SNL Reviews: Kristen Wiig/Dua Lipa (12/19/20)

 Cold Open

Mike Pence gets the COVID vaccine.

• The final appearance of Beck Bennett’s bland and unremarkable Pence impression. I am not sad to see him go.

• Not sure what the joke is with his wife not saying a word. I also don’t get the joke of him referring to her as “Mother” as she walks off. Is that supposed to be some kind of Norman Bates thing?

• Super hacky joke when he starts to pull down his pants, thinking that this is the type of vaccine that goes in your butt.

• To make this even more painful, Maya returns as Kamala Harris again. And she gets a ton of applause when she tells Pence that she won more votes.

• Even more cringeworthy clapter when she slaps Pence. That’s like something you’d see in a bad political cartoon.

• First appearance of Alex Moffat’s short-lived Joe Biden impression. He makes his entrance by walking out with a cane. Because he’s old! Get it?

• They comment on his change in appearance again, and Biden responds with a lame joke about how he’s like Colonel Sanders: “Every time you see me, I’m a different guy.”

• After Biden and Harris leave, we get, ugggghhhh, Kate McKinnon as Giuliani again. Thankfully, this is his final appearance as of November 2021.

• More of the usual Giuliani nonsense that never makes me laugh. 

• Kenan returns as Ben Carson for the last time. Wow, a lot of impressions making their final appearances here. That’s all I have to say about that because nothing he says is funny.

Monologue

Kristen Wiig bids farewell to 2020, with some help from Maya and Kate.

• After a nice long break, this is the first musical monologue of Season 46. I can’t say I’ve missed them.

• This monologue is like pure torture. Three of my least favorite cast members hurting my ears with terrible lyrics.

Sketch: Secret Word

Mindy Grayson still keeps blurting out the secret word too early.

• Sorry for stealing your catchphrase, Stooge, but, *groan*.

• As usual, the annoying running gag of Grayson saying the secret word too early is overused and unfunny.

• How do you make a bad recurring sketch even worse? Add Kate McKinnon to it. Here, she plays a European actress, and uses her stock foreigner accent that she uses for all of her European characters.

• As bad as these sketches are, they always had Bill Hader to liven them up in the past. Since he’s not here now, though, we get Kenan as the host instead. He does okay, but not as good as Hader used to be.

Film: Christmas Morning 

A family shows off what they got for Christmas this year.

• Blah. Another boring rap video.

Sketch: USO

The military receives a special Christmas performance from their peers.

• Yet another musical sketch in this episode. Yawn.

• Even worse, Asian Terry Sweeney is in this one. His singing voice is something I never wanted to hear.

• There’s a similar USO sketch that was in Madeline Kahn’s Season 21 episode. The only difference is that it was actually funny, and had Darrell’s great Jay Leno impression as the host. This one doesn’t have anything like that.

Film: A Teacher

A new show where a student (Andrew Dismukes) tries to get special attention from his teacher (Ego Nwodim).

• Nice to see Ego and Andrew get big roles. In fact, they’re the only cast members in this at all.

• When this first aired, I thought this was a parody of a real show on Hulu, but apparently, it’s just some bullshit they made up.

• Yet another sketch that revolves around having sex, except it’s even worse in this case, given that it revolves around a teacher discussing sex with an underage boy.

• Despite all that, Ego still manages to give a good performance here. Why isn’t she the female cast member who gets all the screentime instead of Kate?

Sketch: Home Alone 2 Alternate Ending

Kevin (Melissa Villaseñor) strikes up a friendship with the Pigeon Lady (Wiig) in this alternate ending to Home Alone 2.

• Boy, am I getting tired of all these “alternate ending” sketches the show has been shitting out lately. Given how bad the show is at parodying movies lately, you just know this one is going to be bad.

• I don’t get why Kevin had to be played by a woman in this sketch. Why not someone like Dismukes?

• Wiig surprisingly keeps her performance restrained here. It’s stuff like this where she really shines.

• Speaking of bad impressions, Kyle Mooney unveils the worst Joe Pesci voice known to man. It isn’t a patch on the one that Jim Breuer did in the 90s.

