Cold Open
Wolf Blitzer interviews Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx about the new COVID vaccine.
• Beck Bennett is one of the worst impressionists this show has ever had. Not only does he look nothing like Wolf Blitzer, he doesn’t sound anything like him either.
• The actual jokes they have him say aren’t much better. He compares the release of the vaccine to the launch of the PlayStation 5, because…random? Or were they hoping to get one from Sony?
• First appearance of Kate’s disturbing Fauci impression. I’m not too familiar with Deborah Birx, but I’m sure Heidi looks and sounds nothing like her.
• As is the case with all cold opens featuring Kate as a male politician, this one is boring, long, and unfunny. Also, I have no idea what to say about that baffling running gag where the females in the audience throw bras at Fauci.
Monologue
Chalamet shares what he loves about Christmas in New York.
• I was surprised by his voice when I first saw this. It was not the type of voice I expected to hear coming out of someone who looks like him.
• Apparently his mom used to be an extra on this show, which he then proves by showing a clip of her in the background of a Dana Carvey sketch called “Massive Headwound Harry”. Always nice to see Carvey on the show again, even if it is just an archive clip, and words cannot describe how sad it is to see Chris Farley in it too.
• I also liked his line after the clip is shown: “That’s my mom! She almost got spit on by Chris Farley!”
• Another random musical number follows, but thankfully, his likability is making come off as more tolerable.
• Not even the random Pete Davidson appearance could ruin it, even though I was totally expecting it, given that he’s impersonated him in the past.
• I’m surprised at how good a lot of the monologues I’ve been reviewing lately have been.
Sketch: A Rona Family Christmas
Living coronavirus particles argue with each other during a Christmas reunion.
• Unfortunately, things come to a screeching halt with this awful sketch, which made it onto my Worst Sketches of Season 46 list a while ago.
• So many corny jokes in this, such as the names of the characters, and the bad puns (“Our daughter’s a superspreader!”). I was not surprised at all to see that Kent Sublette is one of this sketch’s writers (along with Colin Jost and Dan Bulla).
• Lauren Holt is wasted as the daughter. They really had no idea what to do with her.
• Figures they would name Asian Terry Sweeney’s character “Oral”.
• I refuse to talk about this awful sketch any further, so let’s just move on.
Film: Lexus
A dad’s gift for his family doesn’t go as well as he had hoped.
• Busy night for Beck Bennett so far. He’s appeared in everything but the cold open.
• I guess the fact that they don’t accept his gift is supposed to be funny? But I’m certainly not laughing. These thinly-disguised ads for real products are getting on my nerves.
Sketch: The Dionne Warwick Talk Show
Dionne Warwick (Ego Nwodim) fails to identify the celebrity guests on her talk show.
• Here’s one of SNL’s favorite crutches: a celebrity talk show sketch!
• Out of all the celebrities they could have put in this situation, why Dionne Warwick? She hasn’t been relevant in, like, forever. I have a feeling that Ego is a big fan of her and just wanted to play her in a sketch.
• I have no idea if the tweets she shows at the beginning are actual tweets that the real Warwick made, but they’re not funny.
• I have only the faintest familiarity with Warwick’s music, so I have no idea how accurate the voice is, but Ego’s performance is really nice.
• Spot-on Harry Styles impression by Timothee.
• The joke of Warwick not knowing who her guests are gets old after a few seconds, along with her constant threats towards Wendy Williams. Are the two of them in a feud or something?
• Another great impression, this one from Melissa as Billie Eilish.
• Chloe Fineman brings back her baffling impression of tonight’s host from one of the At Home episodes. I hated it there, and it’s even worse here.
• Perfect casting of Pete Davidson as Machine Gun Kelly. He unfortunately only gets a couple of lines before they end the sketch.
• A rare misfire for Ego Nwodim, but that doesn’t stop them from bringing this back two more times.
Film: Tiny Horse
A farm boy has big dreams for his tiny pet horse.
• A surprisingly heartwarming short film about a boy and his miniature horse.
• I like the use of stop-motion to represent the horse instead of CGI. I feel like that adds to the heartwarming nature of this sketch.
• Special mention must go to Chalamet, who really sells the boy’s love for his pet.
• Random Jimmy Fallon cameo, because, why not?
• I really appreciate how they didn’t take the easy way out by ending the short with someone stepping on the horse. After all of the lame predictable jokes I’ve been seeing lately, it’s nice to know that SNL still has some restraint every now and then.
Musical Performance: “Ghosts”
• The funniest part of this entire episode comes when people start booing Springsteen at the end of this song!
Weekend Update (featuring Wayne Wenowdis and Melissa Villaseñor)
• Dear God, NO!!!! We get an unwelcome return from that awful Wenowdis character from the Bill Burr episode. And, just like last time, McKinnon breaks in the middle of the commentary. Please never bring this character back again.
• Melissa Villaseñor does a commentary where she sings some Christmas songs. And she does it while singing in a Dolly Parton voice, which honestly isn’t that bad.
• Second week in a row to have a “joke” about running someone over.
Sketch: Holiday Baking Championship
Some more disgusting cakes are presented on this cooking show.
• After the amazing previous installment of this sketch with Eddie Murphy, I hoped they would never bring it back. I was sad to see that I was wrong, but gave them a chance.
• Since Aidy’s still out, Cecily takes her usual role as a judge.
• Timothee’s “tragic” backstory where he got hit by a car was interesting, but then it became funny when he revealed it was a guy in a Lightning McQueen costume at Disney World.
• Our typical juvenile Season 46 jokes are coming off as funny in this setting, with Timothee’s disturbing cake that looks like a butthole (and Ego wondering if they can even show the cake on TV).
• Normally, I would have been disgusted by the brown foamy chocolate coming out of the cake, but they save it when Heidi says she sees corn in it, while Timothee corrects her by saying it’s actually a marshmallow.
• Even the mandatory dick joke with Kyle Mooney’s character is okay.
• A slight step down from the Murphy installment, but I still got enough laughs.
Sketch: Rap Roundtable
Questlove (himself) and Queen Latifah (Punkie Johnson) face off against a rap duo in a panel discussing hip-hop music.
• This, on the other hand, I did not get enough laughs from. It is the epitome of all the terrible “urban” humor this show has shat out in the last few years.
• A big groan from the name of Ego’s character (“Nunya Bizness”).
• It’s nice to see Questlove here (The Roots are a hidden weakness of mine), and I like Punkie’s impression of Queen Latifah, but things go downhill immediately once Pete Davidson and Timothee appeared as those two rappers.
• If you want proof that white guys can’t rap, just watch this sketch. They had better not bring this back.
Musical Performance: “I’ll See You In My Dreams”
Sketch: Sportsmax
The latest offering from Newsmax.
• Uggghhhh…time for another Republican bashing sketch. This time, they use football as a “clever” analogy, replacing Trump with the Jets.
• That voice Beck is using is VERY annoying. It may be the most unbearable voice I’ve ever heard on this show. In fact, I might have to end the review there because I can’t take it anymore!
Final thoughts: A slightly better episode than I remembered, but still uneven as a whole. For every good sketch like “Tiny Horse”, we also got that horrible Coronavirus Christmas shit. Another thing I noticed about this episode was that Kenan is nowhere to be seen in it, not even in the rapper sketch. Maybe that’s why some parts of this episode felt fresher than usual.
Best sketches: Monologue, Tiny Horse, Springsteen getting booed, Holiday Baking Championship, the lack of Kenan
Worst Sketches: Cold Open, A Rona Family Christmas, the return of Wenowdis, Sportsmax
Next review: John Krasinski/Machine Gun Kelly
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