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!