• Mikey Day’s Marv impression isn’t much better, but I did get a kick out of him dressed like that.

• And then Wiig randomly beats the Wet Bandits to death in a brutally gory fashion. If you can’t think of a way to end a sketch, just resort to random violence, and maybe people won’t notice how bad your writing is.

Musical Performance: “Don’t Start Now”

Weekend Update (featuring Willie, Smokey Robinson, and Landis Trotter)

• The final Weekend Update during the Trump presidency. To “celebrate”, they show a montage of some of Trump’s greatest accomplishments. And, dear God, that montage is PAINFUL. They only show the most unflattering clips they could find of him.

• And they make a joke about tranquillizing him. How come the Secret Service isn’t investigating these morons?

• Yet ANOTHER joke about Mitch McConnell hating children. Please stop with these!!!

• Chris Redd does a commentary as Smokey Robinson, who had apparently gone viral that week in a video where he mispronounced “Hanukkah”. I usually like Redd’s impressions, but his Smokey sounds more like Michael Jackson.

• I did get a laugh at the joke about the Utah Jazz being the only black people in Utah.

• Kenan’s Willie character returns. This was the first time I had ever seen the character, but he didn’t leave a good impression on me. 

• Heidi Gardner introduces a new character named Landis Trotter, which I refuse to say anything more about because it sucked like all of her other characters.

• Now, we get the traditional joke swap between Che and Jost. This should be good…

• You know things are really fucked up when the only jokes in this episode that got a big laugh out of me are ones that are meant to be offensive. Colin always has the best jokes in these joke swapping bits.

Sketch: The Grinch

Cindy-Lou Who (Chloe Fineman) and her family have an awkward morning with The Grinch (Pete Davidson).

• There’s some really nice set design and makeup in this sketch. Mikey looks downright hilarious with the big Who nose.

• Fineman’s Cindy-Lou voice is the same annoying high-pitched voice she uses for half of her celebrity impressions.

• Another surprisingly underplayed role from Wiig. Is this even the same woman that was in that Secret Word shit from earlier?

• Amazing makeup job on Davidson as The Grinch. His voice is dead on, too, which doesn’t surprise me, since we’ve previously heard him do it in that Chad sketch from the Saoirse Ronan episode. 

• Despite all of the positive things I mentioned, I knew as soon as that “The Next Morning” subtitle appeared that this sketch was going to be yet another “lol sex is funny” sketch. Such a shame that they wasted these beautiful sets and costumes for a lame premise. I’d rather watch the scene from the movie where The Grinch makes the Mayor kiss his dog’s ass than watch this sketch again.

• Super predictable and hacky “That’s not the only thing that grew” joke regarding his heart growing three sizes. Did a twelve year old write that?

Sketch: Surprise Sue

Sue tries to contain her excitement at a holiday party.

• *groaaaaan* Not this shitty character again! And now we’re back to Wiig going over the top.

• Oh, that’s right, there’s another black woman on this show. Given how rarely they use her, I’m surprised that she’s the only black character in the sketch. And I’m even more surprised that she got a second season.

• What else is there to say about this sketch that hasn’t been said by other SNL reviewers? Actually, there is one other thing I’ll say. In Kristen’s last hosting stint, the characters she brought back were the same ones she brought back here (Secret Word and Surprise Sue). Are these her favorite characters or something?

Musical Performance: “Levitating”

Final thoughts: As I expected going in, this was a really bad episode. While Wiig certainly didn’t help, the main problem I had was with the writing. Half of the sketches were about sex, as is usual with this season. The only good thing I can say is that this is thankfully the end of the Trump era on SNL. It was a rough four years, but it can’t get any worse, right? Right???

Best sketches: Colin’s racist jokes, Pete Davidson as The Grinch

Worst sketches: Cold Open, Monologue, Secret Word, Surprise Sue

Next review: John Mulaney/The Strokes

SNL Reviews: Dave Chappelle/Foo Fighters (11/7/20)

 Lord have mercy for what I’m about to review….

Cold Open: Biden Victory

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris gloat about their victory to the audience.

• Already off to a bad start with the worst Wolf Blitzer impression ever. Why is this cast so bad at impressions?

