Willem Dafoe/Katy Perry (1.29.2022)

Okay, here's my review. While this show seemed quite uneven, it was still the strongest show overall of 2022 so far. Willem Dafoe gave it his all and certainly deserves to be a return host. Still, with the way they used him as host he couldn't quite have the strong impact on the show as we'd hope. He felt more underused than misused but he made sure to give it his all in every role. Speaking of, it looks as if every member of the cast got some screentime tonight. Everyone who was virtually absent from the first two shows if the year (minus Cecily who is still on Broadway) got to make up for lost time. Anyway, it was a pretty straight forward show, so let's get right to it.

Russian Disinformation Breifing - Did they just not have any real take on the whole Russia/Ukraine situation but still feel the need to base this week's cold open on it so they just said "fuck it" and decided to just throw a bunch of dated memes at the wall to see what sticks? Well, they let Ego, Alex and JAJs Biden anchor it with some small assists from Kenan (even if this cold open started its' downhill slide once he uttered the word "cheugy"). Good to see Chloe get some non-impression character role for once but I wasn't all that crazy about her character here. I thought seeing Sarah and Aristotle thrown in as random TikTokers was a nice touch. This is not the right episode for this type of cold open. This type of cold open made sense for the Kim Kardashian-West/Halsey episode but not for this one as neither Willem Dafoe nor Katy Perry (at this point) really scream "shameless ratings grab/how do you do fellow kids" to me. Still, this was a slight step up from the previous week's cold open. C+

Monologue - It was fun to see Willem Dafoe poke fun at his own manic, overly expressive acting style but Mikey and Aidy kinda killed the momentum. Wisconsin accent based humor has never worked that much for me on SNL. C-

Tennants Association Meeting - Well, this retread of the PDD penned school board meeting was a better way to get this show off on the right foot. Nice to see Chloe actually being used in another non-impression/non-wacky voice role and that Alex is still being used to co-anchor these. Punkie may have had her most meta moment on the show at this point. Good to see she has beat Covid and can return to the show. Good to see they remembered that Melissa and Aristotle are both still on the show as well and that Pete showed up for the live show this week. Sarah, Ego, Kyle, Dismukes, JAJ and Willem were highlights. Good to see Mikey has a singing voice that matches Bowens'. Heidi and Kenan were also there. At this point, I think Aidys' Jan Krang has worn out her welcome. I even liked the execution of Kate's gag (despite the huge Mary Gross as Dr Ruth vibes I got from it). B+

Now I'm Up - Nice to get another R&B Jam from Chris and Kenan. Good to see they let Willem and Heidi get in on it too. Chris' yearbook photo was a highlight for me. Sure, this seemed more like it was going for "relatable" than "truly funny" but the performances really elevated it. This may not have been the best week for a sketch to have the mere suggestion that one should pay for Spotify let alone use if for free, though. B+

Badminster Dog Show - I got strong 1989 Glenn Close Mad Dog Show vibes from this. It's not a great inversion of the last couple of years of live Dog filled sketches on SNL where the animals are far more reasonably well behaved than their (in some cases instantly defied) character descriptions. Still, Chris casually strolled away with this and Willem performed the hell out of this part. Good to see Punkie, Andrew, Melissa and Chloe still not being underused tonight. C-

Nugenix - This seemed a little one note and juvenile for me at first but then it went picked up once Kyle said "boner stuff" Melissa walked in causing loud, robotic elections from all the non-Mikey men. B-

Update felt a little uneven. Che had the lion's share of better material. I liked Josts' Full House/McDonald's/Hard Baja Blast jokes (his delivery was what sold that McDonald's joke for me). I didn't care much for Aidy and Bowens' trend forecasters. I liked the "men's trends" and Che's ending all right. As telegraphed as his part felt, Che really had fun with it. Peyton Manning giving us overexcited Madden-like color commentary on season 2 seemed like a paper thin premise but he did his goddamndest to sell me on this. C-

Beauty And The Beast - OK, I think I spoke a little too soon two weeks ago when I referred to Sound Of Music as an overparodied movie on SNL. Thankfully, this was short because it seemed like way too much buildup to far too little payoff on top of being a real waste of Willem Dafoe. At least this sketch made good use of Punkie. D+

