Well, my blog has finally caught up with the show, so this’ll be my last review for a little while.
Cold Open: Russian Disinformation
President Biden is briefed about the Russia/Ukraine situation.
• Another Biden cold open? It’s like they finally remembered to make fun of him.
• Unfortunately, when I say “make fun of him”, I mean they make him the straight man, because the real “humor” in this sketch comes from the disinformation campaign Russia is sending out.
• If you look at the bogus Ukrainian headlines, the text under each story is the same block of Latin gibberish.
• All of these fake headlines are really bad, especially the “Slap me harder, daddy” one (don’t ask).
• JAJ’s Biden is growing on me. I wish they gave him better material.
• Now they’re resorting to dead memes for jokes.
• My brain melted when they showed a Russian TikTok video. Nobody gives a shit about TikTok!
• Then they show a Russian propaganda commercial where everybody talks like Yakov Smirnoff. Also, Kate speaks in her usual European stereotype voice.
• As an SCTV fan, this reminds me of the famous CCCP1 episode, where Soviets take over the station and broadcast ridiculous propaganda for Russia, such as a parody of “My Mother, The Car” where a young farm boy discovers his tractor is really Nikita Khrushchev reincarnated. The only difference is that the SCTV episode was funny and biting, while this sketch is a horrid piece of shit.
• I totally saw the “twist” coming with the Russian Aaron Rodgers impersonator turning out to be the real Aaron Rodgers.
• Yet another lousy cold open. It severely pales in comparison to the aforementioned SCTV episode.
Monologue
Dafoe talks about his time as a struggling actor in NYC, his expressive face, and growing up in Wisconsin.
• Dafoe is a natural on the SNL stage. It feels great to finally see him host.
• I howled at the picture of his younger self reading a book. That hair is so 80s it hurts.
• He says people often tell him he’d make a great Joker, which I can totally see.
• When Dafoe starts talking about his childhood in Appleton, WI, the monologue is ruined when Aidy and Mikey show up as these two audience members who are also from Appleton. And before you ask, yes, they do have ridiculous accents.
• This monologue started out great, but the stuff with the audience members ruined it for me.
Sketch: Tenant Meeting
A meeting for a building’s tenants goes off the rails.
• This is a thinly disguised variant of those school board meeting sketches, but this time it takes place at an apartment building.
• Punkie accidentally walks in front of the camera after delivering her line. This error was surprisingly not fixed for the online upload.
• I see we’re continuing to typecast Sarah Sherman as loud abrasive Jewish women.
• Ego’s character asking for permission to kill her neighbor’s loud dog was funny. When they deny it, she says, “Bitch, I don’t need permission, I was just asking out of courtesy.”
• Chris Redd, as the doorman, gets some laughs from his insistence that his name is Robert, not “JaMarcus”, as a lot of the building’s tenants seem to believe.
• Asian Terry Sweeney’s flamboyant nature actually comes in handy for his character, a man who’s practicing for the building’s talent show.
• The best character here is undeniably Dafoe’s. He plays an old man who complains about how NYC has lost its seediness and danger. I lost it when he mentioned going to CBGB’s to get pissed on by Iggy Pop.
• Yet another foreigner role for Aristotle.
• Aidy plays her usual character from these meeting sketches.
• JAJ did the best out of all the newbies here with his character complaining about Verizon.
• Kyle and Andrew as these stoners were amusing. They keep making this sniffing noise, which hits a little too close to home for me because I have to deal with my brother doing that every day, though he’s thankfully not a stoner.
• Even Kenan playing one of his typical pimp roles was funny.
• Kate McKinnon only appears for 15 seconds, but still manages to annoy me with her stupid mugging face.
• At least we end on a great note with a call back to the JaMarcus gag from earlier.
• This is probably the best of these meeting sketches. The change of scenery was just what it needed to stay fresh.
Film: Now I’m Up
Two men sing about what woke them up.