• Blitzer’s announcement that Biden has won the election is followed by extremely loud applause. That certainly proves who this show’s intended audience is.

• Thankfully, this is the final appearance of Jim Carrey’s awful Joe Biden impression. I’m not going to miss it at all.

• More cliched old people jokes about Biden follow afterwards. I wish they’d just admit that they have no interest in mocking Biden and they just want to suck his dick.

• Maya as Kamala Harris gets more and more annoying with each appearance she makes. 

• As if this cold open wasn’t painful enough, Trump shows up next. Ugggghhhh!!!!! 

• It’s the same usual unfunny business with this impression. Baldwin could clearly give less of a fuck about wanting to be there. And he still hasn’t stopped doing those dumb faces after he finishes speaking.

• Then, we get something horrifying. Trump sits in front of a piano and starts singing “Macho Man” by The Village People. UGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!

• As much as it pains me to say it, this actually makes the “Hallelujah” cold open look good, because at least that had some…genuine heart put into it.

• And, with that, Baldwin’s Trump makes his final physical appearance. He has a voice-only appearance in another sketch later in this episode, though.

• Because of the “Macho Man” scene, this cold open isn’t even available on YouTube or on the show’s website.

Note: This episode aired nearly an hour later than scheduled, due to a football game running too long.

Monologue

Dave Chappelle talks about Trump, COVID, and the election.

• Hoo boy. I’m not kidding when I tell you guys this, but this monologue goes on for sixteen and a half minutes. This is only the beginning of what I have to deal with in this episode.

• I’m ashamed to admit this, but I’ve never seen an episode of Chappelle’s Show. If I had, then I might be more of a fan of this long-ass monologue.

• More sickening clapter when his statement that Trump is gone gets followed up by mass applause.

• Sick joke when he compares Trump getting the virus to Freddie Mercury getting AIDS. What an awful thing to say! No offense to Freddie, but at least Trump didn’t die!

Sketch: Fired Mascots

Aunt Jemima (Rudolph), Uncle Ben (Kenan Thompson), and the Allstate Guy (Chappelle) try to keep their jobs.

• Rather unusual intro to this sketch, where Chappelle stands on home base and tells us what the sketch is going to be about. This is apparently a thing that they do on Chappelle’s Show.

• As soon as I saw that Maya was playing Aunt Jemima, I could tell exactly where this sketch was headed. 

• Rather uncomfortably long silence from Maya after she says her first line. Couldn’t she have spoken over the audience laughter?

• The “joke” that she uses her own breast milk to make her pancakes was embarrassingly childish. It doesn’t help that she literally winks at the camera after she says this.

• Then Kenan appears as Uncle Ben. Once again, he uses the same “sassy black guy” voice that I’ve grown so tired of by this point. 

• The “humor” in this sketch is so broad and stereotypical that I was surprised to find out it was written by at least three black men. I’m sure it’s supposed to be making fun of these stereotypes, but they’re playing it too straight. If you want to see a good sketch mocking the use of African-American mascots, look for that commercial Tracy Morgan did for “Uncle Jemima’s Mash Liquor”.

• Chappelle appears as the Allstate Guy, who I’m pretty sure is actually white. Couldn’t they have made him Jake from State Farm? I did like the artificially-deepened voice he had, though.

• Pete Davidson’s random appearance as Count Chocula fell flat, as did Chappelle calling him a “chocolatey ni***”, his second n-word of the episode (the first was in the monologue). You can actually hear some people in the audience gasp after he says that.

• Overall, a really poor attempt at satire.

Sketch: Mario Moments

Gamers talk about their favorite memories of playing Mario games.

• I already talked about this sketch in my Worst Sketches of Season 46 list, but it’s so horrible that I need to talk about it again. 

• I could tell that this sketch was going to be bad before it even started, seeing as it’s a blatant promotion for Universal’s upcoming Mario movie.

• Mikey and Kyle’s game reviewer characters show up, and it’s there where this sketch goes from boring to downright terrible. Season 46’s trend of lame testicle jokes continues when they won’t stop talking about Kyle’s balls “popping”. Exactly what that has to do with Mario, I have no idea.

