Ladies and gentlemen, this is my 100th post!
Cold Open
Kate McKinnon interviews various people about current events.
• Odd to see Kate playing herself here.
• Cecily appears as that crazy senator Marjorie Taylor-Greene. Unfortunately, the real Greene is so crazy that she’s already a parody, so trying to make fun of her is not possible.
• We already get a bad penis joke and it hasn’t even been five minutes.
• Several other bad impressions follow, but none of them are worth mentioning, except for the random return of Kenan as OJ. People are still making OJ Simpson jokes in 2021?
Note: Aidy Bryant returns from her extended absence.
Monologue
Krasinski deals with rowdy fans of “The Office”.
• Krasinski was supposed to host in March 2020, before COVID happened.
• We’ve shockingly had very few question monologues this season, but this one is just as shitty as ever, because it focuses on “The Office”, a show that I absolutely hate.
• I’m surprised with how far society has come that SNL is still resorting to the tired old “guys kissing each other on the lips for a cheap laugh” routine. There’s a part when Pete Davidson shows up and kisses Krasinski. If Pete Davidson came up to me and kissed me on the lips, I’d wash my mouth out with a shotgun.
Sketch: Blue Georgia
Now that Georgia has gone blue, locals explain the new rules to a visitor from the North.
• Another “funny accent” sketch, so you just know that this one is gonna suck.
• There goes Beck Bennett speaking in that annoying Southern voice he uses for half of his political impressions. I’m so glad that this is his final season.
• And there’s Kenan doing THAT voice again. (You know the one I’m talking about, right?)
• Boy, the “satire” in this sketch is really, really, bad. It tries to mock millennial/“woke” culture, but it’s very limp-wristed and not offensive at all. If Norm wrote this sketch, he would have gone all out. Speaking of writers, the Southern accents made me think that Kent Sublette was behind this, as he and James Anderson love putting Southern accented characters in the sketches they write. Turns out it was actually Michael Che and Bryan Tucker.
• The gag with each character mentioning what their pronouns are fell totally flat with me, and it sounds like the audience had no response to it, either.
• I did get a laugh from this line of Beck’s: “Well, I hope you know what we do with Jewish people out here in Georgia…we elect them!” Nice bait-and-switch gag.
Film: The Loser
A college kid (Krasinski) has a unique way of defending his brother (Andrew Dismukes) from bullies.
• I’d love to know what that manga Dismukes is reading at the beginning is.
• Apart from that interesting detail, there’s not too much I have to say about this. It had a nice concept, but it just came off as really boring.
Sketch: Twins
A guest on CNBC has some very unusual children.
• I’m sure I’ve said this in the past, but I really like it when SNL comes up with bizarre concepts for sketches. I feel like I should enjoy this one a lot. For some reason, though, there’s just something about it that’s keeping me from enjoying it.
• I suppose one reason could be that one of the creepy children is played by Kate McKinnon, who’s mugging up a storm in this. She’s taking out a lot of the potential enjoyment I could have had here.
• Mikey Day plays the other twin, and he’s pulling it off much better.
• I would have liked that creepy baby sculpture if they hadn’t given it that stupid name (“Centipediatric”). Actually, I’m sure a lot of the creepy stuff in this (like the painting in the background) would have worked better if they didn’t point it out. But that’s a big problem that a lot of fans have noticed with sketches that Mikey writes: the characters keep explaining all of the jokes.
• Oh, and I hate that this ends with the twins showing up in the CNBC studio for some reason.
• This sketch had a lot of potential, but it was ruined by poor casting choices and Mikey’s limitations as a writer.
Film: Now That’s What I Call Theme Songs Sung By The Stars Of The Show
Characters from shows I’ve never seen sing their theme songs.
• First off, what a terrible title.
• Yeah, so, in case you couldn’t tell from my description, this is another sketch that requires you to be a fan of the thing being parodied to understand it. Apart from one show that I’ll mention in a bit, I’ve never seen any of these.
• That Stranger Things part with Beck was freaking awful.
• Not gonna lie, Cecily’s Julie Andrews is pretty good.
• Really bad Gillian Anderson impression from Kate. And her scene ends with her mugging for the camera, as usual.
• FUCK NO!!! In the scene with The Mandalorian, we get another fucking Baby Yoda appearance!!! Thankfully, this is the last one I have to review in Season 46!
• Alex Moffat as Kelsey Grammer was so bad it was funny. Also, the lyrics they give him to sing are complete shit.
• One of the worst “celebrity impression parade” sketches in recent memory, and it rightfully earned a place on my Worst Sketches of Season 46 list.
Sketch: Pandemic Game Night
A game night goes awry thanks to the guests’ secrets.
• Like I said in the Daniel Craig review from last season, any attempt at a game night setting will always fall short of the classic sketch with Rachel Dratch’s character going crazy.
• Even though this is the first episode to air after the January 6th Capitol riots, they surprisingly haven’t mentioned it until now, with this scene where Beck is arrested for having been there.
