Kate McKinnon/Billie Eilish (12.16.2023)

Okay, here's my review. While this show was more than a little uneven, it was uneven in a way that thankfully challenged me as a lifelong SNL fan. They took perhaps the some of the biggest conceptual risks I have seen them take in recent years so that while some of the highs weren't quite as high as last week, the lows weren't as low but they were at least more interesting to see play out in real time. The weaker sketches actually mildly confused me into submission a bit rather than just disappointed me with what they were doing. I was more intrigued to watch certain sketches progress in order to figure out just what the hell they were actually going for rather than just tune them out to try to take notes and get caught up on this review. Kate McKinnon did in fact deliver a show that was respectably mostly devoid of her recurring characters (aside from one) that reminded us why she was such a welcome presence at the show as I was hoping she would last week. They actually took some chances creatively and while not all of them were hit out of the park, enough of them hit just right for me to get some enjoyment out of it from some unexpected places. Aside from maybe Devon and Molly, everyone got a fair amount of screen time tonight. JAJ saw a major leap. Anyway, let’s get on with it.

95th Annual Christmas Awards - Boy, am I glad to see this up top after this week! I mean, it's still not the most ideal length or pacing for a cold open but it still defies any expectations I could've had so hey, I'll take it. The various "reenactments" from Mikey, Troast & Dismukes and the off-air awards presented by Marcello really made this for me along with the acceptance speeches from Kenan, Sarah & Devon. B-

Monologue - I can't tell you how refreshing it is to just see Kate be Kate and give us as much of a genuine glimpse into "real life Kate" as we'll ever get to see (especially after wrapping that real part of herself in a couple of layers of dadaist absurdity). I was actually starting to get Phil Hartman season 21 vibes until the sappy but pleasantly low key musical number started. Not even the genuine (given who else we were expecting) surprise cameos from Maya & Kristen (does she have the same eyebrow groomer as the Levys now?) could detract from this. I especially like Kates "prosthetics" and "required to sing" jokes. B+

North Pole Breaking News - It was a strange (but at least semi understandable) choice to open up the show with the template of a sketch that closed Eddie Murphys' 2019 episode but it mostly worked for me. I can understand the thinking that Kate would be one of the few performers who could really do this justice (hell, wasn’t she also in the last one? If so, did she have enough of a good time to want to bring this back for herself?). I liked the intense scottish character she bought to this. It reminded me of one of those town hall sketches from (I think?) season 41 where she played a nursing home resident apologizing for various acts of violence she committed while under the influence of Rockstar Energy Drinks. Weirdly, I was just thinking about that specific performance and how much I'd like to see her play that type of character once again. I even got a kick out of the sight gag of her vomiting Skittles but still, I have to say I liked Eddie's iteration of this sketch better because this one lacked the sheer raw chaotic energy of that one. C+

Pongo - Nice to see that with Sarah's help (and some assists from Mikey, Fineman and Dismukes) Kate can triple, nay, quadruple down on the dadaist absurdism vibes Kate bought in her monologue and bring some [adult swim] flavor with a dash of "That's Not Yogurt" & "Almost Pizza" to them. The benign nihilism that got mixed in there doesn't hurt either. B+

ABBA Christmas - Hmm...I didn’t love this or hate it. It was a fine sketch I couldn't muster much enthusiasm for. Weirdly, I did chuckle at the "Waterloo/Babadook" number. JAJ did a fine job anchoring this as the pitchman (that may be the first time he ever visibly broke on camera?)but I always pictured modern SNL placing Mikey in Mayas' role if they ever did an ABBA parody (I mean, she WAS playing the other male member of the grouo who incidentally does resemble Mikey Day quite a bit in real life but her one line of spoken dialogue got me). Other than that , this was well cast. All I can say about it is it gave me heavy "we just dusted off and resubmitted an old script from 2005 that Maya & Kristen couldn't get on until now" vibes. C+

Mom & Dads' Christmas Gifts - Honestly, this is the first sketch of the night that I felt was off putting in a bad way. It didn't really go anywhere and felt like a lower energy version of a MAD TV sketch I saw with Stephanie Weir & Andy Daly. I never thought I'd be saying this but JAJs' part genuinely could've been cut for going to far against the grain of this sketch. Nice of them to include Molly, though. D+

