Now we come to Season 49! I can’t believe I’ve been reviewing this show for seven seasons now!
Cold Open
Pete takes a moment to talk about the tragedies going on in Israel.
• Color me surprised, this is the best cold open we’ve had since…I don’t know, the last time we did something like this. As someone who doesn’t really care for Pete Davidson, I think he actually came off pretty good here.
• There’s really not too much I can say about this one, but I’m glad that none of my three predictions on what the cold open would be about came true. In case you’re curious, they were (1) some kind of tongue-in-cheek look at the writer’s strike, (2) Donald Trump, or (3) Donald Trump somehow being responsible for the writer’s strike.
Note: The intro is the same as last season, but we have a new cast member! Chloe Troast has joined…and I’ve never heard of her. Also, James Austin Johnson and Sarah Sherman have been promoted.
Monologue
Pete talks about Game of Thrones, Staten Island, and the first time he did stand-up.
• Pete was supposed to host last season before the strike happened. I think Jennifer Coolidge was also supposed to appear, and if that’s the case, thank goodness her episode got cancelled, because I wouldn’t have been able to take a sketch where she interacts with Chloe Fineman’s impression of her.
• I was expecting a serious monologue from Pete after what happened in the cold open, but instead I was greeted with incest jokes. Incest is soooo funny, right guys?!??
• He didn’t waste any time in getting back to his overused Staten Island jokes. Oh, and we get a pedophile priest joke too!
Sketch: NFL on FOX
The FOX crew is distracted by news of Taylor Swift.
• Ugh, I see Kenan is still on the show.
• Devon’s goofy smile as Michael Strahan made me chuckle.
• Molly is still being typecast as fat men, unfortunately.
• Are you kidding me? The first sketch of the season, and it’s about Taylor Swift and her stupid relationship with Travis Kelce, which is a story that we were all sick of hearing about in the week leading up to this episode.
• Adding further fuel to my hatred of this sketch is the fact that I don’t give two shits about football.
• Pete’s character added absolutely nothing to this.
• Oh, and just in case we didn’t get it, they have Kelce himself show up at the end!!!!
Film: I’m Just Pete
Pete sings about being himself.
• Ugh, we now get the return of those awful Pete Davidson raps that I haven’t missed.
• Even worse, the aesthetic of this is designed to look like that stupid overrated Barbie movie that everyone went crazy about during the summer. SNL, behind the times yet again!!!
• The thing I hate the most about this awful song is the way it treats his mental issues as just a big ol’ goof. Haha, isn’t bipolar disorder funny? Laugh, you sheeple!!!
Sketch: Wired Autocomplete Interview
The stars of a new show answer the most popular questions about themselves.
• How many times has Ego said “bitch” at this point? Frankly, it’s getting old.
• Unfortunately, the main joke of this sketch is Pete being humiliated for pooping his pants. That’s it.
• I saw the “twist” where the other characters’ questions bring it up coming from a mile away.
• No comment on the black box recording of Pete’s accident.
Sketch: Secretary
A lawyer takes on a new client with the help of his secretary.
• Bowen looks even gayer with a mustache on.
• Ugh, looks like we have our latest WACKY Heidi character! It should come as no surprise that Jimmy Fowlie and his new partner in crime Ceara O’Sullivan are responsible for this shit.
• JAJ is wasted with about fifteen seconds of screentime in this sketch.
• I do have to give major props to Heidi for making her pratfall through the desk look real.
Please Don’t Destroy: The Original Princes of Comedy
The guys look back on their past as child standup comedians.
• Our first Please Don’t Destroy sketch of the season. Hopefully it’s better than the disappointing one they ended Season 48 with.
• I like the footage of teenage Pete doing standup.
• We suddenly get a twist where we see what the three guys were like when they were kids.
• This setting immediately makes me think of the classic Kings of Catchphrase Comedy sketches (“BEEEEEEF JELLY!”).
• The stock footage of a rowdy black audience laughing is hilarious, as is the whole concept of young children performing Def Jam style comedy.
• All of the child actors match their grown-up counterparts to a tee, especially the one who plays Ben “Smoke Dog” Marshall.
• Random John Mulaney cameo for the first time since Season 47. I like how the black audience starts to leave as soon as he’s about to do an Ice-T impression.
Musical Performance: “In Ma Hood”
Weekend Update (featuring Christopher Columbus and Deion Sanders)
• We’re still getting a bunch of awful George Santos jokes.