• We haven’t had one of these music videos in a while.
• An initial laugh from whatever the hell Kenan is wearing on his head.
• This song has a nice beat to it.
• The thing that wakes up Kenan is a mysterious lump on the back of his head, which he tries to take pictures of, but they all come out blurry.
• Willem is perfect as a late-night infomercial host!
• Then he and his co-host (Heidi) get involved in the song as well!
• I identify with the line about getting woken up by a cat in your face. That’s happened to me on several occasions.
• I love the picture of Chris in his yearbook wearing a shirt that says “Certainly Celibate”.
• The first strong music video we’ve had this entire season. Best of all, Pete Davidson was nowhere to be seen!
Sketch: Badminster Dog Show
A dog show has some very weird entries.
• “Judas Chrysler” and “Miriam Jeans”? I swear, these names just keep getting dumber. Oddly enough, it seems Kent Sublette had nothing to do with this one.
• As iffy as these “cute animal” sketches can be, I’m interested to see where this one goes.
• Something about Dafoe’s wig makes him look like Regis Philbin.
• I bet Kate enjoyed putting her arm around her fellow lesbian Punkie Johnson for so long.
• A rather funny random joke about the first dog being afraid of pineapples.
• Melissa starts having a little trouble with her lines when the dog licks her hands.
• An actually funny line from Kate telling the audience to stop clapping or else the dogs will kill themselves.
• The second dog gets some laughs when he sniffs Kate in the face. Then, while Andrew is talking about him, he almost gets his tongue in Andrew’s mouth.
• Not a big fan of the ending where we see the winning dog’s (censored) penis.
• This was a little better than these “cute animal” sketches tend to be.
Fake Ad: Nugenix
Frank Thomas, Doug Flutie, and Willem Dafoe tell a man about a great new product called Nugenix.
• Ugh, the penis jokes are back. Even worse, this time they’re also erectile dysfunction jokes!
• The constant repetition of “You can’t get hard anymore” was super annoying.
• Man, when was the last time we had a good fake commercial? The big problem with this one is that it's nothing more than a lame copy of the real ad. A lot of the dialogue is taken verbatim, which is kind of bordering on plagiarism.
Musical Performance: “When I’m Gone”
• Perry and her backup singers are dressed as mushrooms, for some reason. It’s one of the worst musical performances in this show’s history. Also, she’s lip-syncing. Has the show learned nothing from the Ashlee Simpson fiasco?
Weekend Update (featuring Two Trend Forecasters and Peyton Manning)
• They seem to have finally stopped doing those awful Mitch McConnell jokes about his hatred of kids. Instead, they’re now resorting to jokes about him running over animals.
• A terrible joke about Ronald Reagan’s memory loss.
• Aidy and Asian Terry Sweeney have a commentary as these two “trend forecasters”. Overall, these characters are super shitty and I hope I never see them again.
• Yet another horrid misogynistic joke from Che. What is this guy’s deal with women?
• Then, Peyton Manning shows up. No, not someone impersonating him, the REAL Peyton Manning.
• He’s supposed to be talking about the NFL playoffs and the rumors of Tom Brady’s retirement, but instead goes off into a tangent about some Netflix show that my mom watches called Emily in Paris. So…what is the point of this commentary? Is it supposed to be an advertisement for the show? I have no idea.
• Why would they even book a legend like Peyton Manning if they’re not going to make him do anything funny? Instead of making him plug a show on Netflix, have him do something like that United Way ad he did when he hosted.
Sketch: The Mirror
This Beauty and the Beast parody sees Belle’s father Maurice suffer a mental breakdown.
• The audience strangely has no reaction to the sight of Pete Davidson as The Beast, which is odd, because they usually go nuts whenever he shows up.
• When Dafoe started speaking in a French accent, I knew I was in for a treat.
• I like how Belle and the Beast are gradually surrounded by the other characters as the sketch goes on. Nice attention to detail.
