Selena Gomez/Post Malone (5.22.2022)

Okay, here's my review. This was the most frustrating episode of the season for me. If you're reading this because you clicked on the link to it I shared in our Twitter group chat or in the That Week In SNL Discord server, there's a good chance you probably thought this episode was better than I did...and that's fine. I wanted to like this episode more too, but while it wasn’t necessarily in my bottom five of the season, it was the most jarringly uneven episode I've seen in a long time. If I'm being honest, I feel like I just had set my expectations too high. A lot of people in the same online SNL fan community were hyping up Selena for how great of a host she would be because she has such a great sense of humor and comedic timing (especially with her real dry, droll, sarcastic delivery) and I trusted their judgement because they made it abundantly clear that they'd all seen way more of her on "Wizards Of Waverly Place" than I did (I was always more of a "Hannah Montanna" guy anyway) and I have seen her new show "Only Murders In The Building" getting rave reviews. Plus, we've always seen hosts who rose to fame as teen pop stars (especially ones who rode the Disney/Nickelodeon trains to fame) always bring a high level of youthful energy to the show. Unfortunately, she seemed to bring very little if that fun, upbeat pop star energy and pretty much nothing but dry, sarcastic delivery in pretty much every single role. I believe my dear friend and fellow SNL Network podcast contributor Nicole Rovine put it best when she said simply that "Selena didn’t bring the range". Still, Selena Gomez does seem like a lovely person in real life who got along and worked very well with the cast during her first time hosting (and I know she's faced some personal health struggles of her own in the past few years) so I'm not gonna hold anything against her just for being a different type of performer than I expected her to be on a sketch comedy show. There were some great sketches I truly liked and some where something about the writing just rubbed me the wrong way. One thing I really did like about this episode was how it made excellent use of some of the more underrated newer cast members I like seeing (unfortunately not Alex or Aristotle who were completely shut out of the show again or Dismukes who unfortunately was out with Covid and Pete who's still pretty much a departed cast member who's still in the credits for some reason). Let me get to breaking this episode down so I can explain exactly what I mean by that.

MSNBC Depp v. Heard Cuckoo Trial - Well, this might strictly just be a "me" thing but seeing as this something I have actively tried to avoid as many details about as possible...it took everything I had in me not to immediately "nope" out of this cold open. I was kinda put off by Kyle being put into the role of Johnny Depp (there's NO WAY that role could’ve gone to Aristotle, huh?) but seeing as Kyle played a villain type role in his show "S.M.A.S.H" on Netflix that was basically just a parody of late 80s/early 90s 21 Jump Street era Depp, I completely understand why they put him in thst role. I've never been more thankful in my life that Lorne hired Ego Nwodim, Melissa Villaseñor, Chris Redd and Kenan Thompson than I've been while typing this sentence into my phone as this aired. Man, thay felt longer than it actually was, didn’t it? Anyway, I appreciated that they let each of those cast members I just mentioned do their obligatory group LFNY via video screen from the next stage over. That was a nice touch in what, to me at least, was hands down, the absolute worst cold open of the season. D-

Monologue - Selena seemed a little more low energy than I was expecting (especially when I was hoping she would use this monologue to get this episode off to a better start than that dreadful cold open did) but I did like how she delivered that string of Steve/Marty/Miley jokes. I wasn't crazy about them bringing the "married cast members hit on the hot female host" template out of mothballs but I liked that "Jeff" Austin Johnson got to get in on it just so he could have an excuse to play himself in something (and I liked what Punkue bought to this as telegraphed as it felt). C+

Bratz Come To Life - Boy, the people who hated the Six Flags and Black Eyed Peas sketches in Lizzos' episode last month are REALLY gonna hate this sketch, right? Anyway, I wanted to like this sketch more for casting Sarah in such a big straight role (even a straight one) and for the way Bowens' chatacter was written but...once the Bratz dolls started to express their interest in Kyle's dad character tye whole sketch started to feel too unstructured and too unfocused for me. Also, anyone else get reminded of that sketch from the season 40 premiere where Chris Pratt, Taran Killam and Ariana Grande played Kyle's He-Man/Thundercats action figures who came to life? Still, for all this sketches' flaws I have to admit that it holds up better on rewatch. C-

Old Enough: Longterm Boyfriends - I didn’t think I would like this at first given that I hadn't seen the specific show it was parodying (and I wasn't too crazy about the specific twist they had on it) but the writing and performances behind it were what really sold me on it. This was honestly both Selena and Mikeys' strongest performances in the entire show. I loved his chance encounter with Kenan on the street and Heidi talking him through his emotional breakdown in the middle of Sephora. Speaking of which, when Kaleena Steakle said on the SNL Network Hot Take show that Sephoras' actually are that overwhelming to shop at, that comment (and this whole sketch) reminded me of when I recently went to my local Kohls' to get some new clothes and noticed that they were about to open a brand new Sephora in the middle of Kohls. Yes, literally in the center of the whole building. This means that people who are just shopping at a Kohl's now have to constantly be meandering around in a circle to find what they want because everything is centered around an entire unrelated building housed within this store. That's how bad Sephora must be. I've never shopped in one myself, but I've still had an unrelated shopping experience made that much more annoying by one. B+

A Peek At Pico - For all of this sketches MAD TV vibes, it was the first sketch the whole night that really put me at ease. Melissa finally got a lead role and Selena finally played a character that wasn't just "herself". It gave me a brief feeling that the show was on the right track to not disappoint me completely (however short that feeling was). Mikey (who is having an unusually strong night tonight...which should tell you pretty much all you need to know about this show in particular) and Heidi did a grear job playing off of them and Chris Redd pretty easily walked away with this. Thankfully, this had a few different elements to it to keep it from feeling too low key and "samey". B-