• And then they just keep dragging the joke on when all of the other people being interviewed are more concerned about his balls. When it seems like it’s going to focus on something else, they just keep going back to the ball talk.

• Really bad ending tagline: “The fun never pops. I mean, stops”. Fucking horrible.

Film: Take Me Back

A man (Beck Bennett) tries to convince his ex (Ego Nwodim) to get back together with him.

• I paid very little attention to this when it first aired, mostly because I was still trying to wrap my head around the awful Mario sketch.

• Rewatching it for this review, I see that I didn’t miss much. Another bland short film with very little jokes. And, continuing the Season 46 trend, there’s another dick joke.

Musical Performance: “Shame Shame”

Weekend Update (feat. Rudy Giuliani)

• Yet another long round of applause when someone mentions Biden’s victory. Then they follow up by showing cringeworthy video clips of protesters mocking Trump for losing. I’ve never wanted to punch the TV more in my life.

• Jost then compares the celebrations to the end of World War II. Um, that’s a very odd comparison to make.

• The biggest laugh I got from this Update was the clip they showed of some asshole interrupting a live report on News 12 Long Island. So you know things are bad when my biggest laugh comes from a video that they didn’t even create.

• Then….to complete the pure horror that is this Weekend Update, Kate McKinnon shows up as Giuliani for the one millionth time. When watching this episode for the first time, I turned my TV off as soon as that happened. It had been a bad week for me, and I just wasn’t in the mood for any Giuliani nonsense to make me feel worse.

Sketch: News Center 5 Albany

News reporters can’t keep an interview about a hailstorm on track.

• I missed these next two sketches the first time I watched the episode, due to reasons I mentioned above.

• The fact that this sketch takes place in my area of New York caught my interest at first, but then I got disappointed when I saw that they made up a town instead of using a real one.

• As soon as I saw Kenan’s character, I knew exactly what the joke with him was going to be. And then it became the main joke of the sketch. 

• I’m getting so sick of these constant “news reporters can’t keep a story on track” sketches. Every time they do a sketch about a news report these days, they always follow this same formula.

• I feel really sorry for poor Ego Nwodim having to be in this sketch. She tries her hardest, though.

Sketch: DC Morning

Donald Trump is involved in a car chase.

• Well, here we are, folks. The final (vocal) appearance of Alec Baldwin as Trump…and it’s just one line about him wanting a hamburger. Get it?!?? He’s fat!!!!

• When I saw that this sketch involved a car chase, I knew that there was going to be an OJ reference somewhere. I was right, because the footage they use to represent this car chase is taken from the OJ chase. So, is the point they’re trying to make here that Donald Trump is a murderer? Or something? I don’t know, these writers are clearly not healthy.

Musical Performance: “Times Like These”

Final Thoughts: Good God, this is one of the worst episodes I’ve ever had to review. Every single joke fell flat for me. Every single sketch idea was awful. And, of course, there was that unbearably long monologue at the beginning. Overall, a terrible mess of an episode.

Best sketches: NONE

Worst sketches: They all sucked, but I really hated Fired Mascots, Mario Moments, and DC Morning the most.

Next review: Kristen Wiig/Dua Lipa

Worst sketches of Season 46

 Season 46 of SNL will go down in my books as one of the worst seasons ever. Out of all the episodes, none of them were good. The closest we got was the Bill Burr episode, but even that had problems, such as the worst cold opening ever. Like my Worst Sketches in the Trump Era list, I’m going to be rating these sketches using The Rating of Suckitude. The higher the number, the more the sketch sucked.

1. A Rona Family Christmas (from Timothee Chalamet/Bruce Springsteen, 12/12/20)

Summary: This one is about living coronavirus spores telling bad jokes while preparing for the holidays.

• One of the most unfunny things I’ve ever seen on television. This is full of such hacky jokes as a TV show called “Dancing With The SARS”. I groaned so loud when I watched this live. Asian Terry Sweeney also plays a character named “Oral”, because of course he does.

Suckitude: 2/10

2. Universal Studios Tram Tour (from Dan Levy/Phoebe Bridgers, 2/6/21)

Summary: Corporate synergy up the ass!

