Cold Open
Katy Tur interviews the Chinese spy balloon after it has been shot down.
• Ugh at the fake Marjorie Taylor-Greene tweet.
• I don’t know who Thomas Hamilton is, but I’m sure he sounds nothing like Kenan’s impression. Also, nice obvious wig. I can see where it ends.
• DEAR GOD, NO!!!!! Bowen is playing the Chinese spy balloon!! As soon as I saw the subject of this cold open, I was fearing an appearance by him, but I had no idea they would have him play the balloon itself!
• Bowen is playing this role exactly as you would expect…gay as hell.
• You know what’s really sad? People actually eat this shit up! There’s a comment on the YouTube upload that says “Give Bowen a ‘playing inanimate objects’ Emmy already”. Whoever wrote that comment is fucking delusional. This isn’t funny, it’s extremely annoying and predictable.
• When the camera zooms in on Bowen at the end, the CGI water he’s in stays in place. That made me laugh more than the intended comedy here.
Monologue
Pascal talks about interacting with fans and filming The Last Of Us.
• Hey, remember the time when Pedro Pascal memorialized a child rapist on Twitter? That was awesome. Anyway, that has nothing to do with this monologue, so let’s move on.
• The audience goes wild for some reason when he says that the voice he uses for The Mandalorian is a “bedroom voice”. I take it there’s a lot of horny ladies in the building tonight.
• Boy, I sure am I glad that Kyle Mooney isn’t on anymore, because we would have had to sit through another Baby Yoda appearance here.
• I love the photos he shows of his Law and Order appearances, especially the one where he appears to be playing a Hasidic Jew.
• Nice ending where he delivers a message in Spanish to his relatives back in Chile. I like when we hear foreign hosts speak in their native language.
Sketch: The Big Hollywood Quiz
Contestants are baffled by movie trivia questions from the past few years,
• I like how we get a game show host with a normal name for once. Nice restraint on the part of Sublette.
• The big show tune Bowen sings as he introduces himself is an Anderlette trait that hasn’t been left out of this sketch, unfortunately.
• What is with the weird camera movement as Bowen introduces the first question? Is Michael J. Fox manning a camera tonight?
• Some nice satire here about how they can answer most of these questions with ease, but when it comes to one from the last few years, they’re stumped. I find that totally relatable, as I tend to feel that a lot of modern media is interchangeable and bland.
• While the premise does get a little stale after a while, there’s still enough funny lines scattered throughout.
Film: Mario Kart
A gritty reboot in the vein of The Last of Us…except it’s Mario!!!
• Uggggghhhhh, yet ANOTHER case of shilling for the upcoming Mario movie!!!
• Are these guys even aware that a gritty live-action Mario already exists? The 1993 movie beat them to it!
• At least Peach has a normal accent here, unlike…that other sketch that shall not be named.
• Pedro makes for a convincing Mario.
• Why is this a parody of Mario Kart and not the regular games? Just something odd that I noticed.
• Mikey’s Luigi is hilarious.
• Yoshi and Toad randomly revealing themselves to be bisexual after they introduce themselves is spot on to a lot of these adaptations changing characters’ sexualities.
• I knew they couldn’t resist a “LOL MARIO EATS SHROOMS!!!” joke. It’s 2023, and we’re still making those jokes?
• One thing I really like here is the announcer. Instead of it being Steve Higgins as usual, they get some other guy with a really unique voice.
• Despite all my complaints, this is a genuinely good film. Mikey and Streeter seem to really love writing gritty reboots of children’s properties, even if this one isn’t as good as the Sesame Street one they did a few years ago.
Sketch: Waking Up
A man wakes up from a coma and starts talking weird.
• Oh, fuck, I have a distinct memory of hating this sketch.
• Pedro immediately starts talking in a dopey millennial accent. Sure enough, Kent Sublette is credited as a writer for this.
• I like the random reveal that Pedro ended up in the hospital after getting hit by a Party City truck.
• Not only is this a “funny voice” sketch, but it’s also a “react” sketch! Lucky me…
• Twenty minutes later, this is still going on. I especially hate the really hacky joke where they try to have him identify various “b” words, and his accent renders them all indistinguishable from each other.
• As if this couldn’t get worse, Pedro has now started corpsing during his dramatic “heartwarming” speech at the end. Please end this already.
Sketch: Fancam Assembly
A teacher can’t figure out why students keep making fancams of him and other school staff. In other words, how do you do, fellow kids?
• It’s been quite a while since we had a sketch where they try to pander to the Internet crowd.