PDD: Meet Connor - As great as it is to see these guys NOT get something cut this week, the premise of Martin Herlihy suddenly being friends with a random ten year old didn't seem like it had much potential but this really got going once John Higgins got into it. The slo-mo heimlich felt a little telegraphed but the fact that it was scored to a cover of that Nickelback song from the first Spiderman movie made it much funnier. B+

Good Day Columbus - I wondered why this retread of "Invest Twins" and "Danny Bangs Animals" was put so late in the show until Bowen misread the title of Willems' book. As much as I didn't think we needed to see a third one of these, I appreciate that they committed to the gag to the point where the executed the "breathing technique" in there. C-

Office Song - This gave me flashbacks to police station "stomp" digital short from season 37. Usually, that's not a great sign but this turned out to be the closest thing to the "SNL just lets Willem Dafoe just go insane" vibes people were hoping for the whole night. I wish they'd cut a bit more to the point early on because a lot of this sketch felt like it was bring overexplained. B+

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

1. Jason Sudeikis/Brandi Carlile (10.23.2021)
2. Keiran Culkin/Ed Sheeran (11.6.2021)
3. Simu Liu/Saweetie (11.20.2021)
4. Billie Eillish (12.11.2021)
5. Paul Rudd/Charli XCX (12.18.2021)
6. Jonathan Majors/Taylor Swift (11.13.2021)
7. Rami Malek/Young Thug (10.17.2021)
8. Willem Dafoe/Katy Perry (1.29.2022)
9. Will Forte/Måneskin (1.22.2022)
10. Ariana DeBose/Bleachers (1.15.2022)
11. Owen Wilson/Kacey Musgraves (10.2.2021)
12. Kim Kardashian-West/Halsey (10.9.2021)

Well, SNL finally managed to somewhat find its' footing in the new year. A month from now, SNL will return from its Winter Olympic induced hiatus with John Mulaney joining the five timers club. Ugh. I was hoping Mulaney and SNL would be taking a mutual break from each other this season but I understand he does have a standup tour to prepare for in a few months. Plus, he seems to be quite the devoted father lately so at least he appears to have his personal life somewhat in order. Let's just hope he gives us something different from the standard paint-by-numbers Mulaney format his episodes have fallen into. See you soon!

Will Forte/Måneskin (1.22.2022)

Okay, here's my review. As with a lot of returning cast members coming back to host (especially ones from this particular era) Will Fortes' sheer presence was the best thing about this episode. Still, he comes off as such an anomaly among returning alumni hosts as I've never seen an alumni host who blends in so well with the cast he is supporting while simultaneously seeming stuck our of time from his own era. Nonetheless, it was certainly very gratifying to see him finally get his long deserved shot at hosting more than a full decade after having left the show. This episode was more consistent than last week. I'd definitely say Forte saved a lot of stuff but he may not have been enough on his own to completely cover up some of the issues the show had with writing and current cast usage. Cecily appears to still be on her off-Broadway engagement. This explains her absence from the show bur it doesn't quite do the same for Melissa, Andrew or Punkie. Anyway, this show was alos very oddly spaced and timed. Since I reviewed all of this episodes obligatory runner in once piece, it certainly felt like there were far fewer sketches than there actually were. Thus, this was a very straight forward episode to review, so let's get right to it.

Ingraham Angle - Well, this certainly wasn't the ideal cold open for this episode (especially after one of the bright spots of last weeks' episode being how they showed they were making progress on the cold opens being something besides just a checklist of everything that happened in the news that week with a random Fox News pundit show being used as the framing device). I appreciate Pete seemongly giving it his all as Novak Djokovic but I'm so unfamiliar with why he's in the news it was pretty much white noise to me. Although I don't know if it quite makes up for Cecilys' Broadway induced absence preventing her from being able to play Judge Pirro again on the show right now, Egos' snarky take on Candace Owen's was the only thing that stood out to me (as much as I know how much it's going to make some of Twitter insuffrable for the next day or two). I couldn't even get that excited to see JAJ as Trump again, but I did like his Tiger King 2 joke how he worked a random Hillary Duff/HIMYM reference into his Wordle. Also, thanks for attempting to explain to me what Wordle is without really explaining what Wordle is to me at all. I also liked "missionary" being at the end of Kates list of thing liberals are trying to take away and "Covid Negs" bring another Handey-esque sponsor. Really, the irony of this cold open is that a Tim Calhoun cameo would actually fit well here and be the only thing that could save it but it would also prove those right who said there's too many real life GOP politicians that are basically just real life versions of Calhoun to be funny anymore. C-

