Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
TRUCKER RALLY
Donald Trump (Alec Baldwin) goes off-message at a Pennsylvania rally
— I actually got some chuckles from some early Trumpwin lines in this cold opening, but after a minute, his lines devolved into the usual unfunny white noise that his lines typically are to me.
— The Mike Pence scenes at various locations are at least shaking the formula of this cold opening up a little, though I didn’t care for the predictable outcome of the wedding scene.
STARS: **
MONOLOGUE
host does stand-up about being from Pakistan & dealing with Islamophobia
— Great bit from Kumail Nanjiani about making a movie about marrying a white woman just to rub it in his family’s face.
— Kumail’s mention of an “undercover KKK dragon” made me laugh a lot.
— A particularly good part with Kumail wondering if a seemingly-racist online commenter only sat through all of The Big Sick because they expected Kumail to rip off his mask and reveal himself to be Chris Pine.
— Lots of great, very solid humor all throughout this stand-up monologue.
STARS: ****½
BANK BREAKERS
(host) rues beating sympathetic game show contestant (CES)
— Lately, Mikey seems to have become SNL’s go-to cast member for game show host roles.
— Great turn with Cecily revealing that she’ll be using the prize money for an important medical procedure for her daughter, hilariously resulting in a now-guilty-feeling Kumail awkwardly reversing his playfully mean-spirited thumbs-down into a hesitant thumbs-up.
— Plenty of other hilarious reveals as this sketch progresses. This sketch is a lot stronger than I had remembered.
— A huge laugh from Kumail unintentionally getting the Darius Rucker question correct when he was trying to lose for Cecily’s sake.
STARS: ****½
KELLYWISE
Kellyanne Conway (KAM) snares Anderson Cooper (ALM) a la Pennywise
— Good to see another Kellyanne Conway pre-tape that spoofs a movie.
— Kate is absolutely hilarious in the voice she’s speaking in for most of this short. She’s having me in stitches.
— Pretty funny reveal of Cecily’s Rachel Maddow being in the sewer with Kate’s Kellyanne.
— Love the part with Kate’s Kellyanne showing Alex’s Anderson Cooper various newspaper headlines that contain his worst nightmares.
— A very interesting and solid part with Kate’s Kellyanne posing as Hillary Clinton.
STARS: ****½
OFFICE HALLOWEEN PARTY
potential hepatitis transmission kills fun at an office Halloween party
— Two minutes into this sketch so far, and I am not enjoying it. Not only is it not funny, but it’s featuring the type of wandering muddiness that’s typical of James Anderson and Kent Sublette’s sketches.
— It’s now a minute-and-a-half later, and, aside from a few chuckles, particularly from Aidy in her back-and-forth with Beck, I continue to not care for this sketch.
— This already-poor sketch really died towards the end.
STARS: *½
WOMEN’S ROUND TABLE
Debette Goldry has first-hand knowledge of sexual harassment in Hollywood
— Oh, this is around the time that the Me Too movement began, in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal that recently broke out at this time.
— A hilarious part with Kate’s Debette Goldry saying she couldn’t tell the difference between Weinstein’s genitals and face when he once tried to pass his genitals off as his face to her.
— The usual great lines from Kate’s Debette.
— This is the second consecutive sketch tonight that felt like it died off towards the end. I wasn’t crazy about the last minute-and-a-half of this sketch.
STARS: ***½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “What About Us”
WEEKEND UPDATE
Ivana Trump (CES) claims First Lady title based on marriage precedence
COJ & MIC encourage viewers to donate to Puerto Rico hurricane relief
— Given the aforementioned Harvey Weinstein scandal, I’m surprised that tonight’s Weekend Update is opening with a completely unrelated joke about new emojis. That seems like the type of joke that would open an Update in a slow news week, which this week certainly wasn’t.
— Ah, never mind. It turns out that the punchline of the new emojis joke is about Weinstein, launching some great Weinstein rants from Colin and Michael.
— Solid and fun delivery from Cecily as Ivana Trump. However, I’m not crazy about the material itself that she’s performing. This commentary is VERY wandering.
— The camera botched the close-up of the page that Cecily’s Ivana showed from the book.
— I am chuckling at Cecily’s Ivana Trump starting to speak unintelligibly in her heavy accent with her mouth full of chocolates, though this commentary also feels like it’s gone off the rails by this point. The wandering feel I got from this commentary earlier has now become a “This commentary is completely pointless” feel.
— Tonight’s Update ends on a serious note with Colin and Michael telling us where to make a donation if we’d like to help the people of Puerto Rico in regards to the hurricane they recently suffered.
STARS: ****
HOTEL CHECK-IN
Marriott clerk (host) pitches hotel amenities to uninterested guest (MID)
— The Leslie/Chris bit didn’t do much for me, though it did result in a funny reveal of Mikey’s room being right next to theirs.
— This feels a bit like a sister sketch to the hotel sketch from the season 38 Louis C.K. episode, only without the good absurdist humor that sketch had. This sketch is still okay, though.