• Season 46 continues the recent trend of bad shilling for fellow corporations. This is one of the most pathetic examples, and it’s full of bad greenscreening, blatant research failure (they get the year that the first live-action Flintstones movie came out wrong), and overall, it’s just a commercial for Universal Studios.

Suckitude: 4/10

3. Mario Memories (from Dave Chappelle/Foo Fighters, 11/7/20)

Summary: Gamers talk about their favorite memories playing Mario games.

• The Dave Chappelle episode has so much wrong with it that I am going to be doing a separate review for it in the future. But I wanted to give you a preview of the horrors it contains by bringing up one particular sketch that thoroughly broke me when I saw it. Not only is this Mario Memories shit just another example of bad corporate synergy (Universal has a Mario film coming out soon), but it’s another example of Season 46’s juvenile obsession with testicle jokes. The sketch with the guy jizzing on the pizza in Season 45 was bad enough, but this takes the cake. And the worst part is that this isn’t even the only Mario-related sketch on this list….

Suckitude: 8/10

4. Pelotaunt (from Regina King/Nathaniel Rateliff, 2/13/21)

Summary: A commercial for an exercise bike that insults you.

• Remember all of those Peloton sketches I got sick of in Season 45? Well, here’s another one. It actually has a good concept, but, as is usual with SNL these days, they think that having a good idea prevents them from doing anything creative with it. This sketch could have worked if they had made the bike’s insults funny and biting. Instead, it’s all lame playground bully shit.

Suckitude: 4/10

5. Now That’s What I Call Theme Songs Sung By The Stars Of The Show (from John Krasinski/Machine Gun Kelly, 1/30/21)

Summary: Characters from shows I’ve never seen sing their theme songs.

• One of SNL’s trademarks has been its celebrity impressions, and I usually love it when they do sketches showing them off, like the famous Star Wars Screen Tests sketch from 1997. Unfortunately, most of the impressions on this show nowadays are extremely bad, such as in this sketch. Maybe I’d like it better if had ever seen any of these shows, but the problem they have these days is that they don’t try to make their parodies accessible to people who haven’t seen them. The worst part is when they bring back that horrfying and unfunny Baby Yoda impression. Do they realize that nobody gives a shit about The Mandalorian anymore?!?

Suckitude: 7/10

6. The Grinch (from Kristen Wiig/Dua Lipa, 12/19/20)

Summary: A family has an awkward morning with The Grinch.

• Yet ANOTHER example of Universal synergy, as this is obviously supposed to be based on the 2000 film. Pete Davidson’s honestly pretty good Jim Carrey impression is wasted on this sketch, which I immediately predicted was going to be about sex when it started.

Suckitude: 9/10

And the worst sketch of Season 46 is….

7. Wario Trial (from Elon Musk/Miley Cyrus, 5/8/21)

Summary: Wario (Elon Musk) is on trial for allegedly killing Mario with a shell.

• To say that this sketch is an abomination is an understatement. It is an insult to the Mario games, and an insult to my sanity. And I’m not alone in thinking so. EVERYBODY in the world panned this sketch, and most of the YouTube comments are extremely negative. Let’s go over the ways this sketch sucks…

• For starters, Musk looks downright uncomfortable in this sketch. I would be too if I had to deliver some of these jokes.

• The jury is made up of Toads, and by that, I mean they took the first image of Toad they could find on Google and copypasted it.

• The worst thing of all is when Princess Peach shows up, and she starts speaking in a horribly stereotypical Italian accent. If there was any doubt these people have never played the games, this is the proof. Peach has never spoken with an Italian accent in any of her appearances. 

• And the ultimate insult comes at the end when they show a blurred picture of Luigi’s penis, once again, continuing Season 46’s juvenile obsession with penis jokes. I was so disgusted at this part that I seriously contemplated throwing the remote at the TV. Why didn’t Nintendo sue them for this?

Suckitude: 8,000/10 

SNL Reviews: Owen Wilson/Kacey Musgreaves (10/02/21)

 I’m skipping ahead to start reviewing Season 47. 