Monologue - Even just as a setup to a forced Wiig cameo, (guess my gut was right, huh? still, I liked the callback to him being in her 2016 monologue) I love the whole tone of Fortes' monologue being "bitter? who's bitter?" in regards to him being as underappreciated as he was on the show and thus the absolute LAST if his castmates to finally come back to host because I hadn't remembered until now how well he pulled that type of humor off. I appreciated the MacGruber season 2 false alarm but honestly Season 2 of MacGruber on Peacock is something I would have some mixed feelings abour right now. I mean, I've only been able to see the first episode so far but I liked it considerably less than I liked the movie but maybe I should reserve judgement until I've managed to see the entire series. My one complaint would be that I feel the Willem Dafoe cameo would've had the intended effect if Dafoe hadn't ALREADY been announced as next week's host, but the way that joke was written worked and pairing it with that audience poll helped. B-

MacGruber - As predictable as it seems that MacGruber would become an anti-vax/anti-mask Qanoner who naturally gets infected with a version of Covid thst has somehow mutated with his existing STIs along with horse worms, I have to say it at least fits the character given what little I've seen of MacGruber this week (again, in my rewatch of the movie and having only been able to see the first episode of the Peacock series so far). Plus, they did three whole shorts based on the 2008 financial crisis (without that seeming as much like a checklist of buzzwords as this one) so this wouldn't be the first time they've at least semi successfully tried to shoehorn in topical humor into Macgrubers' template. Hell, it didn't even disprove my theory of this possibly having been taped well in advance of this week. While I did like that they were able to air the third one despite running short on time, part of me didn't feel like the third one wasn't necessary for anything besides showing MacGruber get more fully into Qanon just to show that wasn't supposed to just be a throwaway reference tacked onto the end of the third one just before the explosion. That didn't really go anywhere. I did like the random callback to Fortes' barbecue hospital sketch with Amy Adams as Ellen Pompeo from 2008 though. Overall, I'd say as telegraphed and flat as this felt Fortes' performance (with some support for Wiig and Phillippe) really saved it. B-

Kid Klash - The only real complaint I have about this sketch was that I wish it didn't take as long as it did for the basic conceit to be revealed to be "Forte berates this child played by Aidy in an inappropriately chipper manner". Thankfully, this sketch revealed that specific thing to be another performance I didn't remember he had or that I wanted to see until they showed it to us. B-

Cinema Classics - Well, the premise of a "Gaslight" parody alone in 2022 seemed quite shaky (y'know, what with the term being appropriately used to describe what certain powerful men in America had been doing at first a few years ago until it started getting overused to the point of being misused and all) but at least its' only purpose was for Forte to be absurd. Besides that, this was a strange sketch for Forte to be used in given how he was famously a non-impressionist on the show. Still, when I first saw that PBS logo, my heart jumped because I thought we were getting another Lawrence Welk sketch (well, with Wiig in the building it was a distinct possibility but thankfully this wasn't that). I did chuckle at the "nine inches" joke at the end, though. C-

Hotel Room Threesome - Thankfully, this was really the first time all night Forte got to play a classic sleazy Forte-esque character. I waa honestly surprised to find that John Solomon and/or Akiva Schaffer did NOT guest write this with Forte this week in addition to the MacGruber shorts since this is really the first non-MacGruber sketch of the night to feel like it was straight out of his era (mostly due to Fortes' performance himself). Not even every dreaded Mikey sketch trope bring rolled into one (what with him overexplaining the exact way he's being cucked in a misguided attempt to save his apparent marriage to Heidi's character and all) could take away from the pure undiluted Forte-ness of this sketch to me. B+