Tampon Farm (She Sings) - This mostly felt like one big inside joke that Kate, Billie and the other women on the show were in on and I wasn't. I did like the ending reveal of the farm being condemned for too much singing. Paula Pell was the only odd cameo that really worked for me though. Her presence suddenly made this make sense. C+

Update was kind of all over the place. Only a few of the actual jokes worked for me and they were Josts' Rudy/$9.11, bird killing and Claudine Gay jokes (the latter if which was better than last week's entire cold open) along with Che's Haley/Sununu, Albert Einswine and inheritance jokes. Ego's Rich Auntie With No Kids worked for me just because I appreciated getting to see her doing this type of focused character driven piece rather than "generic 'no-nonsene' woman #427". It did remind me of Aidys' "worst woman on a plane" commentary from 10(!) seasons ago (which I guess was the closest the show could get to an actual Aidy cameo this week). I especially liked the threats of Veronda coming for Che's job (which if it wasn’t foreshadowing when Bobby played Riblet sure isn't gonna be foreshadowing now). I was glad to see them go all out for the two year long awaited return of the Christmas joke swap with Che finally getting his fair share of humiliation for once. I would genuinely love to know the story of how Dr. Hattie Davis got involved here (or on SNL even back in season 3 because I found nothing on SNL archives on her). At this point, Che & Jost may have more than made up for how gassed out they seemed this season. They seemingly did nothing concrete to confirm or deny those "last show" rumors but they did leave us with a number of different reasons to question why this WASN'T their last episode. B+

Office Yankee Swap - Wow...this sketch really was something else. I mean, it took some big swings and I can't say they didn’t work for me. They knew exactly how to play maudlin against frivolous here and I didn't mind how they escalated this exactly as far as it needed to go before ending it. Punkies' part felt a little telegraphed but I did like Dismukes "my family's white" line. B+

Cinema Classics: Meet Me In St. Louis - I feel like I've seen enough of Reese De'What for a lifetime but I do appreciate them bringing it back just to fold Troast & JAJ into this format. Kate was just fine here turning in the type of semi-contained insanity we've seen before in her early years. I liked her "Wizard of Oz was mid" line and her chainsaw gag. C+

Whiskers R Billie - Well, this was definitely my favorite of Billies' two sketch cameos tonight. Her acting suited this well. Honestly, I'm glad this was the only recurring character of Kate's we got to see tonight. It's a semi-deep cut I've always enjoyed just fine. Maybe Billie is a bigger fan of this than I am? Even though it seemed more watered down than the previous ones, I liked that the big telegraphed reveal this time was "long lost daughter" rather than "let's play off Billies' recent coming out as bisexual." C+

Now, for my updated ranking of season 49...

1. Nate Bargatze/Foo Fighters (10.28.2023)
2. Adam Driver/Olivia Rodrigo (12.9.2023)
3. Kate McKinnon/Billie Eilish (12.16.2023)
4. Timothee Chalamet/Boygenius (11.11.2023)
5. Emma Stone/Noah Kahan (12.2.2023)
6. Jason Momoa/Tate McRae (11.18.2023)
7. Bad Bunny (10.21.2023)
8. Pete Davidson/Ice Spice (10.14.2023)

Well, that was certainly a fitting way to end 2023 for SNL. After the holiday, the show comes back on 2024 with Jacob Elordi as host. Since he's someone who I only know as "that psycho asshole from Euphoria" and "the second kid to play Elvis in a biopic this decade" (maybe THAT was the real reason they reran the Butler/Lizzo episode before this?) I'd be intrigued to see if he has any comedic range.

Happy Holidays and to those of you who actively contributed to the outpouring of support this blog has received recently, thank you for making my tenth consecutive year doing this so special!

Adam Driver/Olivia Rodrigo (12.9.2023)

Okay, here's my review. It was great to see SNL back on stable ground this week after taking so many broad swings and misses lsst week. This show definitely felt more grounded and only slightly uneven compared to last week. While both of these last two weeks had solid dependable hosts, this week had a host who knew his own strengths better and how to play into them. As expected, Adam Driver elevated everything he was in and thankfully knew when to not play it too big. No one felt more shut out than anyone else in terms of cast airtime (but maybe Michael Longfellow took a minor hit this week and Punkie took a major one). Airtine felt pretty evenly distributed among the cast. I would definitely say this is Adam Driver's second best SNL episode ever just behind his one from season 45. Wanna know why? Well, let's break it down, shall we?

