Adam Sandler/Shawn Mendes (5.4.2019)

Okay, here's my review. This is definitely a strong contender for the single best show of this entire season. Sandler wasn't as disinterested or as disappointing of a host as I was picturing he was going to be. He fit in well with this cast and the staff played to his sensibilities well without completely abandoning their own. He clearly boosted morale around studio 8H this week. Still, the extra focus on him made most of the rest of the cast invisible. It felt like Kate, Kenan, Pete, Beck, Kyle and Mikey almost dominated the show this week and everyone else made just two sketch appearances tops. The show overall started off good, sputtered a bit post monologue and then picked up a lot of momentum near the end. Let's break it down, shall we?

Family Feud: Game Of Thrones vs. Avengers - I did like the C-SPAN/Barr whatever-the-opposite-of-bait-and-switch fakeout (hell, I was already expecting this weeks' cold open to be that for real to begin with even if it was kind of a thin story) and I usually like the Celebrity Family Feud sketches (if Kenan didn't just announce he was staying until at least 2020 I'd think this was another subtle hint he was leaving in two weeks) but I admit this does make me feel a little like I'm missing out on something here since I haven't any recent episodes of "Game Of Thrones" or any of the MCU flicks (don't worry, I'm not the type of guy who makes bragging about this his entire personality or anything). Still, I like that they wrote this in a way that makes it so you don't have to be so emotionally invested in these franchises to get any of the jokes besides the sheer aesthetics of Leslie as Groot, Beck as Thanos and Melissa as Arya Stark. Good on them for finding a role for Ego (even if she's playing the real version of a knockoff she portrayed in the last live show.) Plus, it feels a little weird to see a Family Feud sketch as the cold open with another group LFNY in this Trump era. Also, I'm a bit surprised that they didn't do anything Sandler centric for the cold open if they were going to go with something lighter on politics and heavier on current pop culture. I thought they would want to acknowledge Sandler's as early as they possibly could given that they were hyping up his first hosting stint ever in 24 years that it turned out to be. Still, even though it seemed like low hanging fruit for a show of SNLs' status and came across more like the type of Family Feud parody that MAD TV would do if it were still on today this was a decent way to sort of hook and reel in that segment of the audience who are bigger fans of Sandler and his era of the show than the current one and would thus be more put off by the show's current affinity for political humor than anything. B-

Monologue - It's nice to see they could write a monologue for Sandler that turned out to be exactly what I couldn't NOT picture an Adam Sandler hosting monologue to be (except I pictured him with a guitar instead of a microphone and I also pictured Spade making a walk on instead of Pete). Rock, is a surprisingly decent singer by the way. This was very funny and a great way to really get the show started for the longtime casual fans who are tuning in for the first time in decades just to see Sandler. It was also nice to see Sandler finally set the record straight on his departure from Studio 8H after hearing a few conflicting stories over the years. I also thought his cracks about Norm MacDonalds' advanced age and losing his virginity to the Church Lady behind the scenes at age 23 were real funny. A-

CNN Snapchat Report - This seemed like it was going to be a very one note piece once it got going but thankfully Beck and Sandlers' performances were able to breathe some life into it. Mikey was also in this, so I think it's safe to assume he and Streeter wrote this (especially because it reuses their trope of Cecily being the only news anchor taking the report seriously as opposed to co-anchor Beck as we saw when Margot Robbie introduced us to Matt Shatt and when Saiorse Ronan informed us of an explosion inside an American Girl doll store). C+

Clothes Are Holes - This was definitely the weakest segment of the night. It seemed like it was going to be a goofy song that would be right up Sandler's alley but he ended up appearing far too little and far too late into this for something that Beck and Kyle seemingly tailor made for him. While I liked how theatrical and over the top it was, I still found it to be far too long for it's own good. It was too repetitive for how extremely juvenile and one joke it was. The only thing really worth chuckling at was the "buttholes at your funeral" line. Beck and Kyle usually do well with absurdist surreal humor but they shouldn't ever try to go full Tim & Eric dadaist with it because they can't quite pull it off the same way. Still, I'd be interested to see what late '80s/early '90s era obscure art rock/medal video this had to have been based on. It suggests a mix of Kenny G, Bon Jovi and Guns N' Rose's. Who was playing the colonial law maker? D+

Romano Tours - Having seen the actual Ron Perillo Italian Tour as these are very loosely based on, I'm a bit surprised someone found a way to mine some comedy out of this. Still, it was very funny. It seemed to just expand one one simple premise in a similar way that the previous Good Neighbor piece did, but this was less an absurd, ironically minimalist observational piece and more of a premise based piece stemming from a very real part of the human condition. Plus, benefitted from having a LOT more substance to it to explore which kept it from being too long for it's own good. Strangely, Aidy and Kenan added more to it than Alex and Kate did. What particularly made me laugh was the yoga pose being labeled as "this" and the "sad you/can & cannot" charts. B-