Cold Open

President Biden and his fellow Democrats address the president’s infrastructure bill.

• We have a brand new Joe Biden impersonator starting with this episode: new cast member James Austin Johnson. While he certainly looks the part, his voice needs a lot more work. It might also help if they actually made fun of him instead of lame “haha he’s old” jokes.

• Aidy Bryant debuts an impression of Senator Joe Manchin. She’s been doing a lot of drag roles lately, for some reason. 

• Speaking of drag roles, I thought I’d mention that Kate McKinnon is absent from this episode, and will be until at least December. All I have to say about that is, YAAAAAAY!

Cast Notes:

• Beck Bennett and Lauren Holt are no longer in the cast. While I was expecting Holt to get the boot, since she never did anything of note, I was not expecting Bennett to leave. Even so, I’m happy that he did, because he was a terrible impressionist, and he just wasn’t funny.

• There are three new cast members: James Austin Johnson (who I already mentioned), Sarah Sherman, and Aristotle Athari. Bowen Yang has also been promoted to repertory status.

Monologue

Owen Wilson talks about hosting the show for his first time.

• I’m surprised that this is only the first time that Owen is hosting the show. His brother Luke did in one of the better episodes of the disastrous Season 30.

• Speaking of Luke, he makes a cameo in the audience, along with their other brother Andrew.

• I was hoping Owen would do something special for his first ever monologue, but it was just a long, boring speech. As much as I hate to say this, I would have preferred something like a questions or musical monologue for this one.

Sketch: The Talking

A doctor delivers COVID tests to the four hosts of a talk show.

• This sketch is a parody of an incident that happened on The View that week where two of the hosts tested positive for COVID during the show. 

• This was where I first noticed Kate’s absence. Usually, they make sure to include her in sketches that involve most of the female cast, so her absence here was rather jarring to me.

• Unfortunately, the lack of McKinnon couldn’t save this sketch from being extremely formulaic. As soon as the main joke revealed itself, that was all we got.

Film: Star Trek: Ego Quest

Jeff Bezos and his brother get involved in some “hilarious” shenanigans in space.

• Nice of them to do a sketch with the Wilson brothers. Owen plays Jeff Bezos, while Luke plays his brother. Does Jeff even have a brother?

• There’s also some other billionaire impressions on the ship, including Elon Musk (*shudder* I’m getting bad memories of his hosting stint) and Richard Branson. Unsurprisingly, these impressions both suck. The Branson one has nothing on the one that Bill Hader used to do.

• Another really boring sketch about something I have no interest in.

Sketch: Cars 4

Owen Wilson records lines for the new Cars movie.

• Ugh, another pathetic example of sucking up to Disney.

• Even worse, it’s yet another sketch with lame juvenile sex jokes. Most of the lines Owen has to read are related to Lightning McQueen having sex with girl cars.

• James Austin Johnson shows up as Larry The Cable Guy, and good lord is the impression terrible! In his defense, though, it’s a really hard voice to do.

• The only thing I liked were the illustrations that accompanied each of their lines.

Sketch: School Board Meeting

Attendees at a school board meeting stray wildly off-topic.

• This sketch makes its first appearance since Season 41.

• I shudder to think what the first two installments of this were like, because this was terrible! While it was nice to see the whole cast (minus McKinnon, Che, and Jost) involved in this, it went on for way too long.

• I got a brief chuckle from Mikey’s character introducing himself. Something about his delivery made me smile.

• Continuing the theme of bad impressions, Pete Davidson shows up as Dog The Bounty Hunter. Not only does he not look like him, but he sounds awful.

• This was Asian Terry Sweeney’s first and only appearance in the whole episode. Awesome!

Musical Performance: “Justified”

• For some strange reason, Musgreaves performs this song in the nude, with her lady parts strategically hidden by a cleverly placed guitar.

Weekend Update (featuring A Black Woman Who’s Been Missing For Ten Years and Pete Davidson)

• Oh, geez, it’s these morons again. Despite being the longest lasting anchors this segment has ever had, they haven’t gotten any funnier.

• I am extremely tired of Michael Che laughing at his jokes. He does it twice here, including after a really tasteless joke about R. Kelly.