C-SPAN Campus Antisemitism Testimomy - Wow...ok. This is...certainly an out of left field choice for a political cold open. It definitely took me a few rewatches to fully parse what was going on with this one. Full disclosure: my only real exposure to this actual news story were headlines I saw earlier that day about the real life UPenn lady having to resign due to how badly this hearing went for her and even I feel they may have painted with broad brushstrokes here. Nice to see Chloe Troast and Molly Kearney in such prominent roles right up top. Molly teeing up Ego to deliver that "Dr. Gay/fire island" joke doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence thst they'll handle this subject matter as delicately as they should, but somehow Heidi's whole performance is putting me at ease. Troast is certainly making some strong choices with her accent, but I can't say they're NOT working for me. (Did whoever say Cecily was going to make a cameo in this cold open simply confuse these two women again?) Kudos to her for getting to take the lead on another group LFNY (again, I thought we were past these?) Kenans' whole character seems like he was pulled straight out of an unused cold open from 2011 but at least he got to deliver the only genuine laugh lines in this. Hope Twitter treads lightly with this one...aaaaaand I'm already starting to see that they didn’t. Still, I'd like to thank my friend Monette Moradi for actually raising the level of discourse surrouding this cold open (at least in the social media circle I'm the most immersed in) by pointing out ways this COULD have worked if they focused it up writing-wise instead of just taking the "both sides are dumb & crazy" route because, well...let's just say I know her perspective is going to be the one that matters the most here. C+

Monologue - I'm really relieved to see that this solo piano monologue matches the offbeat goofiness of his season 45 episode and is more reminiscent of that than any of his other previous episodes so far. Also, it's nice to see Adam Driver had this hidden talent for actually playing piano this whole time. Yep, you're gonna have a pretty damn hard time convincing me Zach Galifianakis DIDN'T come in this week to guest write this monologue (but I am willing to bet that if whoever helped write Harry Styles' and Timothee Chalamets' monologues in seasons 45 and 46 respectively is still on staff that they helped with this, too). The Kattan mention didn’t totally work for me, but hey, I'll take it. His "couples' pranks TikTok" and "gingerbread house" jokes got the biggest laughs out of me. Thank God this turned out to be more than just a mish mash of random one-liners. Does anyone else get big Tom Hanks vibes from this? B+

Adults Only Ski Trip - On paper, this seemed too idiotic to work but in execution, Adam Driver and Bowen Yang as two gay men who barely know how sex let alone conception or pregnancy works played out10 times better than it had any right to once it simply turned into a list of absurd details such as ham & cocaine, geriatric pregnancies, three out of seven holes, phones & Andy Milonakis (were Dan Licata and Stephen Castillo guest writers this week, too?). See, this is the more down to earth, grounded stupidity I'd like to see more of from Bowen rather than the listless, gimmicky vanity pieces he's been giving us lately that haven't landed. My only real complaint about this was that it was a bit too long, and maybe everything after Ego's entrance could've been cut. C+

Old Friends - This seemed to be going for the same thing that the Christmas Dinner pretape from Billie Eillishs' episode two years ago was going for. I honestly prefer this even though I thought everything after Devon "Big Filthy" Walkers' appearance should’ve been cut. The "big ones/big titties" bit in particular felt telegraphed as hell, and the facebook ad tag at the end (while expertly cut and well timed) felt unnecessary. C-

Beep Beep - This may have been my favorite live sketch of the night. It had a very Key & Peele setup followed by typical modern SNL overexposition, but it was still such a Dismukes sketch, and he and Driver just owned it. The ending with Kenan worked perfectly for me, and it didn't overstay its welcome. A-

Shop TV Christmas - Hmm...I think Rosebud Baker (or just Michael Che, let's face it) simply just went for broke at 4am on Tuesday and just set out to write the single most derivative, most telegraphed, most pointlessly censor baiting, LEAST creative SNL sketch in the entire shows' history. That's the only way I can process this making air. Oh well, at least Adam gave me a couple of laughs in his obligatory "meek, milquetoast, playing against type" role of the night as did the brief phone calls. Also, did whoever say Cecily was gonna cameo tonight get confused here too and think they were doing "Right Side Of The Bed" again? Did this person also confuse Mikey with Taran? I could legit see that happening? D+

