Cold Open
The cast congratulate themselves on another good year.
• Figures that the first four cast members we see (Aidy, Kate, Cecily, and Kenan) are the ones that hog up all the screentime. Although to be fair, Aidy and Cecily didn’t take up as much as they usually do because they missed some episodes in the first half of the season.
• Asian Terry Sweeney sums this season up by saying that they went from making “bizarre” shows at home, to “terrifying” shows in the studio. No kidding, this season has been horrendous!
• This cold open is a snooze so far.
• There’s Beck. I wonder if he knew this was going to be his final episode.
• Hilarious scene with Akira Yoshimura appearing with this year’s newbies, and complaining that he hasn’t gotten any lines until now.
• Speaking of the newbies, this is also Lauren Holt’s final episode, after a year of being completely underused.
• I like how the “highlight reel” they show is just a clip of Elon Musk dancing from that horrid Wario sketch.
• Random Chris Rock appearance. I wonder how many times the host of the season premiere has also appeared in the season finale?
• Overall, this was just a boring, ego-stroking cold open.
Monologue
The host talks about her hit show on Netflix and shares secrets about playing chess.
• This is like the 800th British host we’ve had this season. But, as I said last time, I like that we’ve been getting more foreign hosts.
• Joy looks like an alien.
• Interesting how she brings up that this is the first time all season that there’s been a full audience in Studio 8H.
• Oh, wait, she’s actually from Argentina? Then why does she sound British?
• Boring monologue overall.
Sketch: Hollywood Squares
Each celebrity contestant has a “problematic” future.
• I remember this being a really awful sketch (and getting into an argument with my father about whether it was funny or not), but I’ll try to keep an open mind here.
• Already a huge groan from one of the other GSN Retro Night programs being “Guess Her Weight”. Get it? Cuz people were sexist in the 50s!!!!
• Beck Bennett plays his final game show host, a role he’s been great at. This time he’s playing Tom Bergeron, but I’ll let his non-impression slide because it’s his last episode, and because Bergeron has a tough voice to imitate.
• As soon as I saw Apu as one of the contestants, I could tell where this was heading.
• That is the worst Baby Spice impression I’ve ever seen.
• I’m sad that this is probably going to be the last time Kenan ever plays Bill Cosby, his greatest impression, and one that he’s been doing since his days on All That.
• Our first of many cutaways explaining that a problematic celebrity had to be cut out.
• These comments from all of the characters about Cosby (“I trust Bill Cosby!”) are so hacky and obvious.
• Mikey’s Jeff Dunham impression is great, but it gets cut off by another unfunny disclaimer.
• The part with Jared Fogle and the Olsen Twins was just plain terrible.
• Eventually all of the celebrities except for Baby Spice have to be cut out. And the joke still isn’t funny.
• Lauren Holt once again has a silent role, but with the added insult that she’s too small to make out properly.
• Despite how much I wanted to like this, it was just as awful as I remembered.
Film: Picture with Dad
A teenager’s (Heidi Gardner) photo shoot goes horribly wrong after her father (Bennett) plays with a rifle.
• I didn’t pay much attention to this when it first aired, because I was still trying to wrap my head around the awful Hollywood Squares sketch.
• Okay, I did just get a laugh from Beck shooting himself in the nuts.
• The visual of Beck being wheeled to the emergency room with an ice pack covering his crotch is pretty funny.
• Normally, I’d be offended by this turning into another excuse to talk about dicks, but it’s coming off fresher here because of the format.
• Beck’s performance is pretty good in this. For a man who just shot his dick off, he sounds perfectly fine!
• Overall, not too bad, surprisingly.
Sketch: Making Man
Angels try to create the first human man.
• Now this, on the other hand, is not coming off as fresh. So many juvenile jokes about body parts in this sketch.
• A particularly lame joke about breasts being called “squeezies”. I’m not a woman, but I find that pretty demeaning.
