Issa Rae/Justin Beiber (10.17.20)

Okay, here’s my review. This was honestly the strongest show of the season so far. After two shows that were deemed heavily divisive it’s nice to see SNL produce a consistently enjoyable show with a host who did well in sketches and seems like she could easily be asked back. Issa did a great job and the show made much better use of its’ cast. Everyone got to participate in some form or another tonight even if they couldn’t be there in person. Anyway, let’s break this down, shall we?

Dueling Town Halls (YEEHAH!) – I honestly didn’t have the time to watch either of Thursdays’ town halls but this cold open kinda made me wish I had. Carrey seems to have sharpened his portrayal of Biden just when I thought he was slipping into just playing him as a generic pleasant Abe Simpson type. It certainly helps that he’s perfected his Biden squint. I did like Mr. Rogers/Bob Ross bits and his back and forth with Redd when wrapping up his 1939 Worlds’ Fair story. After seeing Carrey turn his Biden into Jeff Goldblum, Mr. Rogers AND Bob Ross, it’s still nice to see he (and the quick change people from SNL’s wardrobe department who really seemed to be at the top of their game compared to last season) can bring something different to the role (essentially making Carrey’s Biden like a living Family Guy cutaway but in a good way without making it too cartoony). Alexs’ brief shot with a blanket and warm milk would’ve been funnier had they not included him seemingly every time they cut back to Bidens’ whole audience. Speaking of cast cameos, nice to see Melissa actually get some screentime as brief as it was after literally being absent the last two weeks. Egos’ twerking cameo was the only part of the Trump segments that didn’t completely wash over me (mostly because after seeing Lauren Holts’ character was seemingly seen in a split screen before she was supposed to be visible which they managed to fix by the time they reaired this episode on the same two hours later because my NBC affiliate is one of the ones that does that I was wondering if it was intentional or a green screen glitch until Mayas’ Kamala acknowledged it in a pleasant but seemingly forced cameo). Upon a second viewing it seems Baldwin actually got in a few sharp jabs at Trump. The fact that Trump spent the last three years playing a very rote, stilted, clipped Trump in the exact same way week after week without changing anything because he couldn’t be bothered to do so by that point is really the only thing that warrants my praise of Carrey’s Biden from five run on sentences ago. He must still purely be motivated by the thought of Trump losing the election at this point. He even seemed like he might have broke during Egos’ bit which, to his credit, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen him do as Trump before. I heard Savannah Guthrie really held Trumps’ feet to the fire at this so of course they would have Kate “yas kween”-ing it up as her. Also, kudos to SNL on their first mention of Candace Owens and (IIRC) their first real attempt to get a jab in at QAnon? Kudos to Melissa for getting her first (and sadly only) three seconds of airtime this season so far. Chloe channeling Linda Belcher from Bobs’ Burgers’ as a rabid Trump fan was another highlight. I also liked the brief Earth animation at the end. Well, even though the scheduled debate fell through due to Trump contracting COVID, Jim Carrey, Alec Baldwin and Maya Rudolph were all apparently contractually obligated to have their whole Octobers’ free so they did the biggest news story of the week that involved the candidates each of them portray anyway (in the most predictable way they could’ve but still somehow made it fun, even moreso than last week) since the Amy Coney Barrett hearings turned out to not be that big of a deal on account of her being far less emotional than Kavanaugh, I guess? B-

Monologue – Issa Rae pretty much delivered the same type of Phoebe Waller-Bridge style solo-but-not-quite-standup monologue I was expecting from her. Plus, for the first time this season the audience actually sounded like they were small enough to be properly socially distanced. That and the overall decent quality of this episode makes me feel much better about actively supporting the show in general. I noticed Issa mentioned she was supposed to host back in March. Unless she backed out early or something, I’m guessing she meant April since we already saw Daniel Craig host the last pre-pandemic live show back in March and John Krasinksi was booked next and Bill Burr apparently admitted on his podcast he was originally booked to host in April. Other than that, she seemed to just be talking about how the success of her show “Insecure” has raised her professional profile and boosted her career. I liked her comments about the poor timing of her shows late 2016 premiere the most and her seemingly encouraging people to mistake her for Mary J. Blige. Other than that, this monologue seemed to lack some focus but after Bill Burr it was nice to get a bit of a pallet cleanser and see someone who clearly fits better into the modern SNL mold and alienated precisely no one in the cast or audience. Issa seemed a lot less nervous than she said she was and didn’t even let the small, less responsive audience of tonights’ episode give the impression that they weren’t on her side. She did quite well and didn’t let anything stop her. B-