Update was quite an improvement from last week (which, I know, isn't saying much, but still...). The jokes overall were fine. None of them stood out that much (well, that RFK Jr/Epstein and "conservative women = flat asses ones" did) but both Jost & (especially) Che made up for how out of it they seemed last week. Marcellos' standup seemed a little unfocused for me in the middle there, but overall, that worked for me, too. His "barbershop/salon" and "delayed plane/breakup" bits made me laugh the most. Chloe Finemans' commentary was at least a nice format break for modern Update (as much as it reminded me of Jon Rudnitskys' Dirty Dancing commentary from season 41 and one of Melissa Villaseñors standup bits about how NSYNCs' dance moves are so violently herky-jerky and all in the shoulders they'd be better suited for a bar fight than a date) and it was at least a little different from what she usually gives us in her calculated vanity pieces. I had heard rumors of a "surprise cameo" during a potential second update commentary, and while I could definitely tell who it was gonna be once Chloe mentioned "Save The Last Dance." Still, I do have to say that Julia Stiles was one of the absolute last people I would expect to cameo on SNL in 2023, so...yep, you got me there, bud! Nice use of Devon, though. B-

Babys' First Flight - Okay, I guess Marc Weiner was a guest writer too this week? Or maybe whoever wrote those Adam Grossman Benihana sketches for Jonah Hill came back this week? Either way, this was something that only Adam Driver could’ve put over for me because it absolutely went nowhere on the page. Thankfully, Adam didn't go too over the top. Honestly, the only way thing that should've been cut was the "baby plane" ad tag at the end. C+

Septugenarian TikTok Prank Victims - This was definitely my favorite pretape of the night just for the sheer spontaneous silliness of it played against the sincere, pleading PSA tone. Kenan, Adam, JAJ and Marcello sold the hell out of this for me. Even Heidi turned in a strong performance here. B+

Tiny Ass Baggage - An Ego/Marcello pairing was something I didn't know I needed in my life until I saw it. Adams' purposely stiff lone readings were the icing on the cake for me. Olivia's cameo worked well for me too (although I can't help but think she's gonna get some shit on the TikToks and the YouFaceTwitters for using that accent that I'm sure Ego could get away with better). I already have seen that I may be alone on this but this was definitely my second favorite live sketch of the night. I probably would’ve liked this much less if it were in any other episode with any other host but this was already preceeded by such stronger material that I choose to associate it with in my memory. B+

Now, just for fun (and because I know you may not feel like scrolling all the way back up to my intro after having read all that), I'd like to updare my ranking of each of Driver's episodes from best to worst...

1. Adam Driver/Halsey (1.25.2020)

2. Adam Driver/Olivia Rodrigo (12.9.2023)

3. Adam Driver/Chris Stapleton (1.16.2016)

3. Adam Driver/Kanye West (9.29.2018)

Now, for my updated ranking of season 49...

1. Nate Bargatze/Foo Fighters (10.28.2023)

2. Adam Driver/Olivia Rodrigo (12.9.2023)

3. Timothee Chalamet/Boygenius (11.11.2023)

4. Emma Stone/Noah Kahan (12.2.2023)

5. Jason Momoa/Tate McRae (11.18.2023)

6. Bad Bunny (10.21.2023)

7. Pete Davidson/Ice Spice (10.14.2023)

Well, that was a breeze. Next week, Kate McKinnon returns to the show, a mere year and a half after leaving, to make her hosting debut. You know, much like Pete hosting this seasons premiere (after the first of this year's two Hollywood strikes prevented him from hosting in the homestretch of the previous season) I would probably be looking forward to this more if Kate had given us more time away from the show to miss her before she came back. With Kate hot off the heels of here mere supporting role as "Weird Barbie" in...well, "Barbie", it just feels either too soon or not at the right moment in her career to just...host. She should host to promote something she is the lead star in but I can see this booking as SNL wanting to provide a solid ending to a difficult calendar year for everyone. The Christmas shows (when done right) tend to be comfort food for the audience and a big Christmas party for the cast and crew so I get them wanting to book a familiar face as host who can be counted on to carry the show into the holidays if not the new year. Don't get me wrong, I am certainly not denying that Kate's a truly talented and committed performer. It's just that the best examples of her being the shows most valuable asset are from her first four seasons on the show. After that, they just kept pounding the square peg that is Kate McKinnon into the round hole that was SNLs desperate and feeble attempts to keep up with the exhausting and demoralizing political scene of the time. Hopefully, she can do what fellow alums Pete, Marty, Adam and Seth did in recent years and just deliver a strong show carried by solid original performances and or character work (by which I don't mean recurring characters obviously since with Kate most of those were two handers between her and either Cecily or Aidy who as far as we know aren't guaranteed to make cameos) making us remember why we originally liked her as a cast member (hey say what you will about Pete's episode being weak, he was by far the least weak part of it). I know Kate had some chemistry with Billie when she first hosted two years ago. I'd be fine seeing them paired up in sketches again just as long as they can keep the breaking to a minimum. See you then!