A Storm Within - Kenan did pretty much all the heavy lifting in this. Cecily and Selena were just there to make sure this premise wasn’t stretched impossibly thin and build upon the absurdly specific setting he just detailed. Bowen was there to give this a solid ending. Mikey and Melissa's parts seemed wholly unnecessary. Still, everyone involved did a fine job. B-

American Inventors - The fact that they used this as the vehicle for the obligatory pretaped Steve Martin cameo was the best thing this had going for it. The use of photoshopped '70s era Steve in fake magazines and photos of Frank Sinatra hitting the town to lend his character some authenticity was a nice touch. Aidy was pretty solid when she wasn't either farting or getting hit by lightning. I liked the idea of her being the muse behind all the classic novelty gag toys but I wish they'd done more with that instead of just letting it get as repetitive as it did. I liked Selenas' narration (especially the "between her and God" line). This was one of many pieces tonight where I liked the idea more than the execution because it didn’t have enough variation to it. C+

Update left me without much to say for the first 3/4ths of it. Che had the lion's share of better material as usual but I did like the Trump IRS/Pussy Riot/Wordle Fetus/Ukrainian Orchestra/Pregnant Chimp jokes from Colin. I'm usually not as down on Kyle's Baby Yoda as some but at this point even I have to agree its run its course. It's nice to see them put this on air after it got cut from Lizzos show (and give those of us who saw the clip of it from her episode she posted some context for Kyle's "cult leader" look) but not even giving us Selena as Baby Groot (considering the escalation of their feud is usually my favorite part of these) pretty much left us with nothing. Sarah Sherman provided us with the sole highlight of the entire show. While I'm still not crazy about the fact that punishing Jost while kissing up to Che seems to be all she is allowed to do as herself on Update, I really do appreciate the fact that she employed some wild format breaking to do so here. While I loved every minute of this, this really peaked with the way both Sarah and Jost played off that unexpected blooper. B+

The Three Daughters - Hmm, I wanted to like the idea of a hard subversion of the sketch trope of "Kate plays the strange odd woman out when a male cast member has to obviously choose both the female host and the prettiest female cast member over her" but...I feel like if they didn’t stretch this too thin, then having fucking Mikey Day of all people be the one to break this down for us (without the second layer of genuine self awareness that would require HIM to display) was the biggest thing this had going against it. It had a sweet ending but Kate revealing an exposed bubble blowing ass kinda ruined it for me (but it at least explained why Selena seemed to be low key breaking). If the show is signaling that we're not going to be seeing these types of sketches anymore because Kate is finally leaving, this may be the subtlest hint we'll get. C+

Intuition - This seemed oddly placed considering it was right after a totally different sketch that also explored themes of expectation, paranoia and self doubt but Punkie and Chris Redd were the best things about it. I also kinda liked the wild overreactions to it too. Is it just me or did anyone else think Selena might have just been playing herself by just revealing she had dated a lot of "basketball players and celebs"? - C+

Guidance Counselors - An absurd campy vanity sketch led by Ego, Bowen and Selena may have been just the thing the show needed at this point (hell, it was definitely the thing that Selena needed to be in given the acting style she chose for this show...and the fact that she does make ONE HELL of a frigging model, can we all agree on that). Some may have thought it was too short for it's own good but I'm still glad it didn’t go on for too much longer than it did. C+

Baby Monitors - I wanted to like this more for just the Bowen/Sarah pairing but it just didn’t go anywhere interesting enough for me. I did like the fairly meta ending and how everyone involved pretty much threw themselves into it, but for some reason I just couldn't get into it. I really didn’t care for Post Malones' cameo and I thought Selenas' line about how she had never had a drink in her life felt like it belonged in a totally different sketch. C-

Now, for my updated rankings of the 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. John Mulaney/LCD Soundsystem (2.26.2022)

6. Oscar Issac/Charli XCX (3.5.2022)

7. Benedict Cumberbatch/Arcade Fire (5.7.2022)

8. Lizzo (4.16.2022)

9. Selena Gomez/Post Malone (5.14.2022)

10. Jerrod Carmichael/Gunna (4.2.2022)

11. Jake Gyllenhaal/Camilla Cabello (4.9.2022)

12. Zoë Kravitz/Rosalía (3.12.2022)

13. Paul Rudd/Charli XCX (12.18.2021)

14. Jonathan Majors/Taylor Swift (11.13.2021)

15. Rami Malek/Young Thug (10.17.2021)

16. Willem Dafoe/Katy Perry (1.29.2022)

17. Will Forte/Måneskin (1.22.2022)

18. Ariana DeBose/Roddy Rich Bleachers (1.15.2022)

19. Owen Wilson/Kacey Musgraves (10.2.2021)

20. Kim Kardashian-West/Halsey (10.9.2021)

Well, maybe this show just suffered from what I like to call the "second of three May shows" curse but that's two shows in a row that made me seriously consider whether or not I still want to blog about SNL next season. Fortunately, I have plans to do a write-up of next week's season finale with host Natasha Lyonne and musical guest Japanese Breakfast. Quite frankly, I'm surprised this is the season finale because that sounds more like a lineup SNL could only give us in January or April. Still, Natasha is a beloved comedic actress who surely will not underwhelm as much or defy the high expectations I have set myself to have for her (don't worry though, I'm sure Selenas' episode will grow on me over time). Plus, a less high profile female host should easily blend in sketch wise with any female cast members we expect to be departing this season or dominating the show going into the next one and not steal focus from them. See you then!