Adam Driver/Halsey (1.25.2020)

Okay, here's my review. This was the most woldly uneven episode in some time. Adam Driver as host may have been the best thing it had going for it. The show was front loaded with by-the-numbers recurring premises but at least the post-Update half of the show had plenty of original material. Even then, it seemed like the writers were going for tryhard edgelord moments too often (especially judging by some of the over the top reactions from the audience). I don't know if the show actually was trying to push the envelope or just having a mix of both Adam Driver's fans and Halseys' fans created a weird energy in the studio. I mean, this review was pretty easy for me to write as I found it so hard to get invested in most of the first half of the show I actually typed this while some sketches were being performed. I decided I wasn't going to give these recurring sketches my full undivided attention, but I didn't have this reaction to much of the second half of the show. Still, one positive is that the cast was balanced as far as airtime in a way that I could tell they were focusing more attention on the newer featured players (Ego, Heidi, Chloe, Bowen) and other cast members who only joined after season 41 (Mikey, Heidi, Melissa). When people like them are more visible on screen than veteran cast members like Kate, Cecily, Aidy and Alex you can tell there will be at least some change on the horizon. Anyway, let's break it down, shall we?

Dershowitz In Hell - Boy, isn't it always when you think you've had it with the overload of outside cameos in political roles that they bring in a former cast member that you're actually pleasantly surprised to see on the show for the first time on nearly a decade? Jon Lovitz seemed to enjoy just playing himself again rather than even attempt to do an actual Alan Dershowitz impression. Hell, I was half-expecting Mulaney as he's the last person we saw playing Alan Dershowitz on SNL but people were saying he'd be too busy to host in the second half of this season so how the hell could he even cameo? Still, Jon Lovitz was the best thing about this. I chuckled myself at the same time he did, honestly. In spite of some of the more questionable choices they made here, I did like how they REALLY went outside the box for this one. I mean, they pretty much had no other choice seeing as these initial proceedings in the Trump Impeachment trial turned out to be so dull that I'm not even sure what kind of hook SNL could find for it. Hell, if anything about it really stuck out in anyone's mind I don't know if Alan Dershowitz being one of Trump's defense attorneys was it. I'm not sure what to make of Kate basically just playing a gender swapped version of Sudeikis' Devil but it didn't really detract from the sketch at all. The only thing I genuinely liked about Adam's role was hearing him get such big applause and having that turn into such shock as soon as Lovitz told us all just who he was playing. Yeah, I barely see any resemblance between Driver and Epstein (even if Lorne had made Adam shave before the show I still don't think I'd be able to see it) but now I kinda feel bad for him just imagining the ration of shit he must be getting on Twitter right now. Say what you will about the current state of SNL, but I at least thought they would've had too much class to start relying on the cheap "Epstein Didn't Kill Himself" jokes that have plagued David David Spade's new Comedy Central show as well as some of the darker corners of the internet but at least it's still interesting to watch when the show takes SOME chances even if they don't pay off. For instance, it was fun to watch Adam stand there and relish the audience's reaction to his "women my own age" joke while Beck and Jon just awkwardly avoided eye contact. Speaking of Beck, it was nice to see they went with some more realistic looking prosthetics for his Mitch McConnell. I also liked how he chose to pronounce the word "hoax" as "hoe-axe". I also didn't mind seeing Cecily's Susan Collins once more even if it's starting to blend together with her Janeane Pirro. The rest of the walk ons in this sketch just felt too needlessly tacked on for my liking but at least it was intriguing to see how much of a dead ringer Heidi Gardner is for Stephanie "Flo" Courtney. C+

Monologue - It's funny how the hosts of the "That Week In SNL" podcast just covered the Peter Saarsgard episode from 2006 because this monologue felt a lot like that one with shades of Jonah Hill '08, Vince Vaughn '13 and Jim Parsons '14 with Ryan Gosling '17 playing in the background. I'm sure there's more that I couldn't think of but Adam Driver really elevated this. He had several great lines (too many to list here) and was able to handle self deprecation well. It's really a testament to Driver's abilities as host that he can so easily make several played out SNL host monologue tropes this much fun. B-

Slumber Party - When I saw this being set up during the commercial, I thought it was a retread of those Ryan Gosling & Drake hot dad/ slumber party sketches just from seeing Aidy dressed as a teen in a basement with other similarly dressed female cast members. I mean, I could totally see this cast wanting to do another one of those with Driver for some reason but I was wrong. It turned out to be a retread of the "Couples Quiz" sketch from Jonah Hill's '14 episode. I'm sure there were other sketches SNL has done in the past where someone denies something they very obviously did but for some reason I can't vote a specific example. Maybe other sketch shows have done this more than SNL has (I'm thinking Key & Peele, maybe?) but it just feels like something I've seen before somewhere in sketch comedy. As much as I feel like Kate in general has given us all she can on the show at this point, her decidedly non-teenlike character choices in this really stood out to me. I also like Driver's description of exactly how badly his bathroom got wrecked followed by his even more outlandishly over the top description of how they tried to cover it up. B+