Emma Stone/Noah Kahan (12.2.2023)

DISCLAIMER: Due to a long first week of training at a new job and some minor personal concerns, some of my ability to discern amd watch Saturday Night Live extremely critically and as more than just as an escape from substantial life changes may have been corrupted. 

Unfortunately, I did not have access to any deepfake or A.I. technology and neither John Higgins, Bill Brasky, Soaps and Scifi, or Blood Meridian were available to yassify this review on such short notice. 

Luckily, I had the idea to open with this lame attempt at a meta in-joke parodying one of tonights pretapes just to fully cover my own self consciousness at my latest batch of polished hot takes not exactly lining up fully with the groupthink of the small cult following of people I regularly interact with on Discord who I know are the only ones actually reading any of this and yo therapeutically acknowledge the nagging fear of losing considerable clout within said group.

Now, at the risk of possibly losing some of your respect for me as a writer, please enjoy.

Okay, whew. Sorry for making that disclalaimer, like, four times longer than what it was parodying (I swear, I'm gonna start learning to actually edit these better), but here's my review. As you can tell, this turned out to be a shockingly divisive episode amongst fans online. On paper, this isn't that far off from some of the weaker episodes of the season (so pretty much the ones not hosted by Bargatze or Chalamet but on a different level just slightly above Bad Bunny as that one was beset by its own unique issues). On the surface, what actually put this episode over (at least for me personally) was mostly Emma's performance and the fact that the show made use of some much beloved and underused new cast members who might not have seen as much screentime lately. Now, I don't know if the kids today still say things like "the Longfellow stans and the Troast tribe have been FED" on the TikkityToks and the YouFaceBlueThreadTwitters, but yeah, I would say that exact thing happened. Back to Emma, though, she proved she is still the solid reliable host she always was. As I've said before, Emma has a special way of working within the show to make sure none of her episodes feel exactly the same (well, aside from one recent recurring sketch) so even if the show itself was pretty cookie cutter in its basic outline, Emmas such a unique performer that she can bring her own special flair to sketch premises and templates that you feel like you've seen the show attempt multiple times before. Emma, Longfellow, Punkie and Troast in particular really helper push the highs of this show that much higher to take the sting out of how low the lows actually were. She just makes the show that much more fun to watch but smoke and mirrors aside, this reminded me more of her season 42 episode than anything else with it starting off fairly strong and falling off quite a bit by the bottom third (and her also hosting the first of three consecutive episodes taking place in December). As far as screentime, only Molly Kearney suffered a steep drop (don't worry, Molly... you'll get 'em next week), but everyone else really scored. Anyway, let's not waste any more time and just get right to it.

Situation Room - Well, opening the show with Squirm Blitzer was certainly a choic... Oh, THIS is what they scrambled to write for Bowen on Friday. Huh, I was kinda wondering how they would handle the Santos news? I gotta say, though, as cold as I've always run on Bowens' Santos, his actual performance here made this feel about a hundred times less "scrambled" than it had any right to feel. He actually imbued this with some dramatic theatrical energy that a Santos piece may have actually warranted by now instead of just cheekily droning his way through another Update desk piece (probably because he knew as well as we did or just flat out hoped this would be his last time ever playing him). I'm glad to see he had fun with it. I could even look past the boilerplate gay camp that came with this. The Princess Diaries and Beyonce references stood out to me the most. Even ending it with a slightly clumsy clunky "Candle In The Wind" parody was a nice touch (even if I thought replacing "candle" with "scandal" was far beneath even SNL but hey, it was probably 4:00am on a Friday night). His singing was decent, if not a little bit pitchy. I did genuinely laugh at the "evil Forrest Gump" line. I mean, I wouldn't go as far as to say that should've been cut or anything, but it did need some serious work. Eat shit, Randy Rainbow! Bowens got your number! B-