— A good laugh from Kumail’s overly calm, nonchalant reaction to getting punched in the face by Mikey.
— A solid ending reveal of Kumail being the lead singer of The Danny Band.
STARS: ***
NURSING HOME
nonagenarian’s (KAM) busy sex life leaves grandkids (MID) & (HEG) aghast
— TWO sketches tonight focused on Kate as an old lady? Yeah, not something I needed.
— Not caring for the constant close-ups of a silent Kate’s facial expressions.
— Kumail is very solid here.
— Kumail’s “They’re running a train, but she’s the conductor” line was good on paper, but he unfortunately flubbed his delivery of it.
— I can see why people would like this sketch, but the sketch’s premise and humor isn’t doing much for me, aside from a few reveals that I’m finding mildly amusing.
— Continuing a theme from earlier in this episode, this sketch felt like it died off during the final minute.
STARS: **
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Beautiful Trauma”
CUSTOMER SERVICE
Melania Trump (CES) befriends a Pakistani call center worker (host)
— An interesting, more fleshed-out variation that Julio Torres is doing of his great Melania Moments pieces from the preceding season.
— I love the very charming rapport between Cecily’s Melania and Kumail.
— Overall, yet another beautiful short from Julio Torres, displaying a perfect combination of sentimentality and comedy.
STARS: ****½
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— Minus the cold opening, this episode had a very strong start with three consecutive segments receiving a four-and-a-half-star rating from me, but afterwards, this episode took a little bit of a hit-and-miss route for the remainder of the show, but there were enough good pieces in that portion of the show to keep this overall episode fine.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
Kellywise
Bank Breakers
Customer Service
Monologue
Weekend Update
Women’s Round Table
Hotel Check-In
Nursing Home
Trucker Rally
Office Halloween Party
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Gal Gadot)
a slight step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Larry David
The Godzilla tweet pic is somewhat timely with the impending release of Godzilla vs. Kong. (Which itself was part of a dispute subtly referenced on the show too, with that goodnights shirt Timothee Chalamet wore.)
On the subject of Kellywise, I remember around the time this episode aired, I was hoping Bill Skarsgaard would host SNL sometime this season, due to It being new at that time. As the season progressed, I was increasingly frustrated that Bill wasn’t announced as host. Of course, now that I’m older, I realize that maybe Bill isn’t meant for live comedy. Not related to this episode, I just thought I should share it.
Kumail seems to be one of a number of comedians I came away thinking SNL didn’t know what to do with as a host. This was probably the peak time for when he would have been the best – in more recent times he seems to only be known for getting jacked and people either being happy for him or very concerned or unhappy…
This must be one of the last somewhat sympathetic pieces on Melania. It’s very well-executed, especially the ending.
I didn’t even know Cecily played Ivana Trump. It sort of connects her to Jan Hooks (and Cecily would have been a star in that era too). I don’t have a great deal of interest in watching it though.
Kellywise is very creative and well put-together, especially the start where she kills Anderson Cooper.
This is a pre-tape cut from the episode – what amounts to a takedown of Ian Somerhalder. Some parts are hilarious, especially, “The fish are drowning!” and the moment where Beck’s character very awkwardly, badly tries to cry.
To give Anderlette some credit, I believe they wrote Kellywise.
Weird in this era for a hostless live sketch to be in the episode, in the pre-Update portion no less. This might be the only time it happens all season? Kumail was funny in his monologue and was the sole saving grace of the nursing home sketch (his smug smile while saying “We think sex”) but he didn’t feel as well-utilized as standup hosts typically are.
Hotel Check-In felt a bit like a variation of the character Kumail plays in Portlandia, but I think this one fared a lot worse because it didn’t have the same snappy pace and wasn’t as deadpan.
Hey Stooge, random (“that’s so random”) thought, but have you ever said what you think of the SNL movies (at least the ones you’ve seen)? Curious, since they tend to vary so wildly in quality. I’d consider 3 of them to be among my favorite comedies of all time (Wayne’s World, Blues Brothers & MacGruber; Wayne’s World specifically is in fact tied with Walk Hard as my favorite comedy), one to be one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen (It’s Pat!), and the rest a mix bag of decent (Wayne’s World 2, Superstar, A Night at the Roxbury) and dire (Blues Brothers 2000, Ladies Man).
It’s Pat is so bad that Lorne had to publicly come out and say he wasn’t involved with it!
What about Stuart saves his family? It’s based on Al Franken’s Stuart Smalley character.
That’s actually the only one I’ve never seen. From what I’ve heard it’s interesting but not especially funny. (And since it’s the only one I haven’t mentioned I’ll say Coneheads is…fine.)
I haven’t seen Stuart Saves His Family in about 20+ years, but my memories of the film are positive – it’s a smart, honest, warm-hearted movie with a good performance by Al Franken.
Co-written by none other than Mr. Quentin Tarantino!