• The model of the human is kind of funny looking, but that isn’t enough to save this.
• I cringed at the mention of the “dangler” and the “wrinkle pouch”. Those are the kind of words a five-year old comes up with when he’s learning about body parts for the first time.
• I can’t take it anymore! If I hadn’t blocked it from my memory, I definitely would have put it on my list of worst sketches of the season.
Film: It’s Pride Again!
Friends anticipate the upcoming Pride Month celebrations.
• Some more cringing from me when Asian Terry Sweeney introduced this by saying “Hey, all you shes, gays and theys!”
• I really wanted to hate this, but something about this is coming off as charming to me. Maybe it’s because this sketch first aired around the time that I came out as bisexual myself.
• The beat of this song reminds me of Daft Punk. Which is awesome.
• Fairly funny part where all of the girls Punkie invited to her house are really straight girls that dress like lesbians.
• Cameo from our musical guest. Hoo boy, just wait until we get to that…
• Another surprisingly good short film. I feel like the best sketches this season have all been pre-taped.
Sketch: Celtic Woman
The world’s most famous group of singing Irish ladies is going on tour.
• Irish stereotypes galore in this sketch! Wasn’t that Aer Lingus sketch in the Saiorse Ronan episode enough?
• Random bit of cracking up from Cecily at the beginning of the second song. Did she forget a line?
• Amusing testimony from Chris Redd, who thought he had purchased tickets to a Celtics game.
• The ladies’ Irish accents are so bad. Except for Anya’s. She at least sounds like she’s trying.
• Ugh, these lyrics are so stereotypical, talking about things like castles. Because apparently Ireland has a lot of castles?
• Lauren Holt makes her final appearance as a cast member in this sketch as one of the concertgoers.
• Punkie’s testimony was funny, where she says it seems like they just kept singing the same song over and over.
• Beck and Kyle Mooney’s brief appearance as drummers was amusing.
• Not as bad as I remembered, but still nothing special.
Musical Performance: “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)”
• This is one of the most bizarre and frightening things I’ve ever seen on this show. How come the religious people aren’t going after this blatantly Satanic imagery?
• About the only highlight is when his pants accidentally rip at the end, and you can see his ass.
Weekend Update (featuring Pete Davidson and Jeanine Pirro)
• Here we go, the last Update of the season…
• A big groan from me after that “turnt-ass summer” joke.
• At this point, I’m going to stop complaining about those Mitch McConnell jokes. They’re never going to stop it, no matter how much I want them to.
• Pete Davidson returns to the desk with a commentary about mental health.
• I enjoyed his slam at Chrissy Teigen.
• The comparison he makes about AIDS and SNL is spot on: “It’s still here, but no one’s gotten excited about it since the 90s.” All too true…
• Another good slam, this one at Bill Gates: “If he was really an evil genius, Melinda would have signed prenups”.
• Call me crazy, but, I think Pete Davidson might be…growing on me. There, I said it. He hasn’t been coming off as annoying as he was in the previous two seasons I reviewed, and this commentary was another surprisingly good one from him.
• An absolutely tasteless joke about Helen Keller driving a car. These people have no shame, and they’re proud of it.
• Time for Colin and Michael’s usual end of season joke trade off. These are usually pretty good.
• Hilarious joke from Colin about an obese monkey in Thailand getting hit on by a bunch of black guys.
• For once, I also liked Michael’s first joke here. He talks about how the vaccine is like himself; it’s quick, and you barely feel it go in.
• Another great joke from Colin about how making Superman black makes sense, because he was also abandoned by his family as a child. Is it sad that most of the entertainment I’ve gotten from this Update has been from jokes that are blatantly offensive?
• He follows that with another one about how Black Superman’s Kryptonite is “an honest day’s work”.
• You can tell it’s paining Che to say that “Blue Lives Matter”.
