Cold Open: Dueling Town Halls
Trump and Biden compete for viewers, as “hilarious” shenanigans ensue.
• As much as I like to see Mikey Day getting the first line of the episode, it disappoints me that they’re using him to play George Stephanopoulous. Celebrity impressions aren’t something he’s very good at.
• My God, these Biden sketches just keep getting worse. He’s appeared in every episode so far, and every one of his appearances has made me want to die. I had to restrain myself from turning off the TV when he mentioned doing a TikTok dance. And once again, Carrey’s mugging is out of control. Whose bright idea was it to cast him as Joe Biden anyway?
• But if that wasn’t bad enough, Baldwin’s Trump is in this one too. His first joke is turning down a question from a female reporter. Get it? He’s sexist!
• Oh, I forgot to mention that Kate McKinnon is in this as Savannah Guthrie. No, she doesn’t look anything like her, why would you even ask that? They keep giving her these impressions not because she looks or sounds anything like them, but because she is so popular for some reason that they keep pushing her down our throats.
• The “jokes” they have for Biden are all “lol he’s old”. And notice how I put “jokes” in quotation marks, because they aren’t really making fun of him. Why are they so afraid of mocking Democrats?
• Then there’s a joke where Trump insults a Mexican person. GET IT?!!??? ‘CUZ HE’S RACIST!!!!!!
• No comment on the return of Kamala Harris.
• Also no comment on the scene where Biden starts acting like Bob Ross for some reason.
0/5
Monologue
Issa Rae talks about hosting SNL for the first time, and how her show “Insecure” coincided with the 2016 election.
• Interesting to note that Rae was supposed to host last season before COVID cancelled the rest of it.
• That’s about all I can say about this monologue. She didn’t do anything funny, or say anything funny. She was just...eh.
1/5
Sketch: Bonjour Hi!
French-Canadian news anchors’ reporting on current events gets lost in translation on their American colleague.
• One of my least favorite types of sketches: a Goofy Accent Sketch! I’m surprised it took us until episode 3 to get one. This time, it’s a Canadian news show where everybody talks like Pepé le Pew.
• Hearing Asian Terry Sweeney trying to speak French is extremely painful.
0/5
Fake Commercial: 5-Hour Empathy
The new drink that lets you understand how other oppressed people feel.
• Does every sketch on this show have to be political now? I don’t watch this show to hear about “systemic racism”, I watch it to laugh at funny sketches and characters, neither of which I’ve seen at all this season.
• Like I said last time, what happened to coming up with original products for commercials? This isn’t a parody of 5-Hour Energy. It has the same packaging as the real thing, but it says “Empathy” on it instead! Aren’t we clever?!?
1/5
Sketch: First Date Exes
A couple’s (Rae and Chris Redd) first date keeps getting interrupted when their exes show up.
• Another really boring sketch. As soon as they set up the punchline, I knew exactly how the rest of the sketch was going to go.
• Kenan’s voice for the drunk guy made me chuckle a little, but it would’ve been better if it didn’t focus on him for so long.
• Asian Terry Sweeney plays a robot in this. Why is nobody questioning why there’s a fucking robot in a restaurant?!??
• It was kind of neat when the camera panned out at the end to show how small the set they performed this on was. They don’t do that as much anymore.
1.5/5
Musical Performance: “Holy” (feat. Chance the Rapper)
• Oh, now they’re just mocking me! I’ve been waiting forever to see Chance on this show again, and he’s wasted as a side man to Justin Fucking Bieber. More on him later....
Weekend Update (featuring Donald Trump, Jr., Eric Trump, Tiffany Trump, Aidy Bryant, and Carla)
• Sick joke where they compare Trump to Sloth from “The Goonies”. You know, the character who has a mental disability and a deformed head? That’s really classy, guys.
• Then Che compares him to Bill Cosby and Matt Lauer. Yet again, they’re going back to calling him a sexual harasser, even though there’s literally no evidence for it.
• Have I ever told you how much I hate Michael Che? Every time I see him, I want to sock him in the face. Especially when he laughs at his jokes.
• To make things worse, they bring Donald Jr. and Eric back again. Great, I sense more jokes about Eric being retarded.
• Sure enough, there’s a “hilarious” joke where Eric eats hand sanitizer. Did Eric kill the writers’ families or something? Why do they hate him so much that they keep portraying him like he has special needs???
• Then, things get even worse! Now there’s a Tiffany Trump impersonation!!! She is even more annoying than the Eric impression, which I didn’t know was possible.
• Luckily, this ends up being the final time we ever see Don Jr. and Eric, although Don Jr. makes a voice only appearance in the Dave Chappelle episode. All I have to say about that is THANK THE LORD.
• Immediately after that commentary, there’s another slam at Kellyanne Conway. I’ll ask it again; WHY DO THEY HATE HER SO MUCH??!!!??
• Then a disgusting joke where they call the Neverland Ranch “America’s Most Famous Toy Museum”. Ugh, leave poor Michael Jackson alone!
• There’s a brief nugget of a good idea when they cut to a pre-taped video of Aidy Bryant on assignment in a field (as Aidy is out this week). It’s been years since they did a pre-taped report on this show, so I got excited. But, of course, like all good ideas, they ruin it by cutting back to the studio before anything funny can happen! And, to make matters worse, they seem to have removed this portion from the online version!!!!
• For the second week in a row, there’s a vile anti-Catholic joke. This time, they said that a woman getting pissed on by a pastor is like getting baptized. How original!
• To end this Update on a horrifying note, this character named “Carla” shows up. Who is she? I have no idea, but what I do know is that she’s extremely annoying. No further comment here.
0/5
Sketch: Your Voice Chicago
A Chicago news anchor and his guests discuss who they will vote for in the upcoming election.
• The only jokes in this one are that the black guests will only vote for black candidates and that black people have funny names.
• The page where I get my writer’s info from doesn’t say who wrote this, but I’m willing to bet it was Michael Che.
0/5
Sketch: Dancer
Kyle Mooney wants to be one of Justin Bieber’s backup dancers for some reason.
• How come all these backstage sketches have to star Kyle Mooney? Besides, didn’t we already have something like this last year where he wanted to be in a male stripper sketch? Hooray for recycling!
• Chance the Rapper comes back to partake in a pointless musical number. What a waste.
1/5
Musical Performance: “Lonely”
Sketch: Jack Flatts
A restaurant has a special message for its patrons during the pandemic.
• Okay, this is the most confusing sketch ever. I had no idea what was going on when I saw it the first time. The second time, I still didn’t get it. That’s all I have to say about this one.
-10/5
Fake Commercial: eBay
Customers show off some of the items they bought during quarantine.
• You know what I said earlier about how much this show sucks at parody now? That definitely applies to this sketch. There’s no jokes here at eBay’s expense. It feels more like a love letter to eBay than anything else.
-5/5
Final thoughts: One of the most boring episodes ever made. It doesn’t look like this season is going to improve any time soon.
On another note, starting with my next review, I’m going to stop rating the sketches. It just isn’t fun giving every sketch a negative score.
Best sketches: NONE
Worst sketches: They all sucked, but I have particular hatred for the Cold Open, Bonjour Hi!, Weekend Update, and Jack Flatts
Next review: Adele/H.E.R. (10/24/20)