Monologue - Here it is, the obligatory jacket ceremony. We were all expecting this since we all know what a huge SNL nerd Emma is and what a deep and emotional connection she has to the show (not one deep enough that she felt she could do a solo monologue, apparently). I guess they're all gonna be as stripped down and bare bones as what Paul Rudd ended up having to get? Nice to see Tina and Candy again. If only I could forget that the last time they introduced the concept of a "ladies only" five timers club, Drew Barrymore and (somehow, inexplicably Jonah Hill) were involved. I genuinely did laugh at the Mulaney/Woody/Marty jabs and Tinas' "youngest members" and Candys' "places to cry" joke. Also, was anybody else actually hoping to get to see Dave McCary and maybe a brief overview of his history and involvement with the show rather than just visual confirmation that Lorne has...well, seen better days? B+

Question Quest - Thank God this show held off on opening the show with a game show sketch until they could put together a very absurd, writerly, detail/premise heavy one anchored by Michael Longfellow with a BIG assist from Punkie Johnson and Emma and JAJ (who really has a realistic game show announcer cadence down) there to pick up the slack. Oh hai, Molly & Chloe Troast. I laughed consistently throughout this (especially at Punkies' "same color penis" line and her string of fake reindeer names). I mean, it was very reminiscent of one of my all-time favorite State sketches (just replace the tortoise with orphaned children) but this was different enough conceptually that I cannot count that against it. A-

Fully Naked In New York - Wow, two absurd detail heavy sketches in a row. This one really just hits you out of nowhere, doesn’t it? There is just so damn much going on in this sketch that it's impossible to fullly process in one single viewing. I'll say that my first official thought upon the reveal was that SNL has fully escaped the November sweeps trap of getting big names and pandering to a wide audience for ratings and ad money and have allowed themselves to return to letting previously well established friends of the show take over and do unique things. This really started to pick up for me once we heard the Troast/Hernandez duet. The brief cameos from Fineman, Dismukes Punkie and Sarah helped this, too. The last SNL cast member I saw jump on the back of a garbage truck before this was Dennis Miller in season 11 second intro. Thank God he wore a big plaid coat there. B-

Treece Returns - Hmm, I never thought we needed to see this again. Bowen filling in for Kyle Mooney and Emma going all Fargo on us didn’t do anything to change my mind. I mean, I remember the one with Seth Meyers from 2018 being just fine mostly due to Seth but this couldn't make it past dress when Eddie Murphy last hosted. I will admit to chuckling at the "sewage" and "human dumbass" lines. D+

PDD: Please Don't Deepfake - Were Please Don't Destroy a little self conscious about the light criticism they may have received for some lightly A.I. assisted crowd scenes from "Foggy Mountain"? Anyway, while I liked how they used Punkie here (besides just reusing the old framework of "Punkie doesn’t know white celebrities or pop culture very well") this is something I couldn't fully get on board with until I saw how they used Marcello and how they showed a self-Yassified John Higgins in this. Honestly, the constant disclaimers kinda hurt this for me. It led to an unhealthy "tell don't show" feel for this and kinda hurt the pacing of an already slightly inconsistent pretape that started to feel like four separate sketch ideas smashed together. It reminded me a lot of the cold open to Scarjos' season 40 episode in a not so good way. C+

What's In The Kiln? - Hmm, I'm not too crazy about the pairing of Chloe & Heidi right from jumpstreet. Still, this is far less over the top than their demonic posession commentary from a year ago. It's much more than just a watered down version of Delicious Dish or the baking competition sketches that Cheadle, Murphy, Chalamet and Simu Liu gave us. It's much more prop and visual based in a similar vein to the grey pigtails sketch with Natasha Lyonne or the big dumb hat sketch with Amy Schumer so...this definitely has the feel of a female writer who recently left the show coming back. Either way, it's something I have a surprising amount of appreciation for considering I'm not exactly the target audience for it. C+

Update was possibly the strongest it's been all year (and in terms of THIS season, that's really saying something). Jost & Che had a string of great pre-commentary jokes but they really started to taper off post-commentary. Ironic that Che told an A.I. joke since he seemed so stumbly bumbly tonight it was almost like he was replaced with an A.I. deepfake of himself. Mikey Longs absolutely killed it as the old fashioned cigarette. Good to see he can still absolutely crush Bowen at playing inanimate objects. B-

