Megan Thee Stallion (10.15.2022)

Okay, here's my review. This was unquestionably the weakest show of the season so far. However, that wasn't so much the fault of the host. Megan Thee Stallion was a committed performer and she seemed like someone everyone in the show found easy to work with, but even if you barely knew anything about her you would still feel like you didn’t see a new side of her at all. She succeeded, but in order to succeed she seemed to absolutely need nearly every part of the show she was involved in to be structured in such a way as to keep her entirely within her comfort zone. This episode seemed like it was constructed solely to pander just to Megans' fanbase more than SNLs' fanbase and regular viewers to the point where I felt like I was watching a lost episode from season 35. The two biggest things this episode working against its favor were its continued and increasing desparate hardcore pandering to an extremely young and extremely and overly hip online audience (who I suspect view themselves as too "above" SNL and "traditional" media in general to care or even give them as much as a second thought) as well as them seemingly going back on even any hints of new changes being made and giving us another season 47 show in season 48. Still, they managed to give appropriate amounts of screen time to the new featured players (especially Devon) as well as Ego and Punkie (but as a bizarre side effect, Heidi and Chloe had more of a presence than this episode called for). Anyway, let's break this down, shall we?

C-SPAN January 6th Hearing - Ah, THERE'S the cold open we've come to expect from SNL (and we were foolish enough to think they could leave behind this season). Kudos to Michael Longfellow and Sarah Sherman for landing their first ever impressions on the show. Kenan and Heidi were pretty solid here (even if Heidi's part seemed a little tonally muddled) and Mikeys' part was genuinely the only part that made me laugh. The rest of this (while honestly not as forgettably dry as I expected) just kinda washed over me. C+

Monologue - Hmm, I...wasn’t expecting this level of energy from Megan. I haven't seen interviews with her or any clips of her outside a few songs, so I always thought of her more as "sedate Nicki Minaj with a nose and/or eye jobs". I felt like I was literally watching Lizzos' monologue on 2x speed. Still, congratulations on your medical degree and mental health efforts, Meg. That was the only thing I picked uo from this monologue that wasn't just pure fan service for the "hotties" who tuned in. She doesn't seem ill-suited for the show or anything. C+

Hot Girl Hospital - Speaking of fan service for the hotties, it's tempting to refer to this sketch as this season's "Gen Z Hospital" (the next live sketch after this more closely fits that description) but this sketch was actually written to play to the hosts' strengths as a celebrity and not their delusions. Also, I get the sense this sketch wasn't written to humiliate all involved by someone trying to get fired from the show. Ok, I still wouldn't be surprised to find Che had a hand in this given how incoherent some parts of it were (especially how Meg really raced through her speech explaining how Draymond Green started the hospital?) Good way to sneak Punkie, Marcello and JAJ into the show, though. The Devon/Sarah and Michael/Heidi scenes were funny (especially for Michael unintentionally making his entrance gaffe from the Manningcast cold open real). Not the worst lead off sketch the show has had this season so far. B-

We Got Bought - This was like they took the Aziz Ansari dinner sketch from Will Ferrells' 2018 episode and the Covid Mask dinner sketches from John Mulaneys' episode from last season, added water, added more water and set it to a hip hop beat to make someone way more fun. Ego carried this on their backs. Shockingly, Megan didn’t add a whole lot to this compared to Heidi, Punkie and Devon even though this was literally designed for her. B-

Deer - This was definitely the weakest sketch of the night. The puppetry was fun and Kenan was solid but other than that it was all over the place. This had a weak premise with sloppy execution. It was nice of them to use Devon, Molly and JAJ in this even though their presence wasn’t even explained let alone justified (were Devon and Megan a couple or siblings?) D+

Girl Talk - This seemed unnecessarily padded to delay the reveal of another thin premise but Punkie and Andrew really added some variety to it. Kenan seemed like he was edited in from another sketch entirely. I walked away from this sketch mostly wondering two things; 1) What was Kenan saying and who was he talking to on that hot mic? 2) Anyone else reminded of a particular scene in the movie BASEketball seeing this? C+

Please Don't Destroy: Wellness - While this one wasn’t bad, it does speak to an issue I have with the pacing of their pretapes in that the shorter they are the more it takes a rewatch to appreciate them because you might actually miss a crucial joke or line or two. On first run, I just viewed this as something that didn’t have enough of a twist or really an ending but on second watch I noticed that they were using their upbeat fronts to mask the fact that they were simply admitting to being miserable. See, that's something I legitimately missed the first time. C+

