Cold Open
MTV’s newest spring break show, “Snatched! Vaxxed! Or Waxed!” features three contestants taking guesses about a spring breaker’s physique.
• The pain starts quickly with Maya speaking in a somewhat offensive Spanish accent. The name of her character (“Lupe Vuvuzela”) only adds to the awfulness.
• This is the second episode I’ve reviewed lately that has a character named “Poots”. Why are there suddenly a bunch of fart jokes?
• Any potential humor this sketch could’ve had is ruined by Maya’s awful, awful performance.
Monologue
Maya shares her past experiences on the show with the three newbies.
• After a slow start, things get interesting when she brings out the three newbies in the cast: Andrew Dismukes, Lauren Holt, and Punkie Johnson. This is Johnson’s only appearance all night, by the way.
• I felt sorry for Lauren when Maya calls her “Callista Vagina” as part of a “joke” where she doesn’t know their names.
• Dismukes is forced off of the stage shortly after this. Luckily, he will go on to have an unusually active night.
• I hate the running gag where she keeps telling them to shut up. It only makes me hate her even more.
• And of fucking course we briefly get Maya singing, because that’s a thing she has to do every time she appears, for some reason.
• An absolutely detestable monologue. This was nothing more than a vanity piece for Maya.
Sketch: Hot Ones
Beyoncé (Maya Rudolph) has a hard time being interviewed by Sean Evans (Mikey Day) after eating an extremely hot wing.
• Maya brings back her Beyoncé impression that she used to do in “The Prince Show” sketches with Fred Armisen.
• I can’t judge Mikey’s Sean Evans, because I have no idea who that is.
• I like the various hot sauce names, such as “Hitler’s Anus” and “The Devil’s Diarrhea”.
• Unfortunately, this sketch has turned into an excuse for Maya to make dumb faces in front of the camera and scream at the top of her lungs. I actually would have preferred another Prince Show sketch. Then again, that would have meant another unnecessary Fred Armisen cameo.
Film: Boomers Got The Vax
Some baby boomers rap about why they’re the greatest generation.
• I barely remember anything about this song, so I’ll try to go into it with an open mind.
• The beat is really catchy.
• Mikey looks unrecognizable in that makeup.
• Why does Maya’s character have a beard?
• I could have done without Kate mugging up a storm.
• That Edith Puthie character Ego played in that horrible Name Change Office sketch from earlier this season becomes recurring for some strange reason. Out of all the characters I wanted to see come back, she is not one of them.
• Despite a few minor niggles I had with this song, it wasn’t all that bad.
Sketch: A Kamala Harris Unity Seder
Kamala and her husband Doug Emhoff (Martin Short) have a Passover dinner with Ted Cruz and Joe Biden.
• At least they waited a while to bring Kamala back.
• They portray her in this sketch as some sort of saintly, motherly figure who can do no wrong. This is just what I was afraid of them doing.
• They dragged poor Martin Short into this to play Doug Emhoff, and they waste his talents by making him a sideman to Maya Rudolph. I guess this is supposed to be a reference to that shitty variety show they had together, Maya and Marty, which only lasted for a few episodes.
• FOURTH episode in a row with that godawful Ted Cruz impression! Please fucking stop it!!!
• Chloe Fineman appears as their daughter, Elle Emhoff, who gets her own title card and music, for some reason. Why are we supposed to give a fuck about Kamala Harris’ daughter?
• I don’t know who the hell Raphael Warnock is, but I’m fairly certain he’s not the sassy guy that Kenan is portraying him as.
• Alex Moffat makes his second and final appearance as Joe Biden. It hasn’t improved a bit from the last time he played him. This also ends up being the last time Biden appears in a sketch until the Season 47 premiere, and by then, the role will have been given to someone else…
• The actual material they have for Biden in this sketch is toothless and stale. They’re not making fun of him at all, they’re lightly patting him on the back and saying, “Hey, no hard feelings. We didn’t mean it!”
• And then they have Biden’s dog attack Martin Short. What a total waste of a comedy legend.
• No comment on Cecily Taylor Greene (that should be my new name for that impression) coming back yet again.
Film: NFTs
A rap that explains cryptocurrency.
• Another Pete Davidson rap in the vein of that “Stu” one from earlier this season. This one is a parody of “Without Me” by Eminem, one of the few songs of his that I like.
• Pete is dressed as Robin, for some reason, and there’s some nice comic book visuals throughout this.
• Nice way to get the musical guest involved too.
