Okay, here's my review. I wasn't even sure I was going to be able to review this at first but I ended up having enough stray thoughts throughout this show that I couldn't resist dropping into my Discord group chat (the only people who read these to my knowledge, by the way) that I thought deserved to be expanded upon (and certain people in said Discord were dead set on convincing me to do this) that I figured out how to put together a blog post that didn't seem like a complete copy and paste job. In fact, it feels so strange to be even attempting to review or even thoughtfully criticize this particular episode given the circumstances that I still question whether this is even something I even SHOULD be putting out but really, what much else is there one COULD be doing on a Saturday night right now? Anyway, the show felt slightly uneven but still, I thought they did a great job putting on a professional looking show done 100% remotely. At times, it felt less like SNL and more like it was some newer, fresher sketch show but in a way that also illustrated how much SNL could use substantial structural change (especially within it's own writing staff). A new aesthetic is nice but doesn't quite make one forget what crutches the show still tends to lean on. You may get to see what I mean as we move along.
Cold Open - Part of me was a little disappointed that this was obviously not "live" enough that they absolutely HAD to air it coast to coast but then again, they obviously needed more than two days notice that they were really gonna do this. Hell, this material genuinely seems like they'd been working on it for at least two weeks. They can't truly do this live coast to coast and still be able to air something acceptable enough for a major TV network. They had to take as much time as necessary to make this look as polished as the circumstances would allow. I guess I'll have to watch the archive of this week's Saturday Night Quarantine. Sorry Ian, but at least you can find some solace in the fact that they can't do exactly what you do under these same circumstances. I did like that they went to the trouble of filming a whole new "at home" title sequence with Lenny Pickett and the band. That was fun. I did like the brief shot of Jost having a doll tea party and other glimpses of the cast's "at home" lives. The only thing that disappointed me was that this ended up being the only appearances of the night for Cecily, Melissa and Bowen. I sure hope they and their respective families are doing well through this.
Monologue - It's obvious why they booked Tom as the "host" but I do still has to wonder for a moment if Hanks was originally booked as tonight's host before all TV production just had to be shut down. I'm guessing Martin might have been booked already? Nah, he doesn't really seem like the type of musical guest they would want to book two seasons in a row nowadays let alone twice on the same season. Hanks said he was filming a movie that he had to shave his head for but it's obviously not coming out soon for a couple of reasons. I don't think he had anything out currently so he must have been a last minute booking. I did like his Australian Farenheit joke but I did worry that Hanks punchline about Hollywood actresses ages might invite criticism of the show being out of touch and performatively liberal and whatever else Jack Allison would probably say but it seems people kinda glossed over this (and Larry's cameo surprisingly) in favor of Update and Kate's RBG sketch. I did appreciate how he cut his "audience" Q&A bit short since it wasn't really working for me.
Drake Song - I liked this a lot more than a lot of the raps and music videos Pete did alongside Chris in recent years. It seemed to have a lot smoother and aesthetically pleasing production value. I did like seeing the soft focus on alternate takes of Pete's current intro shot thrown in there. The only thing that felt off about it was that I'm not sure I've heard a Drake song that was produced like that in a few years. In fact, I don't think his music is the big reason people still talk about Drake now. This seems like Pete finally getting to execute something he's been trying to get on the air from his early years as a featured player that never even made it to rehearsal day.
RBG's Workout Corner - As much as I feel I've seen enough of Kate's "Ginsburns" for one lifetime at this point, I did enjoy the ultra minimalist way they pulled this off. I also liked how this paired with Pete's first number gave me the impression that this was going to be each cast member getting their own solo showcase even though it quickly became apparent that would not be the case here.
SalesCorp Industries - Ok, I guess a Zoom parody was inevitable and this was ok and all but I the only things I didn't like were how this felt less and less like improv as it went on and the feeling that Kate and Aidy were gonna dominate this, too. This kinda paled in comparison to the debut of these characters' debut in the Idris Elba ep from last year but I liked how they kinda snuck them on us in this format and how quick on their feet they seemed to be in adding this to the show.
A Message From Bernie Sanders - This seemed like kind of a mixed bag at first but I ended up liking it a lot more than Larry's traditional live in studio appearances as Bernie from the first part of this season. Hell, that "Joe Biden voted for the Iraq War" punchline is unusually pointed for modern day SNL. If anything, this piece kinda highlights how much SNL's modern day political writing relies more on performance (Larry has never seemed more "as himself" as Bernie than he did here but in a way that actually improved this piece) and playing/projecting to the live audience (especially the upper seats) than actually making any politically aware points.
MasterClass - I do like that Chloe got a multi impression showcase but I'm not crazy about the fact that a global pandemic was what it took for that to happen. Her Jojo Siwa/Carole Baskin impressions were a bit of a misfire as I'm not familiar enough with either of them to judge the accuracy or the humor of the impressions but Chloe's actual performances won me over. Come to think of it, I'm not sure I've seen that much of Timothee Chalamet in anything to really get where that impression came from but Chloe managed to make a woman playing a man (or in this case an adult woman playing a male teen actor) in the Kate McKinnon SNL era fresh and engaging and that's an impressive feat all its own.