• Bowen’s latest annoying commentary is as Christopher Columbus, which means we get yet another example of SNL’s recent obsession with cartoony Italian accents.
• Why isn’t Marcello playing Columbus? Oh wait, that would actually make sense, and we can’t have that, so let’s give him to the most annoying guy on the show!
• I did get a genuine laugh from the joke about Russell Brand.
• Another surprisingly good joke that Che gives Jost to read about black kids missing their fathers.
• Kenan’s playing yet another celebrity he shouldn’t be. This time it’s Deion Sanders. I did laugh at his introductory line, saying how much he liked the aforementioned black father joke.
• Most of this commentary is exactly what you’d expect from modern-day Kenan. There’s a gag that goes on for way too long where he reacts to all the college teams that are undefeated.
• A huge laugh at the clip of Sanders “rapping” from when he was a host in 1995 (one of the worst episodes ever).
• Surprisingly, this Update wasn’t as awful as I was fearing. There were barely any Trump jokes, and I laughed a worryingly high number of times.
Sketch: Spaceship
Two former co-workers reconnect while their spaceship is under attack.
• Michael Longfellow still exists!!!! And he has a pretty meaty role in this sketch as the captain!
• UGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!! Here we have yet ANOTHER campy gay stereotype character courtesy of Bowen Yang! This sketch was looking promising until he showed up. Why’d he have to ruin it?!??
• The writer’s guide on Reddit that I use doesn’t say who wrote this, but I’m fairly sure this is another Jimmy Fowlie “masterpiece”, perhaps in collaboration with Bowen.
• I think it was Stooge who pointed out that handlebar mustaches are automatically funny. Well, I’d like to point out that I think all mustaches are automatically funny, especially the type that Pete’s wearing here which makes him look like a child predator.
• Geez, this is still going on…
• At least this sketch ends with Bowen getting sucked into space.
Musical Performance: “Pretty Girl”
• UGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! Taylor Swift is there to introduce this song! “Hey guys, are we cool? We actually got Travis and Taylor to appear in our show!!!!” Gag me with a fucking spoon.
Sketch: Beach Day
A day at the beach doesn’t go as planned.
• Where the fuck has Sarah been this entire episode? This is only the first time she’s appeared.
• Pete has some very distracting tattoos on his legs.
• Holy crap, Andrew with a lead role!
• Andrew and Pete have great chemistry in this sketch. I wish we could have seen more of this while Pete was still on the show.
• The ending is extremely abrupt.
Sketch: Glamgina
A gynecologist tries a brand new product.
• Sorry, but I don’t buy Pete Davidson as a doctor.
• Suddenly, this turns into a commercial for vagina cream. Are the ESPN Classic guys ghostwriting for the show now?
• This has to be a sketch that Sarah wrote. Only she would come up with something like this.
• In a perfect summary of how SNL treats its newer cast members, Chloe Troast literally comes out of a closet in this sketch.
• As much as I like Sarah’s sketches, I think this needed a little more of a hook than just repeating the word “vagina” over and over again.
Sketch: Roadhouse Bar
Two men show off their extravagant new lifestyles at a bar.
• The lack of Kenan in this episode pleases me. We haven’t seen him since that Deion Sanders commentary on Update, and I think he was only in one other sketch before that.
• Andrew looks hilarious as a cowboy.
• Sweet, another sketch where Andrew and Pete interact with each other!
• I like the randomness of Andrew and Pete’s characters selling foot porn of themselves online.
• Funny twist where Pete reveals that the factory he used to work at is actually a Cheesecake Factory.
• This is a really, really weird sketch, but it actually turned out to be the best part of this entire episode!
Final thoughts: I honestly don’t know what to say about this episode. One part of me likes all the focus on newer cast members, but I also hate the copy-paste nature of a lot of the sketches. There was some absolutely atrocious material in here (looking at you, Bowen). As someone who doesn’t really like Pete Davidson, I don’t think he did too bad as a host. In fact, I might like him better as a host! The fact that we didn’t get a single mention of his love of weed is amazing!
Best sketches: Cold Open, The Original Princes of Comedy, Roadhouse Bar
Worst sketches: Wired Autocomplete Interview, Spaceship
Next review: Bad Bunny. Now that’ll be an interesting episode to talk about.
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