Musical Performances: “Tyler Herro”, “What’s Poppin’”
Weekend Update (featuring Sidney Powell and Bowen Yang)
• Surprisingly good joke from Colin about Joe Biden struggling on stairs.
• He then ruins it with a joke saying that Republicans like guns more than “people (they) don’t know”.
• Cecily plays some lady named Sidney Powell, who I’ve never heard of. Like all of her impressions of Republican women, it totally sucks and has an annoying voice.
• Since this was the first episode to air after the tragic anti-Asian hate crime in Atlanta, Bowen Yang has a commentary as himself, where he talks about the different ways we can help give back to the Asian community.
• I find Yang a lot more tolerable when he’s just being himself, and not playing some annoying character. This commentary was very heartwarming, and I loved the part at the end where he briefly speaks in his native Mandarin language.
Sketch: Choreographers
Two choreographers refuse to work with each other.
• Jesus Christ, this sketch was a chore to sit through. Not only does it have Kenan doing my “favorite” voice of his, but it also has Maya doing one of her countless over the top characters with an annoying voice,
• A shame to see Lauren Holt in this. She actually gets quite a few lines.
• The only thing I laughed at was Kenan mistaking a poster of the musical Annie for a poster of JonBenet Ramsey.
Sketch: Barfly Awards
The only award show for drunks!
• Good Lord, an award show? SNL does not have a good track record with these.
• Making me even more weary is the fact that Kent Sublette is credited as one of the writers.
• Yep, this is definitely a Sublette sketch. There’s his trademark of characters with “funny” names, such as “Sally O’Flappy” (a reference to Molly Shannon’s character Sally O’Malley?), “Hannah NoMoney” (Lauren Holt in another silent role), and “Missy Shoots”.
• Some of these drunk voices the cast is using are just awful. They sound like they have special needs. Maya’s is the worst one of all (no surprise there, amirite?).
• Kate McKinnon manages to annoy me with her five seconds of screentime by mugging for the camera and doing that stupid grin she does as half of her male politician characters.
• I got the most amusement out of Alex Moffat’s character speaking in broken French. Other than that, this sketch is another example of SNL’s terrible history with making fun of award shows.
Musical Performance: “Same Guy”
Film: The Maya-ing
Maya takes a creepy walk through the studio.
• A promising idea. Plus, The Shining is one of my favorite movies.
• The NASCAR fan in me loves the part where Maya briefly glances at Jeff Gordon’s portrait from when he hosted back in 2003 (fun fact: that episode also contains my least favorite sketch of all time).
• Her silent reaction to seeing a photo of Kevin Spacey on the wall was great.
• This sketch is really well shot. There’s some impressive special effects with ghostly images of Maya’s time on the show appearing throughout the studio.
• I laughed at the part with Maya seeing a ghostly image of Sum41 on the musical guest stage and saying, “Now that’s when music was music”.
• Alex Moffat in a nice understated performance as the creepy bartender.
• Tina Fey appears as a (fictional) writer from the show’s olden days, Gloria Zelwig. It’s nice to see that she and Maya still have that great chemistry together. Also, I liked her disappointment when Maya tells her that people don’t have sex in the HR room anymore.
• Kenan does a surprisingly good Scatman Crothers impression. They never exactly state that’s who he is, but it’s clear from his appearance who he’s supposed to be playing.
• Nice reference to the elevator of blood, except the “blood” in this case is really wine, which they flood the hallways with because they can’t have the usual afterparty due to COVID.
• Random, but fitting cameo appearance from Gilly as the creepy twins in the hallway. The footage appears to be recycled from another Gilly sketch as I don’t think Kristen was in the building that night (thank goodness for that!).
• Nice bait-and-switch gag with the lady in the bathtub, who turns out to be Rachel Dratch. I absolutely adore Rachel, and it’s nice to see her again.
• You know I laughed when Rachel slaps Maya. If I can’t do it, someone else will!
• Beck Bennett got some laughs from his brief scene of going through Maya’s purse.
• Great parody of the ending of the movie with Maya showing up in a picture of the original 1975 cast.
Final thoughts: A slight step up from the abysmal previous episode, but still nothing special. The worst thing about this episode was, unsurprisingly, Maya. Almost every single role she played annoyed me.
Best sketches: Boomers Got The Vax, Bowen’s commentary, The Maya-ing
Worst sketches: Cold Open, Monologue, A Kamala Harris Unity Seder, Choreographers, Barfly Awards
Next review: Daniel Kaluuya/St. Vincent, an episode that I’ve never actually seen before.
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