Sandler Family Reunion - Well, mega kudos to whoever on the internet predicted they would literally do this exact thing. I mean, since they did it with Jim Carrey this seemed like the next logical step. Kyle and Mikey's impressions of generic Billy Madison era Sandler really made this for me as did Melissas' Waterboy. Shawn Mendes seemed awkwardly shoehorned into this sketch but it's nice to know he's something of a Sandler fan as well. I had this theory that Mendes was mostly booked as MG (and always oddly seems to be booked on the show right around the time Emma Stone hosts for some reason) because Sandler may have daughters who are fans of his music so it's nice to know they could be at SNL because they are mutual fans of each other. Pete and Beck did passable Little Nicky/Wedding Singer impressions. It's been so long since I've seen Happy Gilmore that I barely remember the character that Leslie was portraying but she was still entertaining nonetheless. Wiigs' first completely unexpected cameo of the night doing a bit from one of Sandler's albums was a somewhat welcome surprise. Fallon was someone I was much less surprised to see cameo on the show but his bit was all right. It seems natural that tonight of all nights he would do the impression that supposedly secured him his spot in the cast when he auditioned. I'm glad this was more focused on his movie career and not any of the sketch characters he did on this show. Those would've warranted their own separate sketches anyway which they wouldn't want to deprive the audience of or make it feel like overkill if they included in this. I also liked how much more straightforward and right-to-the-point this felt compared to the last two "(Host)'s Family Reunion" sketches which kinda dragged with all the references they tried to pack in. B-

Rectix - Well, we've ruled out everything else that Sandler, Smigel, Herlihy and Koren obviously did NOT write so this definitely has to at least be the second thing at least one of them wrote tonight. Strangely, it seemed to have some of the same crude sensibilities of most '90s era comedy but the production value and execution of SNLs' modern incarnation so there's a chance this could also be at least the partial brainchild of a current staff member as well. I did like how gradually they revealed that this "pill" was just a vibrating butt plug that is also, for some reason, dishwasher safe. B-

Update was consistently solid throughout. Jost and Che had great Barr material to start off with. The rest was a bit shaky but still good. Kate's Elizabeth Warren somehow gets funnier everytime they use her. I'm impressed by how they are able to write better and better material for her. After being on pins and needles throughout all of Update, I was glad my suspicions that they'd never let him get away with not doing Operaman turned out to be unfounded. This made my whole night complete as surreal as it was to see a now middle aged and unshaven Operaman in HD on the opposite side of the desk against an all blue background instead of an all white one. I especially liked how even the Trump jokes somehow didn't feel too forced or played out (probably given how Sandler made jokes about Trump as Operaman even when he was still in the cast and Trump was just a tacky, unfaithful NY real estate developer). Sadly, I'm not following the lead up to the NBA playoffs (or basketball in general right now) close enough to be able to appreciate the Draymond/Durant joke. The Rogen/Bernie/Biden jabs were also very funny. It was fun to see Adam call out Seth for stealing his old movie formula. That gave mr call backs to that Tom Hanks/Billy Madison joke from season 20. The Game of Thrones/HBO joke felt a little dated in 2019 for some reason (especially since it came after Josts' "10 HBOGO passwords joke") A-

Sheila Sovage IX - I should've seen this coming since Sandler does fit into the both the molds of the "generic older Male" and "comedy legend" type hosts they usually do these with. Wiigs' surprise appearance wasn't as much a hindrance to this as she seemed to restrain herself more here. Everyone turned in a string of solid sight gags as usual, especially Kenan. I do like that they are adding a little more variation to these as well by having Kate encounter different types of relationships. Last time with Schumer, it was some lesbian experimentation. This time, it's a threesome with a poly couple. C+

Chris Farley's Song - Even though this was lifted directly from his recent Netflix special (well, rewritten slightly to edit out the f-bombs and s-bombs for network television) it was a very touching, poignant and fitting way to end Sandler's first hosting stint. I guess the show ran long and they had to choose which if the last two pieces they were going to cut and naturally decided to take out whatever wasn't this song. He seemed a lot more visibly choked up singing this on SNL than he did on his Netflix special. I guess doing this song in the place where it all started for both of them hit him twice as hard.

Cut For Time: Chads' Journey (https://youtu.be/Ivxx_grnL2c) - They must've either cut this to make room for the Farley song or just because they did another "Chad" film fairly recently (the last time an alumni hosted two months ago) but I'm glad to see my vague prediction that Sandler and Davidson would play Father and son in something came to fruition. It was decent enough for something where Mikey had to do all the emotional labor and I liked how they vary the settings and dialogue more in these each time they try them. B-

Now for my updated rankings of the season so far...

1. Adam Sandler/Shawn Mendes
2. John Mulaney/Thomas Rhett
3. Seth Meyers/Paul Simon
4. Matt Damon/Mark Ronson & Miley Cyrus
5. Rachel Brosnahan/Greta Van Fleet
6. James McAvoy/Meek Mill
7. Adam Driver/Kanye West
8. Emma Stone/BTS
9. Idris Elba/Khalid
10. Halsey
11. Kit Harrington/Sara Bareilles
12. Sandra Oh/Tame Impala
13. Don Cheadle/Gary Clark Jr.
14. Steve Carrell/Ella Mai
15. Jason Momoa/Mumford & Sons
16. Claire Foy/Anderson .Paak
17. Liev Schreiber/Lil Wayne
18. Jonah Hill/Maggie Rogers
19. Awkwafina/Travis Scott

Well, that turned out to be just about everything the show and it's audience needed right now. Next week, Emma Thompson makes her hosting debut after backing out during the year BEFORE Sandler and Farley got fired. She seems like a strong choice for a host, but for some reason she seems to me like one of those actresses who would be better suited to host in March/April or October/December rather than any of the Sweeps months but I guess she's hosting in May because this is when her new movie comes out (which also seems to be her first foray into even light comedy at all, as far as I know). The Jonas Brothers are her musical guest and I honestly can't tell whether they seem more out of place on the show now or ten years ago when they were first on as a group. Oh, well. See you then!