Update got off to a strong start with two shockingly meta jokes from each anchor followed by solid CRT/infertility/Prince Andrew/Batman & Robin/hamster/guitar/dino skull/world's oldest person jokes. Still, they were slightly uneven (Che's goldfish/Jon Voight jokes seemed a little too forced for me and Josts Kyle Rittenhouse joke was a rare instance of the setup being funnier than the punchline and weirdly his U2 joke was delivered with an inflection that made him sound almost exactly like That Week In SNLs' own Andrew "Don't Call Me Andy" Dick). It was nice to see Bowens' Chinese trade daddy again but this installment felt too unfocused (wouldn't be the only time I would have to use this phrase to describe one of tonight's Update commentaries) in the specific sense that it seemed like they were more focused on making Chen Biao an unlikable villain the audience isn't supposed to side with (which is honestly a strange change of pace for this character) and cramming in a bunch of current social media references. While I liked getting to see Sarah Sherman on Update again, I do wish they would let her do more than just set up Jost to be humiliated with some small assists from Che. I did appreciate the queer-baiting/implied homophobia/body hair shaming angle she took this time. While I'm not sure we needed to see Alexs' boat guy tonight (even as an excuse to bring out Pete to reference their actual buying a boat together) I do appreciate the conceit of having one cast member in character bring out one cast member as themself as its' not something you see often on Update or SNL in general. Speaking of Pete, while he did have the best lines in this (including that other meta moment) waa he a actually drinking from a brown bagged Foster's can the whole time he was onscreen ir was that a prop? Oh well, even if Lorne was somehow OK with him visibly getting very hammered live in air, it was nice to see him looking like he was enjoying himself. Another Forte appearance might have been welcome here but, oh well. B-

Clancy T. Bachleratt and Jackie Snad Sing Songs About Spaceshops, Toddlers, Model T Cars And Jars Of Beer...Again - I was probably the only active SNL fan on social media who was NOT expecting Forte to bring this back but I guess with Wiig actually being in the building tonight it was a no-brainer, huh? Anyway, I suppose Kenan being the pitchman in this one was what helped me get more into this one than I've been during Fortes' era in the cast. I usually like sketches where Forte screams insane nonsense but for some reason, THIS is one I could barely get into or appreciate until tonight. Honestly, the funniest thing about this sketch to me was how they had Forte introduce the second Måneskin performance while still in that wig and baldcap paired with one of Fortes' regular sweaters. B-

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

1. Jason Sudeikis/Brandi Carlile (10.23.2021)
2. Keiran Culkin/Ed Sheeran (11.6.2021)
3. Simu Liu/Saweetie (11.20.2021)
4. Billie Eillish (12.11.2021)
5. Paul Rudd/Charli XCX (12.18.2021)
6. Jonathan Majors/Taylor Swift (11.13.2021)
7. Rami Malek/Young Thug (10.17.2021)
8. Will Forte/Måneskin (1.22.2022)
9. Ariana DeBose/Bleachers (1.15.2022)
10. Owen Wilson/Kacey Musgraves (10.2.2021)
11. Kim Kardashian-West/Halsey (10.9.2021)

Well, this fit all but one or two of my personal expectations and nothing more. Next week, Willem Dafoe makes his hosting debut before the show goes on a month long break for the 2022 Winter Olympics. This is an intriguing choice. Dafoe is another actor seemingly long overdue to host the show. It's about time the show had another bizarro character actor host after we got Rami Malek. That might be the thing to give this second half of season 47 the shot in the arm it needs (since, again, Malek did the same thing for the part of the season he hosted in). See you then!

