NOTE: For anyone who didn’t read my post from yesterday, this is going to be my final review. And, as you’ll notice throughout the review, there isn’t a finality to the tone of this review, because it was written over a week ago, before I came to the decision to end this project.
Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
PAUL MANAFORT’S APARTMENT
Donald Trump (Alec Baldwin) visits house-arrested Paul Manafort (ALM)
— A pretty funny cutaway to Cecily’s Melania communicating with a Donald Trump inflatable lookalike.
— Yikes, after the aforementioned Melania scene, what the hell happened? The camera cuts back to Alec, who’s seen awkwardly rushing out of the shot while looking off-camera as if he realized he wasn’t supposed to be in the current scene, but then, after a long pause as the camera just holds on a shot of nobody onscreen, Alec (or someone else) is heard off-camera saying “Wait, wait”, then Alec re-enters the shot with Alex. What in the world went wrong?
— Not caring much for anything happening during the shower scene. It’s resulting in me having the usual reaction I have to Trump-era political cold openings.
STARS: *½
MONOLOGUE
host does stand-up about dating as Quasimodo & in a concentration camp
— Already a good laugh right from the start, with Larry David opening this monologue by telling the cheering audience a Sally Field-esque “You tolerate me! You really, really tolerate me!”
— Larry’s whole bit about Quasimodo is hilarious, especially the voice and gestures he uses as Quasimodo.
— I’m cracking up so much at Larry’s very drawn-out hesitance when bringing up the fact that a lot of the men who have been Me Too’ed are Jewish.
— IIRC, Larry’s bit about picking up women at a concentration camp, which is definitely making me laugh, would end up receiving complaints, which is possibly what prevented this episode from receiving an NBC rerun.
STARS: ****½
THE PRICE IS RIGHT
Bernie Sanders (host) wins; Liam Hemsworth cameo
— Chris is hilarious as Lil Wayne.
— A fun Chris Hemsworth impression from Alex.
— A decent way to work in Larry’s Bernie Sanders impression.
— Mixed feelings on Alec’s appearance here, as I always love his Tony Bennett impression, but all of the Trumpwin stuff from both this and the preceding season has made me burned out on Alec’s sketch appearances.
— Boy, Beck’s Drew Carey impression is really off. I have no idea what he’s going for.
— A funny description Larry’s Bernie gives on how he washes his suit.
STARS: ***½
CONFIDENT
“Confident” & dismissive Sarah Huckabee Sanders (AIB) sidelines reporters
— I was about to say that I’m not caring for the recurrent musical cutaways in this short, but the humor in those cutaways and the press conference scenes have gotten better after a while.
— This feels a bit like a precursor to Aidy’s “Aidy B” short from later this season.
— I love the “Bruce?” “There’s no Bruce here” exchange between Aidy and Cecily, as well as how Cecily nonchalantly goes on with her next question immediately after that line.
— Aidy is performing really well in this, which is helping to make this work.
STARS: ***½
AD COUNCIL AWARDS DINNER
in retrospect, directing honoree’s (host) old PSAs are rather offensive
— I’m enjoying the 80s aesthetic in the PSAs. Speaking of which, Mikey looks like he’s wearing the same shirt that Josh Hutcherson wore in the 80’s Song sketch (e.g. the Outfield “Your Love” sketch) from his season 39 hosting stint.
— The increasingly un-PC-by-today’s-standards taglines of the PSAs are hilarious, as is how uncomfortable everybody at this awards dinner is becoming over that.
— The very casual, unacknowledged reveal of Larry’s character having a big ponytail was a bit surprising to me.
STARS: ****
THE BABY STEP
host refuses to participate in infant-themed rap video
— I love Larry getting angry at the camera for repeatedly cutting back to him for his rap solo, after he made it clear that he wants no part of this.
— I absolutely LOVE the bit with Kenan being animated as a Rugrat, especially given his Nickelodeon history.
— After the aforementioned bit with Larry getting angry at the camera for repeatedly cutting back to him, his continued objections to participating in this music video aren’t quite as hilarious as I remembered, but they’re still funny.
— Larry, to Kenan, when calling each of the performers out on doing this ridiculous music video: “You??? How long do ya have to be here not to do this kind of stuff?” Kenan: “……..I wish I knew.”
STARS: ***½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Bad Mood”
WEEKEND UPDATE
Donald Jr. (MID) & Eric (ALM) defend pa Trump from suggestions of guilt
archetypal movie boxer’s girlfriend Angel (HEG) has had enough
Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman, George Springer [real] give Astros swag to LEJ
— Great to see another Trump Brothers Update commentary, which are usually very funny.
— A hilarious facial expression from Alex’s Eric Trump after tasting the sugar in the Fun Dip candy (the seventh above screencap for this Weekend Update).