Bonjour Hi – This is a very different sketch for this era of SNL. I can’t really speak to the accuracy of the accents. Kate has proven to be able to handle French accents expertly in the past so no surprises there. Issa Rae surprised me a little as this is probably the last thing I expected her to be doing on the show but she pulled off a believable French accent. They had some pretty funny writing for her character as well. Bowens’ seemed a little off but I was amused enough by his performance in general enough that I really didn’t care. He seemed more like he wanted to show off his ability to SPEAK actual French than do the accent but it worked for me. He gave me strong flashbacks to Fred Armisens’ character “Leonard” from those Euro-centric “Club Traxxx” sketches from seasons 28 and 29. I wonder if Maya got as strong flashbacks to that as I did since she was in the building tonight and also in those sketches with Fred? I was a little surprised when Mikey’s character (that was seemingly written with him in mind specifically) was introduced as I was expecting Chance The Rapper to reprise his Lazlo character the way the sketch was going. I only expected him because I had seen his tweet about making a cameo on tonights’ show just to perform on the song Beiber had him featured on. Either way< I was pleased with what we got here. B+

Five Hour Empathy – I heard about this seemingly getting cut from dress rehearsal one of these last two shows. I like how fresh and inventive of a concept this felt and how perfectly it was executed. A-

Homeless Date Interruptions – Just when I was expecting a low-key slice of life sketch, Kenan, Pete and Bowen go all Anton/Buddy Valentine/Kevin Aquarius/Macy Gray/Whoopi Goldberg on us out of nowhere. I also liked how they just pulled out and showed us everyone intentionally breaking character as the sketch ended the exact way it was supposed to. The whole shows’ been pretty strong pre-Update so far. B+

Update was very fun even if it was seemingly carried by the guest commentators. Honestly, Jost and Ches’ best moment was when they broke out into a low key unintentional “joke exchange” in between the final two Update commentaries. Che’s came out swinging with the jab at NBC “having a type” (w/Cosby, Lauer and Trump) but nearly negated that when he implied that people were actually considering voting for Kanye as an alternative to Trump or Biden. He won me back with that QAnon/Lexington Steele (another odd “first” in terms of references for tonights’ show). All of Josts’ solo jokes kinda washed over me. It’s good to see Mikey and Alex can still build on their chemistry together while Alex is building brand new previously unseen (on SNL at least) chemistry with Chloe. The Trump bros still work and Chloes’ Carvey like caricature of Tiffany really adds something different in the mix. I liked Alex “zoom meeting/I was muted/white trash/hand sanitizer/debt” jokes even though they felt like they should’ve been telegraphed. Aidy’s remote segment was very brief but a very good use of her while she was in Oregon starting filming on season three of “Shrill” this week. Heidis’ 80s cocaine wife didn’t do much for me at first. It didn’t stand out too much from her previous Update characters to me but it built to something very worthwhile given the chance. I especially liked how Heidi acknowledged that she’d only known Che for three minutes. B-

Your Voice Chicago – This seems like it’s just last weeks’ “Blitz” sketch thrown in a blender with last seasons’ “Mid Day News” with some “How’s He Doin?” sprinkled in. Still, like Heidis’ Update piece it builds to something great if you just give it a chance. The audience isn’t quite giving it the reaction it deserves though given how low key and “writerly” it seems. I did see someone I follow online mention that this sketch may have been based on a comment she made at a recent awards show that she will actually “vote for everybody black” and that she could’ve helped write it. If so, kudos for her for having the best sense of humor about herself out of any SNL host in recent memory. Redd, Punkie and Mayas’ parts were funny. I also like how Maya just feels like she’s back in the cast again given that her non-Kamala roles get buried late in the show with no recognition applause from the audience. Also, kudos to SNL for (IIRC) their first “Diamond and Silk” parody? I do have to wonder how the real ones are going to react? C-