Ariana DeBose/Bleachers (1.15.2022)

Okay, here's my review. While this was far from the best episode of the season, it was perhaps the second or third most comforting one of the season behind Sudeikis and Malek. Ariana DeBose as host reminded me a little bit of Kevin Nealons' "protest" from the Andrew Dice Clay episode. She wasn't the most underused host ever but given what she bought to the table (on terms of performing experience and enthusiastic love for the show) she really stood out when she was used well. She was really the exact host SNL needed to ring in a new calendar year. She fit in quite well with the show (even though that isn't exactly a hard thing for SNL to make happen given Arianas' Broadway background and how many big theater kids work at the show now) but still it's comforting to see her contribute to SNLs' first live show produced after a massive Omicron outbreak in New York ended up canceling an entire live show they had planned for their last week of the previous year. Cecily is currently doing an off-Broadway show and Aidy, Aristotle and Punkie weren't in the building for reasons neither of them have yet fully explained but other than that, everyone got some screen time. In particular, Chris Redd, Kate McKinnon and Mikey Day seem to have dominated the show with the occasional assists from Heidi, Alex, Kenan, Sarah, JAJ, Bowen and Andrew. Anyway, there isn't a ton to break down this week since the whole show was pretty straightforward so let's just get right to it, shall we?

Into The Biden-verse - Well, I'm glad they're making good progress on these cold opens by having JAJ anchor them once again with minimal help from the stronger supporting cast (Heidi, Bowen, Ego & Dismukes). Also, at least they're letting JAJ have fun with a premise that (based on his past Twitter videos) he probably co-wrote (if he didn't just write this himself) making them focused on one overall topic instead of just cramming everything that happened in the last week in there. Fortunately, this cold open was based on one thing that happened last month. Hell, I wasn't even sure I wanted to like Pete's cameo but they pulled it off. I did chuckle a bit at the unknown Spiderman costumed extra popping into frame at the end. C+

Monologue - Well, I am glad they still tried somewhat to keep these monologues personal (even if this seemed way more personal to Kate than to Ariana but hey, I'd rather see something that's this exact level of personal from Kate at this point that see her play another male politician again even if I felt they could've done much more than just Ariana just straight up introducing Kate so song straight showtunes from West Side Story with her which felt a little lazy). I'm not too crazy about them going back to musical monologues after just an epic non-stop run of straight solo "monologue" monologues, but given this hosts' extensive Broadway experience (and from what I've heard, the show making itself cut two live sketches for Covid protocol reasons and thus having to stretch a bit further to fill tine) this makes perfect sense. B-

NBA on TNT - Well, I'll say the made the absolute most out of a rather unambitious premise. It's always great to see Kenans' Charles Barkley again. He and Bowens' Yao Ming provided my biggest laughs in this. Hell, between Pete in the cold open and Bowen in this they're reay getting some good use out if that unnecessary voice modulator, huh? Heidi and Mikeys' natural chemistry added a lot to this and Ariana, Alex and Chris handled their supporting roles well. B+

Urkel - I figured the trailer for the new gritty reboot of the Fresh Prince would be something the show could parody this week. I could pretty much immediately tell that this was going to be a Family Matters parody (and possibly not the most well informed one, by the way but I've barely watched that show myself so who am I to judge?) from the get go (the fact that this is at least the third tine I've seen Chris Redd play this exact character). I wanted to like this more but it seemed too totally inconsistent. Chris and Ego really sold the self-serious drama of it WAY better than Kenan did (who didn't even bother to update his take on Officer Carl Winslow the way Chris and Ego did the same for their takes on Urkel and Laura). Still, Kenan was one of the few things this had going for it. I dunno, I guess the writing left a little something to be desired (even the fake negative reviews). C-

Formal Emporium - First off, I'm very glad to see Pete (channeling the absolute fuck out of Sandler) and Sarah Squirm in the roles that otherwise would've gone to Kate and Aidy here. I wasn't quite on board with Dismukes odd character suddenly bring the main focus until he and Ariana started revealing more gross out details about him. I suspected Sarah Squirm may have at least cowritten this (for obvious reasons) but I was actually a little surprised to find out it was mostly the PDD boys at the helm here. It didn't quite go at their usual breakneck speed but it escalated just as ridiculously as the rest of their stuff. This may have been my favorite live sketch of this whole episode. B+