• Rather strangely, the song that plays during the fancams is a remix of the “Big Boys” song from Keke Palmer’s episode. I guess SNL is capitalizing on that song’s popularity with the TikTok crowd.
• Can we get one sketch where Bowen doesn’t act like a campy gay stereotype? If this keeps up, I may have to go back to my old Asian Terry Sweeney nickname for him.
• I don’t even know what the fuck a fancam is, but I’m not finding any of them funny.
• There’s a distracting extra in front of Ego who seems to be chewing something.
• Poor Molly had to get dragged into this as well.
• All of this internet slang they’re speaking in is hurting my soul.
• Extremely random Sarah Paulson cameo. Who the hell is that? Apparently she’s in a relationship with an 80 year old woman.
• That was an awful sketch. This episode just keeps getting worse.
Fake Ad: Wing Pit
A wing commercial goes off the rails.
• Pedro is totally believable as a rowdy Super Bowl fan.
• I love everyone’s faces as the food gets more and more unhealthy.
• The crazy turn this takes at the end is amazing. I always like it when SNL sketches go off the wall insane!
Musical Performance: “The Astronaut”
• This performance is really weird. It’s an English version of a BTS song, and there’s a spaceman rendering the lyrics in ASL. I kinda like it, though.
Weekend Update (featuring Punxsutawney Phil and Milly Pounds and Shirty)
• I am so bored by these two. Can we please get new anchors?
• Oh, wow, a “seen here” joke. Never seen that before!
• Oh, wow, a George Santos joke. Never seen THAT before!
• Michael Longfellow has another commentary! This time, he’s playing famous groundhog Punxsutawney Phil.
• Not sure how to react to that scene where he vapes on camera. Who does he think he is? Pete Davidson?
• I don’t quite get the joke about “a condom in Nick Cannon’s wallet”.
• Longfellow is pulling this off fine, but I don’t think I enjoyed it as much as the ones he’s done as himself.
• Ah, but now we have a commentary where Devon and JAJ play British rappers. This could be promising.
• Che: “You guys went to Eton?” Devon: “Yeah, Eton…Eton yer mom’s bum!”
• The crowd rightly gives them applause after their first song.
• I like how JAJ keeps bringing up his dairy allergies at some point in their raps.
• Overall, that was a pretty good commentary. JAJ’s great season continues!
Sketch: Protective Mom
A man introduces his girlfriend to his overprotective mom.
• OMG at the reveal of Pedro in drag. What is with male hosts dressing up in drag lately?
• Marcello and Pedro’s chemistry is pretty good. They’re delivering their Spanish dialogue flawlessly.
• I love some of the random English words they’re throwing into their conversations, like “unisex apparel”.
• Despite the inherent hackiness of a man in drag, this was a nice slice-of-life sketch, with the added novelty of it being about 60% in Spanish.
Sketch: Italian Waiters
Wacky Italian waiters give their customers compliments.
• Second sketch in a row that pairs Marcello and Pedro together.
• Yay!! More broad Italian stereotypes! Kent Sublette has been all over this episode.
• Word of advice for Kenan: never try to speak in an Italian accent again! You clearly weren’t made for it!
• I guess we can add Italian to the list of accents that Mikey can’t pull off.
• Extremely cliche ending where this turns out to be an ad for Big Boy Chili.
Musical Performance: “Human Heart”, “Fix You”
Sketch: Lisa From Temecula
Lisa from Temecula interrupts her sister’s birthday dinner.
• Oh, shit. Not this sketch. All I remember about this one is that there’s a lot of breaking in it.
• Second sketch in a row to use the same restaurant set.
• As much as I like Ego, I’m getting kind of tired of her playing this same type of role.
• And then, the corpsing starts. Pedro is the first one to lose it, and Bowen is trying to hold back his giggles, but everyone else is holding it together for the most part.
• Now Ego can’t keep it together anymore, and Punkie is joining in.
• Bowen just facepalmed, as if even he knows this sketch is too far gone to save.
• Molly is the only one who doesn’t break at any point.
• Overall, what a catastrophe. Unfortunately, this sketch blew up online due to all of the breaking, which leads SNL to bring this shit back in a later episode…but we’ll get to that.
Final thoughts: Oof, that was quite an experience. There was some okay stuff here, but a lot of it was extremely horrid. It certainly wasn’t Pedro’s fault, though. He seemed to be having fun.
Best sketches: Mario Kart, Coldplay’s performances, Milly Pence and Shirty commentary, Protective Mom
Worst sketches: Cold Open, Waking Up, Fancam Assembly, Italian Waiters, Lisa from Temecula
Next review: Woody Harrelson/Jack White. I recall there being some absolutely horrid material in this one.
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