Update was a real mixed bag this week. Not a lot of jokes stood out but the ones that did (Pelosi, McConnell, Elon) were unusually sharp and stinging for SNL. The commentaries really dragged this one down. The Heidi/Chloe thing was a campy scatalogical mess. I'm a bit disappointed that Rosebud Baker cowrote this, but it tracks. This just seemed like an excuse for Chloe to repurpose her Reese Witherspoon impression (and Heidi to repurpose the same southern accent she uses for every other sketch she does). The run on various candies was ok and it seemed like the demonic possession of Chloe was gonna be a fun twist but it didn’t seem like they went far enough with it. Devon had a fine debut as himself. He had solid (if not scattershot) material but I wasn’t crazy about how he felt the need to race through three separate complicated topics in the little time he was given. We already have one of tonight's performers racing through their lines at breakneck speed. We can't handle another. C+

Workout Class - At first, I was expecting another installment of those Bowen penned sketches from season 45 where he plays one of a rotating group of SoulCycle instructors audtion to take over the same class until I noticed that Bowen was taking the class along with Ego and Sarah and that Heidi and Chloe (ironically) had confusingly large parts in this. Plus, it was almost tonally incoherent and butt-focused enough that I'm pretty shocked Che DIDN’T write this (especially since it reminded me of the "Skims For Dogs" sketch from last year's Kardashian hosted episode which I know he DID write). I'm well aware that SNL found putting this sketch online worth it for the viral clicks (from whichever viral audience they're chasing at moment) but I'd actually say putting it on the air on NBC/Peacock was worth it for the unintentional comedy of the camera miscues that were so long and GLARING that even Megan couldn't NOT visibly acknowledge her confusion over still being in the shot when she didn’t have any lines left (so, in other words the same reasons that necessitated that they not only put the dress version on YouTube but also immediately edit the dress version into the same night rerun on NBC where we also got to see that Ego and Bowens' entire opening scene was cut adding to this sketches lost, baffling feel before it even got started). Yeah, this sketch sure was a mess but it was one of the more fun messes the show has allowed on the show in a while. C+

St. Andrews Center For Shivering Girls - This was OK for something that was just tired observational comedy disguised as a fake PSA. Kenans' singing and the Ego/Dismukes laundromat scene were the only stand outs to me. C+

Ms. Fink - This was definitely the strongest live sketch of the night (at least this episode went out on a strong note) and it could’ve used some trimming because it was a little repetitive and it meandered a bit but yeah...give the ball to Ego, get the hell out of her way and she saves the show once again (with some notable assists from Megan, Devon and Punkie of course). This was definitely a more well thought out and executed subversion of the Lean On Me/Stand And Deliver/Dangerous Minds/Freedom Writers tropes than that classroom sketch with Lin Manuel Miranda as the teacher. B-

Now, I'm finally ready to deliver my first real ranking of the season so far...

1. Brendon Gleeson/Willow (10.08.2022)
2. Miles Teller/Kendrick Lamar (10.01.2022)
3. Megan Thee Stallion (10.15.2022)

Well, that was an interesting experiment that didn’t work out. In just a little under two weeks, Jack Harlow makes his hosting debut as the show gives us two double duty hosts in a row. Wow, um...yeah, I'm not exactly looking forward to that obe either. As I said earlier, while Megan gave off the vibe of being someone the cast got along with all week...Jack Harlow ALREADY does not. There was a rumor going around that Harlow got very upset that the PDD boys wrote a pretape for Pete and Mileys' NYE special last year that contained a rather mild joke about him being easily mistaken for any random white guy (possibly to the point that he demanded PDD be fired from the special?) so...already I'm predicting he'll be a difficult host. If Megan was a host who the show had to write around because they genuinely liked her and WANTED her to look good, Harlow may be another host who the show has to write around out of necessity due to them being a sheer black hole of talent and/or personality. I'm predicting something similar to when Adam Levine and Justin Beiber hosted back to back in season 38 or even back in early season 41 when they actually had...nah, I'm not gonna go THAT far here. I'll just say I hope something comes up for me a week from Saturday that I can use as an excuse to maybe not watch live but if not, so be it. See you then!