Cold Open: The Situation Room
George Santos resigns from the Senate in grandiose fashion.
• Already a big groan from seeing Sarah in drag as Wolf Blitzer. Why can’t they let James do it?!?
• *Bowen appears as George Santos for the one millionth time as I scream towards the heavens and proceed to break everything in the house*
• I refuse to say anything more about this Godawful impression, but at least this is hopefully the last time we will ever see it!!!!
Monologue
Emma is inducted into the Five-Timers Club.
• Emma Stone is the last person I would have expected to host five times.
• I was about to wonder if she really met her husband here, but then it cut to Lorne and I immediately knew it had to be a joke.
• Yawn, a Tina Fey cameo. She appears basically once a season at this point so it’s hard to get excited.
• Candice Bergen looks like a mummified corpse. I did like her joke about Martin Short peering into the Women’s Section of the Five-Timers Club.
• Nice tribute to Candice’s father Edgar Bergen when she claims she saw a creepy ventriloquist there, even if Tina somewhat ruins the joke by claiming it was John Mulaney (speaking of which, where the hell has he been?).
• Overall, not too bad, but I wonder why they only brought out two members this time. Where the hell is Steve?
Sketch: Question Quest
A game show host tries to pawn off his pet tortoise to contestants.
• No comment on the host’s name being “Joe Vibin”. Get it? Cuz it kinda sounds like Joe Biden!!! Herp-a-derp!!!
• Thank God Michael Longfellow gets a lead role as the host. Apparently he wrote this.
• I laughed at the joke about Heidi’s character being the oldest woman in the Navy, before she corrects Longfellow and says that she works at Old Navy.
• I absolutely love all the airtime Punkie has been getting lately! She has a really big showcase coming up later in this episode…
• Not sure about this twist where the host tries to pawn off his pet tortoise.
• I liked Longfellow’s line about how people who study tortoises die before the tortoises do.
• Pointless appearance from Molly as “Silent Lettuce-Throwing Lady”.
• Apparently the trivia question about Charles Darwin and Steve Irwin owning the same tortoise is true and not just something they came up with for this.
• Overall, I liked what this was going for, and Longfellow gave a great performance, but it dragged in places and probably should have been cut down by a couple minutes.
Film: Fully Naked in New York
A group of people shares what cheers them up during winter…getting naked!
• Didn’t we just have Bowen singing earlier? Not exactly something I want to see twice in one episode.
• Oh. My. God. Naked Bowen Yang is something that I never wanted in my life…
• I think I mentioned this last time, but the heavy use of Auto-Tune in these musical films makes everything sound so fake. It’s hard to praise the vocals when you know that they don’t really sound this good.
• Speaking of vocals, at least Chloe Troast’s voice still sounds pretty good with enhancement.
• I’m sure the writers of this thought that the visual of everybody getting naked was enough to make us laugh. Well, they’re wrong. It gets old after about twenty seconds and then you’re just waiting for it to end.
Sketch: Tree Lighting Gig
Treece Henderson performs at a Christmas tree lighting ceremony.
• Really? This guy again? This is the first time we’ve seen him since the Season 47 finale. Unsurprisingly, this also means that James Anderson (a.k.a. “The Gay Stepin Fetchit”) came back to write this sketch.
• Kenan’s line about his “coccyx” is a typical James Anderson “joke”. As in, it wasn’t funny.
• More Andersonisms include “funny” names, which we get here with “Charlie Darken” and “Sheila Foods”. Ugh.
• Since Kyle Mooney is gone, the character that he usually played in these is replaced with one played by Bowen. And we get yet another Anderson trait with his character’s bizarre specific hairstyle.
• Man, Bowen is mugging up a storm. Also, he’s clearly not playing his keyboard, as his hand movements don’t match the actual sounds.
• I did get a laugh at this line from Kenan: “What are you, a human dumbass?!?”
• Overall, I don’t mind this character compared to some of Anderson and Sublette’s other characters, but I definitely didn’t need to see him again. Hope he stays retired for good this time.
Please Don’t Destroy: AI
A hard drive malfunction means that artificial intelligence has to be used to complete the latest Please Don’t Destroy film.
• Interesting idea for a short…
• Punkie’s great season continues, as we now get a hilarious visual of Emma Stone’s face poorly mapped over her own.
• The fact that she’s not even attempting to act like Emma is what makes this particularly great.
• The only thing that hurts this sketch are the constant annoying disclaimers. We can see what’s happening on our own, thank you!
• Now the AI face is having a hard time keeping up with Punkie’s movements, even being upside down at one point. You can even hear the crew telling her to stand still!
• Another great moment where we see that Marcello had to fill in for Ben Marshall. Great night for the featured players so far!