Update was an odd low point for the show (especially considering this was the tentpole segment they used to promote this) but Jost and Che did redeem themselves at the end. At a certain point, having an actual audience laughing remotely seemed to hurt this Update more than help it. If that was the actual cast instead of the writers, I really hope they hadn't seen any of these jokes beforehand. Che had the stronger material and was really solid here especially since he was likely still grieving his own grandmother as he filmed this. The Fauci accent joke from Jost was ok but "Trump and Biden are comedy gold" seems like a horribly outdated take (and he had the sheer balls to follow that up with a "Kylie Jenner/Now's Not The Time" joke). Besides that, no other jokes stood out to me. The best things I can say about the Baldwin/Trump cameo was that it was audio only and that I liked his "reverse Homer Simpson" joke. It really felt too much like material Trevor Noah would do on and "off night" for The Daily Show than anything that SNL would do. The joke swap hoax in tribute to Che's grandma was the true highlight of this. Those bits always work on a traditional Jost/Che Update and in this instance they really did it at a point where they had nowhere to go but upward.
Bailey At The Movies - Even though Heidi is hitting a lot of the same beats as usual here, I do like how they chose to take her teen YouTuber character out from behind the Update desk and have Heidi film an actual YouTube video. Naturally, that turned out to be a better fit for this character.
Middle Aged Mutant Ninja Turtles - I'm curious to know who animated this. They made a lot out of a rather straightforward parody premise that I'm surprised I haven't seen elsewhere. Plus, animation is something that has very rarely been seen on SNL since the days of Robert Smigel so I have to wonder how long ago this had been getting cut from dress if they've been trying to get this on before.
Cam Playz Dat - To me, this was basically just Mikey playing Bobby Moynihan's character from that American Ninja Warrior skeych from Drake's 2016 ep but if he was a Twitch streamer but Mikey is still a likeable enough performer all on his own to pull this off. Between this and Heidi's YouTube segment, it's good to see SNL finally committ to professionally parodying amateur streaming web content in a pretaped/non-live setting the way other modern day sketch comedians have done. Also, I imagine the fact that SNL included their own Twitch parody in this must have Ian Abramson feeling personally attacked right now.
Sky Sports - I wanted to like this more but the recent trend of now out of work sports announcers having to call random mundane stuff around their house seemed already silly enough that it didn't necessarily need to be parodied. Thankfully, Alex made this worth watching.
Beck, Kyle and Fred - This seemed like a piece that Beck and Kyle set out to produce in a similar vein to their Del Taco live sketch from Adam Driver's show back in January. It was charming and catchy but didn't quite grow on me as much as the Del Taco piece did. Much like a lot of Fred Armisens' cameos since leaving, this felt unnecessarily tacked on.
Visualizations With Aidy - Well, a mellow solo Aidy piece is preferable to a two hander with her and Kate at this point but this seemed like it kinda lost focus to me. At first, this seemed a bit more like something that could've been in Melissa's wheelhouse as she has been doing meditation videos on her Instagram lately but it became apparent this came from a very specific place within Aidy's life.
How Low Will You Go? - Mikey, Pete and Kenan really made this for me. Ego, Heidi and Aidy played very well off them. Even though SNL has been going to the dating show well a little too often, they used that framing device here for something that definitely had to be addressed in these times.
Quarantine QT - It was nice to see a silly solo Ego showcase but I got the impression that if this wasn't just taken directly from her Instagram she must've just refilmed it verbatim on her phone. After looking back at the one IG story she had saved on her profile, it appears she just took that same footage, added some background music, tacked on some new footage at the end and basically just edited it down further for television so it plays more like an Instagram story than the actual Instagram story it was filmed for
Andre 2000 - This worked just as well as Pete's first music video from earlier in the program despite also feeling like a premise that had been done before. In general, Pete seems a lot less like he's going through a rough time in pretaped form than he does in live form and everyone likes to see Pete looking healthy and stable, right?
Hal Wilner Tribute - I don't think I've seen as much of an outpouring of support for any SNL staffer as I've seen for Hal Wilner. He must've REALLY deeply touched everyone he ever worked with (especially Pete it seems). I really like how much thought and effort went into this to the point where it came across like this was the whole reason they decided they had to do a whole quarantine show. It was nice to see Hader, Sandler, Mulaney, Armisen (in a spot where a cameo of his would feel appropriate) and all the women who made the show in the late '90s/early '00s singing their hearts out.
Now, for my updated rankings of the 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
8. SNL At Home (Tom Hanks/Chris Martin)
9. Daniel Craig/The Weeknd
10. John Mulaney/David Byrne
11. RuPaul/Justin Bieber
12. J.J. Watt/Luke Combs
13. Jennifer Lopez/DaBaby
14. Will Ferrell/King Princess
15. Harry Styles
16. Kristen Stewart/Coldplay
Well, this episode is going to be an interesting time capsule for the COVID-19 era. Who knows when the show will be back next? I do know I myself won't be to behind it
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