• Dafoe’s mental breakdown is fantastic! This is the kind of stuff I was anticipating from him going into this episode.
• The part where he slaps his ass with a fireplace poker is priceless.
• Pete: “‘A tale as old as tiiiiime’…which is a song I would sing if we had the rights.”
• The best sketch of the episode, hands down. Dafoe was amazing in this.
Please Don’t Destroy: Martin’s Friend
Martin introduces one of his new friends to the other guys.
• YES!!! The PDD guys finally make it to the live show again!
• The “friend” mentioned in the title is a rude little kid named Connor. I couldn’t find the name of the young actor who plays him, but he does an amazing job.
• He talks about a joke he wanted to pitch to Colin Jost: “What do you call a white guy with dreadlocks?”
• Ben Marshall is the only one of the guys who besides Martin who thinks Connor is funny. He sums things up when he says it’s because of his delivery.
• John Higgins: “So, how does it feel being a [bleep] baby?”
• John finally has enough of Connor’s shenanigans and steals his steak. But karma is a bitch, and he starts choking on it, leading to a hilarious slow-motion scene where Connor gives him the Heimlich maneuver.
• Nice callback at the end where Colin shows up and says he loved the dreadlock joke from earlier, and that he’s going to use it on Weekend Update.
• Once again, the Please Don’t Destroy guys hit a home run. These sketches are the best thing to happen to SNL in years.
Musical Performance: “Never Really Over”
Sketch: Good Morning Columbus
Dr. Benjamin Bloom (Dafoe) appears on a morning show to talk about his new self-help book.
• Uh oh, we’re starting with a news intro. This is gonna suck…
• *sigh* It’s another variation of the Danny Bangs/Incest Twins routine. No, just…no. I can’t talk about this shit again.
Sketch: Office Song
A group of office workers break into song.
• Wow, Punkie’s had quite a busy night by her standards.
• Really creative use of office supplies as instruments.
• Ugh, they start singing “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”, one of my least favorite songs. Thankfully, this is cut off by Dafoe throwing a chair out of a glass window.
• After Dafoe’s little stunt gets him in trouble with Kenan as the boss, who’s car got destroyed when the chair landed on it, they give him a second chance, and the sketch skips ahead to the next day.
• The only repair they’ve done to the window is put yellow safety tape in front of it, which doesn’t help at all when Dafoe accidentally pushes Heidi out of the window.
• Not too bad for a five-to-one sketch.
Cut For Time: Nice Jail
A commercial that advertises an alternative to jail.
• I laughed at the opening shot of a Marriott hotel that has a banner sloppily draped over its sign reading “NICE JAIL!” The joke continues when we cut to the interior shot of Dafoe, as the sign behind him in the lobby also has a “NICE JAIL!” banner placed over it.
• I’m surprised Dafoe was able to get away with imitating the (apparently) black inmate his character used to have in jail.
• I don’t know why, but there’s something really funny about that name.
• I like how Punkie’s “glowing review” of Nice Jail is a complaint about how she got gypped into thinking this was a Marriott.
• Dafoe: “It’s not just nice, it’s Nice Jail.” Hilarious!
• While this was really funny, I can kind of see why it didn’t make the cut. It was a little too long.
Final thoughts: What’s this? Another good episode??? This is probably the best one we’ve had since Kate’s return. It helps that she was barely in it. As for Willem Dafoe, what else can I say? He was absolutely perfect! It’s almost like he’s been hosting this show for years.
And with that, my reviews are finally caught up with the show. Join me after the Olympics are over for my next one!
Best sketches: Tenant Meeting, Now I’m Up, The Mirror, Martin’s Friend, Office Song, Nice Jail (Cut)
Worst sketches: Cold Open, Nugenix, Katy Perry’s performances, Good Morning Columbus
Next review: John Mulaney. See you guys in a few weeks!
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