• Despite what I said earlier, I actually would have preferred if this remained a game night sketch, as it quickly turns into a repetitive one joke sketch about people being arrested for dumb shit.
• I groaned so hard when Aidy called everyone a “bubble of cucks”. Ugggggghhhhh!!!!
• Wow, what a surprise. Kent Sublette is one of the writers here. That explains why it sucked so much.
Musical Performance: “My Ex’s Best Friend”
• This one ends with him throwing his guitar into the crowd. I wonder if it landed on anybody?
Weekend Update (featuring Mike Lindell, Martin Scorcese, Fran Liebowitz, and Cathy Anne)
• Extremely tasteless joke about Rand Paul getting beat up. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: if they had made that joke about a Democrat, they would have been fired.
• Second and final appearance of Beck’s Mike Lindell impression. This one sucked just as bad as the first, with the additional “bonus” of jokes suggesting that he’s racist. Get it? If you support Donald Trump, that means you’re a racist!
• I’m surprised it’s taken this long to cast Asian Terry Sweeney as a woman. He’s playing some lady named Fran Liebowitz that I’ve never heard of, and along with that is Kyle Mooney doing the worst Martin Scorcese impression ever. I’m not too familiar with what he sounds like, but I’m pretty sure Scorcese doesn’t have special needs.
• Another disgusting joke about the world’s tallest dog getting his head chopped off by a ceiling fan. What do these creeps have against animals?
• *sigh* Cathy Anne is back once again, the first time she’s appeared in nearly a year. No matter how many times I think she’s been retired, she keeps coming back like the fucking plague. At least this is her last appearance as of December 2021.
Sketch: Supermarket Sweep
Two best friends dominate a game show thanks to their special bond.
• Second episode in a row to have a Game Show Network sketch. Thankfully, it’s not another Secret Word. Instead, we get a parody of Supermarket Sweep, which, ironically, currently has a revival hosted by former SNL cast member Leslie Jones.
• Krasinski is coming off pretty well as a game show host. I’m glad they didn’t give it to Kenan again. Speaking of Kenan, where’s he been in this episode? He hasn’t shown up since that Georgia thing earlier.
• Unfortunately, this isn’t much better than a typical Secret Word sketch, as it quickly devolves into another self-indulgent Bryant/McKinnon pairing where the only joke is that they’re lesbians. The nice break we had from these while Aidy was out was fun while it lasted.
Sketch: Subway
Two employees have trouble welcoming a new co-worker.
• Figures as soon as I ask where Kenan is, he shows up in this sketch.
• The boardroom setting of this sketch is giving me some bad vibes of the infamous “Sparklebrite Toothpaste” sketch from Season 20, but this thankfully isn’t as bad as that was.
• Big night for Andrew Dismukes. Unfortunately, this upswing in his airtime doesn’t last long, if I remember correctly.
• When I saw that this sketch was about Subway, I knew that at some point they would make a Jared Fogle joke. Sure enough, that’s exactly what I got near the end. I love being able to predict what lame jokes this show is going to make.
Musical Performance: Lonely
Sketch: Ratatouille
A man (Krasinski) reveals to his partner (Chloe Fineman) why he’s so good at sex.
• I actually missed this sketch when the episode first aired, because I thought the episode would be over after the second musical number. I didn’t miss much, because this is yet another Season 46 sketch where they ruin a beloved children’s property with lame sex jokes.
• Already a bad sign of how this sketch is going to go when this turns into a Ratatouille parody, and they have Remy claim that his name is “Ratatouille”, proving that these writers have never seen the movie.
• Really lame twist where Remy reveals that he has a little helper on top of his head. It’s a bug played by Aidy, speaking in an annoying voice.
• An unintentional laugh from Krasinski flicking the bug off of Remy’s head, but the tiny bug prop isn’t shown to come off of his head at all. Then another unintentional laugh when we cut back to the close up view, and Aidy’s lower half is cut off by the green screen effects. I’m surprised that they left this in on the YouTube upload. But it’s a shame that one of the few laughs I got in this episode was a technical error.
• Can this awful sketch get any worse? Why, yes, it can! After it aired, they got accused of plagiarizing it from a podcast called “Cum Town” (seriously?), which, coincidentally, sometimes features appearances from Shane Gillis, the guy who got fired before joining the cast. I have no idea whether or not these accusations are true, but the Gillis connection certainly makes me believe it.
Note: A dedication card for former host Cicely Tyson is shown before the goodnights.
Final thoughts: Geez, this has to be one of the worst episodes I’ve ever reviewed. I knew I was probably gonna hate it since the host is from a show I can’t stand, but I didn’t know it was gonna be this bad!
Best sketches: NONE!
Worst sketches: Cold Open, Monologue, Now That’s What I Call…, Pandemic Game Night, Ratatouille
Next review: Dan Levy/Phoebe Bridgers
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