Mayor Eric Adams Press Conference - Hmm, this seemed a little too NYC-centric for me. Ariana and Chris were great in this. It seemed tailor made for the two of them specifically but they seemed to flub some crucial lines in this which threw off the timing of this. Other than that, they performed the hell out of this. Even if not much else landed with me (besides the running gag of Mayor Adams saying he's been a cop for an increasingly ridiculous length of time), it's great to see Chris Redd having such a strong night and the show writing something relevant that played to his strengths even if it may have devolved into pure word salad near the end. At this was a nice modern update on the formula that previously gave us overly long direct to camera press conference sketches and cold opens anchored by Baldwins' Trump and McCarthys' Spicer. This could've used some editing but hey, this must have been the second sketch of the night they had to strech out to cover the absence of two sketches. B-

Update got off to a bit of a slow start, but picked up around the oath keeper/moron jokes. As much as I am still wondering how this could've been different if it wrre Melissa instead, Chloes' Elmo commentary was adorable even if after having seen the clip I'm still not sure why the hell the Sesame Street writers would essentially treat Elmo like they were writing him as the Larry David character in a "Curb Your Enthusiasm" parody much less why it became actual discourse for a whole week. The escalation of it was perfect. I also loved the reference to Patton Oswalts' awkward (but still well thought out, honestly) Instagram apology for merely taking a photo with Dave Chappelle at the wrongest possible time in either one of their careers, the conceit of Chloe still having a stage hand under the desk controlling her inarticulate puppet arms with sticks and the additional clock punch of SNL acknowledging how they announce future host/musical guest announcements on social media on air. C+

Not Yet Another SNL Sound Of Music Parody - I was alright with the conceit of just breaking down the lyrics of "Do Re Mi" (boy, JAJ must've just been backstage just shaking through this, huh?) and Kenan just 80s Weird Al-ing the hell out of "Edelweiss" and any excuse to give Chris, Sarah and Dismukes more screen time is fine with me. Other than that, I'm not sure why the show needed to return to this well other than Ariana and Kate having bonded over showtunes throughout the week. C+

Sapphic Lecture - Wow, this must've been the other thing Kate and Ariana bonded over, huh? Yeah, as I suspected this turned out to be lived in/well informed lesbian word salad as I suspected but hey, at lesst this was WAY more competently written than a sketch like this would've been under Tina Feys' or Seth Meyers' era as head writers. At least Mikey added a nice button onto the end of this. D+

Longhorn Steakhouse Kitchen (Lurr) - Wow, I was a little quick to call that last sketch "word salad", huh? (Lurr). Pretty ironic that a sketch set in a frigging STEAKHOUSE if all places can be described as "word salad", right (lurr)? Anyway (lurr), at least this gave us Alex, JAJ and Dismukes (who I suspect wrote this lurr because I got HEAVY "Bayou Benny" vibes off it lurr) giving us some fun character work (lurr). Still, I am left wondering why everyone in this sketch talked like they were in Louisiana when they clearly had established that this sketch was set in Texas (lurr). B-. Lurr.

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

1. Jason Sudeikis/Brandi Carlile (10.23.2021)
2. Keiran Culkin/Ed Sheeran (11.6.2021)
3. Simu Liu/Saweetie (11.20.2021)
4. Billie Eillish (12.11.2021)
5. Paul Rudd/Charli XCX (12.18.2021)
6. Jonathan Majors/Taylor Swift (11.13.2021)
7. Rami Malek/Young Thug (10.17.2021)
8. Ariana DeBose/Bleachers (1.15.2022)
9. Owen Wilson/Kacey Musgraves (10.2.2021)
10. Kim Kardashian-West/Halsey (10.9.2021)

Well, SNL certainly shook off the cobwebs and eneted the new year, didn't they? Anyway, I'm sure I'm not the only one excited for Will Fucking Forte to make his long awaited hosting debut next week! All it took was a global pandemic and MacGruber becoming a streaming series he could plug, but still it's long overdue. Strangely, since I was thinking about something John Mulaney said on Seth's show last year about the year he got hired and how he couldn't be a cast member (despite having now hosted four times in a span of three years) because he couldn't do what each repertory member of the 08-09 cast could do, I'd like to add one extra thing. With Forte now scheduled to host, this now makes 08-09 the first season of SNL where every cast member has hosted (aside from that year's featured players and the two remaining repertory players who are still currently actively working on the show on some way in 2021). See you then!