• Not a big fan of John Higgins “yassifying” his looks, but I do like the random backstage scene of him hitting a guy with a glass bottle.
• I like how they don’t even bother to cover up Punkie’s face at the end when she and Martin kiss.
• Despite the annoying disclaimers, I thought this was the best Please Don’t Destroy film we’ve had since the one in the season premiere.
Sketch: What’s in the Kiln?
Two pottery show hosts praise misshapen items.
• “Judy Frizz”? Whatever these writers are getting paid, it’s not enough.
• Anyway, the fact that this sketch stars both Heidi and Chloe is enough to make me worry.
• Yep, so far, this sketch is a whole lotta nothing.
• Heidi hasn’t been too annoying this season, but her performance here is straight out of Season 48.
• Emma’s character is doing nothing to save this.
• Overall, that was one of the most pointless sketches I’ve ever seen.
Musical Performance: “Dial Drunk”
Weekend Update (featuring An Old Fashioned Cigarette)
• What the fuck is “Shantay You Stay/Sashay Away” supposed to be about?
• Horrible joke trying to compare Rosalynn Carter’s death to being Donald Trump’s husband.
• I liked the picture of Biden used for the ice rink joke.
• First commentary for Michael Longfellow all season. I’m surprised it’s taken him this long after he was on every other episode last year. He’s playing a giant living cigarette, who’s here to talk about Australia banning disposable vapes.
• Colin: “I don’t smoke.” Cigarette: “What, are your parents watching tonight?”
• I like when he tries to egg Colin into saying the British term for a cigarette…which I’m going to leave for you to search up for yourselves. Even better is his response when Colin refuses to say it: “Relax, no one’s gonna take it out of context and make it into a meme!”
• Nice photoshopped image of Hitler vaping.
• I think this is probably Longfellow’s best commentary yet! So many great lines and zingers here!
• I love Colin’s joke about tuba music playing while fat people walk.
• Even Che’s WNBA joke made me laugh.
• A surprisingly okay Update once they got all of the political jokes out of the way.
Sketch: Make Your Own Kind of Music
Mama Cass discusses the potential of her new single.
• Thank goodness they chose Chloe Troast to play Mama Cass, and not the other Chloe. Can you imagine how awful that would have been?
• Cass’s backup band consists of writers Gary Richardson, Ben Silva, and Will Stephen, as well as production assistant Megan Stollsteimer.
• I appreciate the restraint in not making any fat jokes
• Ugh, Emma just showed up in drag as Mama Cass’s manager. At least it’s not Sarah again.
• Manager: “This song’s gonna be everywhere, Mama! And then everybody’s gonna forget about it for a long, long time.”
• Mikey does a great job pretending to get “shot”.
• I like how the framerate drops during the scenes where Emma is demonstrating the potential uses of the song. Almost like you’re watching a movie. It isn’t perfect, though, and there’s a few glitches that seem to have been corrected in the online version.
• I came into this expecting to hate Emma’s scenes, but I’m actually liking them a lot more this time.
• Nice hypothetical situation where the song is used to score a trailer about Joan of Arc’s dead body rising from its grave.
• Of course, the reason this sketch works so well is Troast’s beautiful performance. I hope they keep giving her meaty roles like this!
Musical Performance: “Stick Season”
Sketch: Posters
Living posters dispense advice on physics to a kid.
• Not this shit again. Why do they always have to do this sketch when Emma hosts?
• Marcello replaces Pete Davidson as the kid. He’s a lot more believable in this role than Pete ever was.
• I actually laughed out loud at Mikey’s horrendous David Beckham impression. It’s like he finally realized how bad he is at British accents, so he decided to camp it up to a comedic degree.
• Nice name for Kenan’s character: “Troy ‘The Toothtaker’ McCoy”.
• Emma’s character is still annoying.
• We at least get a satisfying ending where Ego assaults Emma.
Film: Diet Coke by Olay
The drink that’s also a facial cleanser.
• Nice to see a commercial featuring the female cast. Almost like this is the mid-2000s again.
• Interesting concept…
• Hilarious shots of the ladies gleefully splashing Diet Coke on their faces.
• I love Sarah’s expression after accidentally shaking the jar.
• One of the best commercial parodies I’ve seen in a while, plus I got some nice eye candy.
Final thoughts: Not too bad, actually. There were some weaker sketches here and there (looking at you, Bowen!) but the highs were really high.
Best sketches: AI, Cigarette commentary, Make Your Own Kind Of Music, Diet Coke by Olay
Worst sketches: Cold Open, What’s In The Kiln, Posters
Next review: Adam Driver/Olivia Rodrigo
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