makes me wonder if Gal ad-libbed the usage of that word. Aidy did noticeably break out into what appeared to be a genuine giggle after Gal said it (while Kate, on the other hand, remained completely straight-faced and unfazed).
STARS: ***

THE NAOMI SHOW
(KET) becomes terrible teen’s (HEG) father figure

— Heidi gets her very first big role.
— A funny entrance from Heidi, bragging about her straws.
— Kenan’s getting laughs from me in his angry spiel as the sargent.
— The turn with Kenan becoming Heidi’s dad is a bit odd, and isn’t doing all that much for me. It’s certainly not awful, but I’m a little meh on it.
— I do like Kenan’s character admitting that he’s just an actor who previously appeared on Moesha.
STARS: **½

GOODNIGHTS

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IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A very average episode. Certainly not bad, and, much like what I said in my review of the preceding episode, makes me puzzled over why the first three episodes of this season gave me such a bad omen of a big decline for this SNL era back when those three episodes originally aired, but I feel like this episode rarely rose above “pretty funny” (I found myself saying “pretty funny” waaaay too much in this review).

MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS

RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
First Date
Weekend Update
Mirage
The Chosen One
Themyscira
Espionage
E! New Fall Lineup
Monologue
The Maiden and The Mice
The Naomi Show
Safelite AutoGlass

HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Ryan Gosling)
a mild step down

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW
Kumail Nanjiani