• And Colin wraps it up with yet another punchline to the Black Superman joke: his nickname is “The Man of Steal”. Rather easy, but I still laughed.
• It would have been awesome if that was the end of Update, but nope! Instead, we get another appearance of that godawful Jeanine Pirro impression from Cecily.
• A lot of people took this as a sign that Cecily would be leaving after this episode. Unfortunately, she’d be back, and so would that awful impression.
Side note: After Update, a dedication card for former host Charles Grodin is shown.
Sketch: Enid & Astrid’s Brawr Barn
Two bra experts (Taylor-Joy and Bryant) advertise their new lingerie collection.
• Those fucking wigs that they’re wearing…
• We get our weekly funny accent sketch. The only joke here is that they keep saying “brawr” instead of “bra” in awful New York accents.
• I thought for sure this was a Kent Sublette sketch, but it was actually Fran Gillespie and Sudi Green (who leaves the staff after this episode, by the way).
Sketch: NYU Panel
Things go awry when two panel moderators go off topic.
• Two sketches in a row with Aidy and Anya as the main characters? Talk about overkill.
• Speaking of Fran Gillespie, one of the letters Anya reads is from “Fran G.” This is not a sketch she wrote, however, so I assume that the reference was put in by one of her friends.
• Other than that interesting tidbit, there’s nothing too interesting here.
• Punkie makes her third appearance of the night. It’s already clear which female newbie would be returning for the next season…
• Another writer reference, this time for “Sudi G.”
• I actually felt sorry for Asian Terry Sweeney in this. The moderators keep asking him uncomfortable questions about his sexuality, which I totally sympathize with, because, as I said earlier, I came out around the time of this episode, and I had to endure tons of questions from my parents about which boys I find attractive.
• Also, I don’t know if this was an intentional reference or not, but they ask him at one point if he’s “homo-gay”, which is a phrase that Chris Kattan’s Mango character used.
• I liked Pete’s random impression of the voice in those PlayStation commercials that says “PlayStation!”
• While not as bad as I’m making it seem, I think it needed a lot more structure to work.
Musical Performance: “Sun Goes Down”
Sketch: AMC Theatres
Vin Diesel (Bennett) does a commercial for AMC Theatres, now that they’ve reopened from lockdown.
• Well, here’s Beck Bennett’s final sketch as a cast member.
• This is the worst impression of Vin Diesel I’ve ever seen.
• The joke where he keeps saying “movies” in that deep voice got old very fast.
• I don’t get it. This is the material they end the season with?
• Overall, a bafflingly horrible sketch, and a poor way for Beck to end his tenure.
Final thoughts: Another mixed bag of an episode, and a fitting end to a mixed bag of a season. Anya Taylor-Joy didn’t stand out much as a host. I was too busy being distracted by her terrifying face to properly judge her.
Best sketches: Pictures of Dad, It’s Pride Again!, Lil Nas X ripping his pants, Colin and Michael’s Joke Trading
Worst sketches: Cold Open, Hollywood Squares, Making Man, AMC Theatres
And with that, my Season 46 reviews have come to a close! Looking back on it, it’s honestly not as terrible as I remembered. The first half of the season was just downright terrible, while there was a slight uptick in quality in the second half. This is also the point where we must bid farewell to Beck Bennett and Lauren Holt. Beck’s political impressions have soured me on him in the past, but once Biden was inaugurated, he stopped doing most of the really annoying ones, and he kind of grew on me in his last few episodes. As for Miss Holt, I feel so sorry for this poor woman. It was obvious from her very first episode that she wasn’t going to get a second season. Part of me believes that she was just brought on as a temporary replacement for Aidy Bryant while she was away, and given the physical similarity between the two, I find this to be a plausible theory. The one chance she got to prove herself (her Update commentary) was really good, and that leaves me wondering what she could have brought us in her second season.
Coming soon, I’ll be looking back at the season as a whole in my Season 46 overview! Don’t miss it!
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