• Ego Nwodim has a commentary as a missing black woman. And, just like the one in the JJ Watt episode, I actually enjoyed it a lot! She brings up some good points about what it’s like to be a missing black woman, like how her missing person poster is actually a WANTED poster (great picture they used for it, btw), and the reward for finding her is a Chili’s Too coupon that only works at the airport. She also has a pretty good slam at Madea when bringing up movies about missing women. I can’t understand why they barely give her any commentaries, because she knocks them out of the park every time!

• As this was the first episode to air after the death of Norm MacDonald, Pete Davidson wears a shirt with his face on it during his commentary. The only laugh I got from it was showing a picture of a guy in a gimp mask that he claims is of Colin Jost.

• Speaking of Norm, they end Update with a nice tribute to him by showing some old clips from his time behind the desk, including one of his famous OJ jokes. Unfortunately, the clips they chose were some of his blandest, least likely to offend anybody jokes. But it was still nice of them to pay tribute to him.

Sketch: Funeral Song

A funeral ceremony goes awry when the deceased’s final wishes take a bizarre turn.

• The sketch begins with an extremely odd technical gaffe where we can hear the director’s voice, and Lorne is seen walking off the set. This error was surprisingly not edited out for the online upload.

• Now this was a nice surprise! For the first time in who knows how long, I was actually laughing a lot at an SNL sketch. 

• The sketch starts off on a low-key note, then picks up when Kenan arrives as a man named “Levar B. Burton”, who makes sure to emphasize that he has a B in the middle, for legal reasons. He starts singing “I Believe I Can Fly”, which offends the other guests at the funeral because of all the terrible things its composer did. They eventually relent when they realize it was the deceased’s wish for the song to be played, and let Burton continue. So far, so good…

• Then, the sketch gets really good when the slideshow of pictures of the deceased woman start to reveal that she may not have been as nice as her family believed. She is then shown with such disgraced celebrities as Louis CK, Trump, and Kevin Spacey, before ending with the best one of all: a photo of her saluting Bill Cosby. 

• I was feeling sick on the night this episode aired, and this sketch was the perfect thing I needed to cheer me up! 

• The thing that surprised me the most about this sketch was that it was written by Michael Che. I find that hard to believe, because it had none of his usual anti-white jokes in it.

Musical Performance: “Camera Roll”

Sketch: NFL on FOX

Two FOX Sports announcers keep interrupting game coverage to plug a new show on FOX.

• Great, another sketch about something I have no interest in.

• Johnson debuts another impression, this time of Joe Buck. Wilson plays Troy Aikman. I have no idea how accurate the voices are, but Johnson certainly looks like Buck.

• The main joke of this sketch got old pretty fast, even if it is an accurate parody of those annoying “pop-up” ads that usually appear during football games on FOX and other networks. Not only that, but it’s a premise that was already done better in a sketch from the Will Ferrell episode from Season 34, in which Charles Barkley is more interested in the onscreen promos for a sitcom than basketball.

• Not even the random inclusion of Stacey Abrams in one of the promos made me laugh, because, instead of making it a funny background joke, they decided to point it out.

Sketch: Mail-In Testing Service

Two doctors have difficulty filming a promo for their…ugh…stool sample testing service.

• Newbie Sarah Sherman gets her first lead role.

• This sketch was unfortunately nothing but a bunch of lame jokes about playing with poop. Yuck! 

• There was a glitch at my station when this first aired, so we joined this sketch right when the poop jokes began. Needless to say, that was a hell of an introduction.

Note: A dedication to a guy named Robert Schlosser is shown before the goodnights.

Final thoughts: Overall, I’m surprised at how much better this episode was than I thought it was going to be. It wasn’t perfect, but it was miles better than the entirety of Season 46. The lack of Kate McKinnon certainly helped it, as did the new cast members. Owen Wilson didn’t really stand out that much as a host, to be honest. I was expecting a lot more from him.

Best sketches: Ego’s commentary, Funeral Song

Worst sketches: Cars 4, Mail-In Testing Service

Next review: Dave Chappelle/Foo Fighters