Undercover Ren - Well, if they were going to repeat this once viral basic premise beat by beat (and I totally see why they would given that Mikey cowrote the last one and he's still on the show) I'm glad to see that they had Kylo Ren play a different character than Matt, the Radar Technician. Still, the rest of it did play out exactly like the first one  and for some reason I just don't see this one becoming a mega viral meme the way the first one did. I mean, I still enjoyed just as much. It had its moments it but at times it came across as trying a little too hard. I could easily see people who made the first one such a viral hit just comparing this one too unfavorably to it. C+

Del Taco Shoot - This sketch got pretty repetitive and grating to me quickly but Drivers' performance and the sheer physicality of it helped save it. Also, it was well paced for what it was. Really, the worst thing I can say about it is that it was a huge waste of Chloe. C+

The Science Room - Well, I don't think I'd ever see this becoming one of this era's many recurring premises (and not just for the seemingly most obvious reason). Still, I have to admit this sketch seemed to be a more natural fit for Adam Driver's image and acting abilities than those of Sam Rockwell so if we had to see this again I'm glad they did this with a host like Adam. Other than that, it was the second unnecessary recurring piece in a row that hit the exact same beats as the first one. The only thing about this one that stood out to me were the "guy comes first" jokes which seem to fit in with tonight's theme. C+

Slow - This is the most basic sketch I've seen on SNL in a very long time. It's also one of the most insanely yet very subtly meta ones as it was a very "slow" build up to an insanely fast and quick punchline. Adam's inhumanely low baritone provided my only real laughs here but Halsey, Heidi and Ego played off the guys expertly. C+

Update felt largely unremarkable tonight as a whole. As I suspected, most of the material they could muster on the impeachment trial was how boring it turned out to be so far and somehow it could only be saved by Josts' jabs at Trump's lack of focus and Jeters' hall of fame induction followed Che's jabs at American destabilization of foreign countries (oddly the third thing they bought back from Sam Rockwell's episode it seems). Speaking of which, Che seemed to have quite a few try hard edgy jokes tonight but I'm quite surprised his black naval carrier and Mr. Peanut jokes got stronger reactions than his equal pay one. I don't think even the show itself thought we needed to see Aidy's seventh grade travel correspondent again (and this wasn't much different from previous installments either) but maybe this is another hint that this is Aidys' last season? Obviously, Melissa's commentary was the sole genuine highlight of tonight's Update mostly because the show seems to have finally figured out how to fully showcase her unique voice and let her be herself for once (showing that they may have actually hired her for more than just female impressions after all). I especially liked how she made Colin buckle at reading lines of his cur cards that make him seem way more unlikable than some people already percieve him to be. I mean, it's pretty much a watered down version of what he and Che do whenever they exchange unseen jokes at the end or midpoint of the season but if her material can get even that close to the same reaction, she must have always been doing something right. I was kinda expecting each "song" to be different but I still liked the overall point she tried to make about this year's Oscar's and if anything is going to get me to actually check out Melissa's actual music she's been putting out, this would likely be it. C+

Medieval Times - This felt at once unique to this era of the show and like something the show could've done in the past. Thankfully, it seems like they were holding onto this and decided to wait to do it until they had just the right host and just the right twist on such a premise. Needlessly, Adam and Mikey really carried this. C+

Cheer - I didn't know this show was a big enough deal that it had earned an SNL parody but somehow this worked for me. I liked the fact that nobody was cut from the team despite everyone having cartoonishly grave injuries. I also liked how you barely had to be familiar with just the general concept of cheerleading in general let alone this specific show to be able to get this. I also liked how well this used Chloe, Ego and Halsey. I thought Anderson and Sublette might have been behind this until I realized that Cecily was nowhere to be seen in it and that they rarely ever write any parodies of specific things in current pop culture. So, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that either Bowen wrote this or whoever was behind this season's "Love Island" parody. B+

Ketchup Affair - Okay, there's a better chance that Anderson and Sublette wrote this. I say this not just because Cecily was the female lead but also because it was just as over the top as some of their stuff tends to be. If it wasn't them, then it could've been Jost or Moffat as they seem to like the types of cheap puns that this sketch gave us. The cast really elevated this and the small assists from Kyle, Aidy and Heidi really made this for me. C+

Now, for my updated rankings of this entire season...

1. Eddie Murphy/Lizzo
2. David Harbour/Camilla Cabello
3. Chance The Rapper
4. Phoebe Waller-Bridge/Taylor Swift
5. Woody Harrelson/Billie Eilish
6. Scarlett Johansson/Niall Horan
7. Adam Driver/Halsey
7. Jennifer Lopez/DaBaby
8. Will Ferrell/King Princess
9. Harry Styles
10. Kristen Stewart/Coldplay

Now, just for fun, I'd like to rank each of Driver's episodes from best to worst.

1. Adam Driver/Chris Stapleton (1.16.2016)
2. Adam Driver/Halsey (1.25.2020)
3. Adam Driver/Kanye West (9.29.2018)

Well, that was certainly one way SNL could've entered its fifth decade on the air. Next week, football's J.J. Watt makes his hosting debut. Well, I suppose we were due for another jock host but at least I can be thankful it was one who was a guest star on "The League" at one point in his career. See you then!