Issa & Kyles’ Dance Off – This reminded me a lot of the breakdancing short Kyle did in his first season with Beck. In fact, it reminds me a lot of all the season 39 era Good Neighbor shorts in general so it’s good to see Kyle return to his roots in his (presumably) final season. I liked the TLC “No Scrubs” homage and Chance and Andrew had funny cameos as well (but Andrews’ bit felt a little too “real” honestly in a way I’ll explain at the end of this review). C+

Jack Flats – I liked seeing the show close out with a high energy performance from Beck, Kyle and Andrew. I also liked how they took a real conceptual Mr. Show/Whitest Kids U’Know type approach to satirizing these anti-mask/”liberate” protestors who can’t even manage to kidnap any of their local elected officials without even tipping off the FBI. I like how the militia guys are seemingly more preoccupied with the food and the waitstaff teasing you than anything else and are very aggro about it. At first, when Beck bought Kenan into the frame I thought one of them made the other break unintentionally until Kenans’ “playgrounds” line and I saw he was playing an intentionally goofy character and Beck just stumbled over his line. Andrew Dismukes did a great job in his first substantial sketch role but the way he played it did remind me a lot of how Beck, Kyle and Pete play certain roles (especially in his emotional breakdown). He did great, but I’d like to see how he does in the cast after Beck, Kyle and Pete leave so he doesn’t run the risk of being cancelled out in the “young goofy guy” roles. Thankfully, Lauren seemed much less Aidy like in her cameo than she did in her brief parts in the premiere with Chris Rock. Honestly, the only real bummer about this sketch was that Melissas’ opening voice over was only her second appearance in this episode. A-

eBay – This was another pretape based on a rather off-the-beaten-path COVID/Quarrantine related concept that was execute well. Heidi, Chris and Ego were great in it but…if you knew how many vintage back issues of MAD, CRACKED and CRAZY I myself bought from that site in the last two months (for clearly the opposite reason of “bettering myself”), you’d know why that episode hits just a little too close to home for me. I also liked how they used Cecily for the voiceover so she technically appeared in this episode remotely as well. C+

Now, for my updated rankings of this season so far…

1.       Issa Rae/Justin Beiber (10.17.20)

2.       Chris Rock/Megan Thee Stallion (10.3.20)

3.       Bill Burr/Morgan Wallen Jack White (10.10.20)

Well, it’s great to see SNL getting back into its’ groove as it successfully produced its’ first three live in studio episodes since the pandemic began. What worries me now is that no host or musical guest for next weeks’ show had even been announced on air as of this writing. I’m not sure I believe the rumor on Twitter from yesterday that Anne Hathaway was going to be next weeks’ host with Sam Smith as musical guest. Unless one or both of them had to cancel back in September, that seems like something they would’ve announced way ahead of time on social media as either of them would be the biggest “gets” the show could have this season at this point. Plus, neither of them seem like they’d be willing to travel to NYC two weeks early just to quarantine beforehand. There’s another rumor about a potential host for next week. It’s kinda been put out there by the girls who host the SNL Standby Line podcast so out of respect for them (and also because I personally find it to be a strange rumor myself) I’m not going to divulge that information here on my own blog. So, I encourage you to seek that out yourself if you know their handles (one of the hosts’ personal account is set to private). The ending to Issa and Kyles’ pretape (where Andrew Dismukes informs Kyle that he had just tested positive for Covid) made me briefly consider the very real possibility that either someone already working in 8H or a possible 10/24 host or musical act could’ve already done so leading to the next two weeks of shows’ already having been cancelled. I guess we’ll just have to wait for some kind of official press release from NBC or social media posts from the shows’ official accounts before we can be 100% sure. The last time the show went without any expected on air announcement of their next host/musical guest lineup was two seasons ago between when Matt Damon and Rachel Brosnahan hosted and that was the gulf between the 2018 Christmas show and the first show of 2019. Unfortunately, we only have a week and not a month between new episodes of SNL at this point so if the current cast and crew are unable to produce next weeks’ show I at least hope they can stay safe and healthy in quarantine.