— The debut of Heidi’s Angel character, a.k.a. every boxer’s girlfriend from every movie about boxing ever.
— Heidi is absolutely spot-on as this movie archetype.
— The comedy in Heidi’s Angel piece wasn’t doing all that much for me at first, despite her solid performance, but the comedy has become increasingly funny the more ridiculous her rants have become with each passing topic, especially the phone bit.
— A lot of laughs from Leslie’s talk about baseball.
— Ohho, NO. The Houston Astros. Even though I don’t know much about baseball (I’m much more of a football and basketball viewer), I’m certainly well aware of the Astros’ notorious cheating scandal. This is the season that they later got busted for cheating during, right? If so, oof, this SNL appearance of theirs has aged like milk.
— It’s a shame that this Astros appearance is souring my enjoyment of Leslie’s commentary, though she still does have a few funny comments during the Astros appearance, and is still coming off as her usual likable self.
STARS: ***½
FRESH TAKES WITH DUSTIN PURCELL
teacher (host) shares improper gossip on high school show
— If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear that was the no-longer-on-the-show Vanessa Bayer doing the opening announcement for this sketch. After several seconds, though, the announcer’s voice has started to sound a bit like Cecily.
— Nice to see yet another display of the fun and charming chemistry that Mikey and Alex usually have together.
— Mikey’s professional delivery of and emphasis of the word “beefed” when saying “Someone BEEFED in first period gym” tickled me so much.
— A funny low-budget ad with Pete and Chris.
— The way Larry’s character is delivering gossip about high schoolers is funny just because it’s Larry David, of all people, dishing that gossip.
— Sad that this is the closest that Luke has gotten to a comedic role so far in his SNL tenure, and it’s just a small role with a predictable (to me, at least) punchline.
— Good bit with Leslie making announcements of which students have scoliosis. I can also relate to that, having had scoliosis when I was younger.
STARS: ***½
NEW WIFE
at a party, (host)’s gay-famous new wife (CES) performs her club routine
— This sketch is SO stupid, and has some of James Anderson’s worst tendencies as a writer, but Larry David is probably the only person in existence who could sell this material. Similar to what I said about him in the preceding Fresh Takes sketch, these lines of his are only funny because it’s Larry David, of all people, delivering them.
— Now this has gotten even funnier with Larry starting to break towards the end of the sketch, causing him to laugh his way through the rest of his lines. His speaking-while-laughing-hysterically voice is absolutely priceless, as also seen in the rehearsal footage of the Kevin Roberts sketch from Larry’s previous episode.
STARS: ****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “I Would Die For You”
BEERS
in a sitcom, (KYM) & (BEB) realize that (host) has a drinking problem
— Ah, I always love this recurring nameless 80s/90s sitcom pastiche of Beck and Kyle’s. The humor in these shorts really speaks to me, and these shorts are what I consider to be among Beck and Kyle’s best pre-taped work.
— I’m surprised to realize that this pre-taped short is Kyle’s first and ONLY appearance all night. Coincidentally, he didn’t make any live appearances in the previous Larry David-hosted episode, either.
— Kyle’s intentionally horrible non-verbal overacting whenever Larry smashes a chair is hilarious.
— Like the previous installments of this short, I love the increasingly random and out-of-place establishing shots shown between scenes.
— A good laugh from the extreme brevity of the scene that only consists of Beck saying “Alright, let’s go on our bike ride.”
— Ha, holy hell at the out-of-nowhere turn with Larry stabbing Kyle in the gut.
STARS: *****
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— While not as strong or memorable as the previous episode Larry David hosted, this was still a fairly solid episode. Aside from the cold opening, I enjoyed every segment, there were a few great overall highlights, and Larry did yet another strong job hosting.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
Beers
Monologue
Ad Council Awards Dinner
New Wife
Weekend Update
Fresh Takes with Dustin Purcell
The Baby Step
Confident
The Price is Right
Paul Manafort’s Apartment
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Kumail Nanjiani)
a slight step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
That’s it. No more reviews from me. On the bright side, it appears that this One SNL A Day project will continue on another blog, with reviews being written by commenters from my blog who are graciously willing to cover the remaining episodes that I will no longer be reviewing. (Read more about that plan here.) After this Larry David review I just posted, the only thing left for me to do now is a big, special farewell extravaganza post to officially wrap up my part of this project (but not officially wrap up this project altogether, because, as I said, it appears that others will continue this project on another blog). Because of how long and extensive my farewell post will be, it will most likely take me a few days to complete, so don’t expect it to be posted by tomorrow. Hopefully, I’ll have it ready the day after that, but don’t be surprised if it takes me even longer. As for what kind of content the post will contain, you can expect review stats, a collection of some of the lists (of things like rating averages) that people have kindly provided in the comments sections of my reviews, new lists made by me, and various other things.