Cold Open: Spirits of Trump’s Past
In a parody of A Christmas Carol, Donald Trump (Alec Baldwin) is visited by evil spirits who confront him about the bad choices he’s made in office.
• What a way to start the show, huh? Like most episodes these days, it begins with a sketch demonizing Trump. Now, before continuing, I have to confess that I am a Trump supporter (and proud of it!). If these reviews sound a little biased, that’s why. Anyway, this sketch is pretty much indistinguishable from any other Trump cold open. The jokes all consist of “lol Trump is racist”, “lol he hates women”, and “lol he’s stupid”. And I totally saw the twist at the end with Hillary Clinton being the Ghost of Christmas Future coming from a mile away.
• I have to admit, Kate McKinnon impressed me with how quick she was able to change from her Kellyanne Conway makeup at the beginning of the sketch into her Hillary makeup at the end.
2/5
Monologue: Saiorse Ronan (feat. Beck Bennett, Aidy Bryant, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones)
Ronan teaches everyone how to say her name, in song!
• Just when the show can’t get any worse, they throw this at me. A big complaint among fans over the past decade or so has been the number of musical monologues. They almost always suck, and this one was no exception. It just seemed to go on forever.
1/5
Commercial: Floribama Shore
A commercial for MTV’s latest reality show, which takes place in the Floribama area (I’m guessing they mean the Pensacola-Mobile area?).
• When I first saw this sketch, I thought it was just a parody of MTV’s typical trashy reality shows like Jersey Shore. But eventually, I found out that this is apparently a real show. You heard me right! MTV has gotten so bad that their shows are starting to become self-parodies.
• The sketch itself wasn’t too bad. Compared to the last two, it was a breath of fresh air. If there’s one thing SNL can still do, it’s commercial parodies.
• While the jokes are a little too obvious (a freaking hurricane hits at one point), I still laughed.
3/5
Sketch: Action News at Five - American Girl Store Fire
A news report about a fire at an American Girl Store in Phoenix, where a male shopper (Mikey Day) continually tries to deny that he was buying a doll for himself.
• I don’t really know how to feel about this one. On one hand, it was pretty well acted (Day’s performance as the shopper was a particular stand out, along with Kenan as the reporter on the scene), but on the other hand, the script needed major improvement. This sketch has pretty much only one joke: “Lol this guy likes dolls! He’s so creepy!” While that is indeed creepy, it felt like it needed more fine tuning to work as a running gag.
• It reminded me a lot of that “Danny Bangs” sketch from the previous season, but, while that one certainly wasn’t perfect, it was actually funny, despite having only one joke.
2/5
Film/Song: Welcome to Hell
Some women sing about Hell, or something.
• This sketch is just confusing. I have no idea what they were trying to do here. They try to claim that it’s a response to all of the sexual predators in the news lately, but I don’t know what lollipops and brightly colored dresses have to do with sexual predators.
• The worst part is that news outlets everywhere just went crazy over this sketch. Maybe they got something out of it that I missed?
1/5
Sketch: Complaint Department
Customers deliver complaints to a Kmart employee.
• I don’t remember much about this one, other than the fact that I didn’t laugh at all.
1/5
Film: The Race
Two office employees have a race. Chaos ensues.
• My initial reaction to this: WTF? Unfortunately, this was not a good kind of WTF, where something is so bizarre that you can’t help but like it. SNL has done tons of these kinds of sketches over the years (my favorite being “Wake Up and Smile” from Season 21), but this one wasn’t even trying.
• What was the deal with that random puppet saying “She was a ghost!!!” near the end? Whatever it was, it wasn’t funny in the least, and was just pointing out the obvious.
1/5
Musical Performance: U2 - “American Soul”
• Now we’re talking! This was such a great performance! Of course, it helps that U2 is such a great band to begin with.
• My favorite detail was the back-projection of the flags on the back of the walls.
5/5
Weekend Update: Featuring Theresa May (Kate McKinnon), and Shelly and Greg Duncan (Leslie Jones and Mikey Day, respectively)
• In terms of the stories, we’ve got more of the same Trump-bashing that we get every week. I was praying that they would do a joke about Al Franken’s titty-grabbing shenanigans, but, sadly, they didn’t, because they are under the mistaken belief that he is innocent. Look, SNL, just because you guys never saw him do anything doesn’t mean he’s innocent. Former cast members should not be exempt from being mocked.
• As if it couldn’t get any more tedious, they have McKinnon come out as British prime minister Theresa May for a guest commentary. Ugggggghhhhhh.......If there’s one thing I’m tired of, it’s Kate McKinnon and her unfunny commentaries. I will give them this; at least it wasn’t her Ruth Bader Ginsburg, because that would have been unforgivable.
• Then, these people named Shelly and Greg Duncan show up for a guest commentary. I have no idea who they are, but, it turns out, I’m actually finding this funny! The flash cards they showed with the various sex positions were all pretty funny. This whole commentary pretty much redeemed the whole Weekend Update from getting a lower rating.
3/5
Sketch: Bachelor’s Auction
Women bid money for various bachelors.
• The upswing in quality continues with this hilarious sketch. I’m thrilled that they didn’t give Kate McKinnon the role of the auctioneer, and instead gave it to Mikey Day (they really need to make him a full cast member).
• The best part of this sketch was this guy named Chad (Pete Davidson), who is apparently a recurring character, although I couldn’t have known that at the time. He made this sketch come to life with his presence, and the things he did were funny (like his impression of Jim Carrey as the Grinch, and a little dance he calls the “Doink Doink”, which is just him shaking his arms while saying “Doink Doink”).
• It gets even better when John McEnroe shows up as a bachelor! Unlike Chad, the women in the audience want nothing to do with him.
5/5
Sketch: Late for Class
A new student named Brody Choad (Luke Null) shows up late for class and starts insulting his classmates.
• The first time I saw this, I had no idea where it was going. Then, it got to the twist where it’s revealed that Brody is actually a new student, and it all made sense.
• Another pretty good sketch. The various insults were all pretty funny, but my favorite part was the aforementioned twist.
• Luke Null was excellent as Brody. It really is a shame that this was his only season.
• By the way, who’s the Asian guy that’s sitting behind Pete Davidson?
EDIT: I guess I should bring up some background info here. The immediate downfall of Luke as a cast member can be traced to this sketch. This was only his first major live role, and the fact that he spends the first half of it insulting everybody kinda reflected badly on him. I had no idea about any of this when I originally posted my review, but even with that knowledge, I still think this sketch is great.
4/5
Musical Performance: U2 - “Go Your Own Way”
• All I will say here is that this performance was just as good as the first.
5/5
Sketch: Aer Lingus
Flight attendants on an Irish airline.
• The last sketch of the night, and it’s pretty bland and one note. You knew that they would get at least one Irish-related sketch in tonight, considering who the host is, and this one is nothing but lame Irish stereotypes. The characters all have stereotypical Irish names like “Pee-Wee Riley”, and “Colleen Doyle”, and apparently, SNL received some complaints about this sketch from Irish-Americans. Ronan defended it, however, saying that she approved of it, and that it was written by her.
2/5
Final thoughts: A mixed bag. While the first half of the episode was really bad, it got better after U2’s first performance. Trump jokes were at a minimum, restricted to the cold open and WU.
Best Sketches: Floribama Shore, both U2 performances, The Duncans’ segment of Weekend Update, Bachelor’s Auction, Late for Class
Worst Sketches: Monologue, Welcome to Hell, Complaint Department, The Race
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