Mama Cass Sessions - While this wasn't QUITE the Troast showcase I was hoping for since she was deceptively snuck into more of a supporting role, her voice alone put this over for me. Anyone else get slightly more Aidy vibes than Cecily vibes from her here? While I wasn’t too crazy about the idea of Emma in drag being the main focus, I loved how committed she was to it. Once she started acting out violent montages with Bowen, Mikey and Dismukes I could fully get on board with it. I especially liked the ending, too. B-

Return Of The Posters - With Pete being in the first two and him already having come and gone this season, I seriously wasn't expecting them to bring this back at all (and I was kinda hoping they wouldn't but Chrissy Knox seems to be Emma's only recurring character on the show, but Emma must like playing her and Mikey must like writing them). Still, this had a level of variation to it the others didn’t have (and I'm not just talking about Marcello being used in a pinch). Even Chrissy herself seemed to have four or five brain cells instead of the usual two. Did they let other do a major punch up on this one? C+

Diet Coke By Olay - Thank god this got in and got out quickly. There seemed to be absolutely nothing to this besides "lol (mostly white) women be mainlining Diet Coke amirite?" Was this written by whoever wrote the vagina sketch from Pete's episode? Would Diet Coke have been replaced by Starbucks if they did this a decade ago? It's a shame we may never hear or see what cut for time live sketch this replaced at the last second. D-

Now, looking back at my review of Emma's 2019 episode, it seems I DID actually try to rank her previous ones, so let me try and update those rankings right now.

1. Emma Stone/Coldplay (11.12.2011)
2. Emma Stone/BTS (4.13.2019)
3. Emma Stone/Kings Of Leon (10.23.2010)
4. Emma Stone/Noah Kahan (12.2.2016)
5. Emma Stone/Shawn Mendes (12.3.2016)

Now, for my updated ranking of season 49...

1. Nate Bargatze/Foo Fighters (10.28.2023)
2. Timothee Chalamet/Boygenius (11.11.2023)
3. Emma Stone/Noah Kahan (12.2.2023)
4. Jason Momoa/Tate McRae (11.18.2023)
5. Bad Bunny (10.21.2023)
6. Pete Davidson/Ice Spice (10.14.2023)

Well, THAT was certainly a journey. Next week, Adam Driver returns for his fourth time hosting. Now, he's anothrr solid, reliable host I always enjoyed seeing on the show. For as much of a sharp dynamic performer as he is, even he could still use some help from strong writing to put things over. Let's just hope this episode turns out more like his 2020 one than his 2018 one. See you soon!

Jason Momoa/Tate McRae (11.18.2023)

Okay, here's my review. This show may have been more underwhelming compared to last week's episode, and it would be hard for me to say Jason Momoa actually redeemed himself from his 2018 episode, but at least he turned in a more mature and grounded performance here. It was still an uneven episode, but it felt more "safe" somehow. The lows were more middling than outright shocking and the highs were pleasant, but not as high aside from one Update piece and one choice pretape near the end of the show. Overall, it was another Thanksgiving episode that felt like it easily fell into SNLs' usual November/early February/mid May trap of losing focus on what the overall guiding vision of the season will be and what the new hires can bring to the show in favor of getting big name stars and personalities for "sweeps week/month" and having to appeal to a wider mass audience for ratings and ad dollars. Thankfully, airtime seemed to be evenly distributed this week. Longfellow, Walker, Dismukes and Hernandez each got a well needed bump but Kearney and Troast seemed to take hits (although in Troasts case, that might just be because she didn't get her own center showcase sketch like last week...and come to think of it I'm not sure she appeared in any live sketches, either). Anyway, let’s get right down to it.

Biden Press Conference - Ok, I guess they're really sticking with Mikey Biden then. Good for them. I genuinely liked the "Roman Numeral 11" and "panda" and "fake elevator" jokes. They seem to actually have some more pointed takes on Bidens' actual polices. Oh, no. Bowen just walked in wearing a panda suit...playing a panda who's quite full of himself. At least he made an actual pointed statement on Trump (even if it was the kind of thing the show SHOULD have been saying eight years ago). It's such a shame. This cold open had some real potential. At least we got to see Longfellow, Punkie, Marcello, Ego, Heidi, and Molly as reporters. That's something. Good for them. Mikey Longs is already starting to make up for his absence. C-

Monologue - It's truly nice to see a more focused and settled monologue from Jason than the one he gave us in 2018. We got a more personal glimpse into Jason, and the show let him explain more about a cause he cares about and has started his own environmental organization to pursue. I have to admit though, I considered the far off possibility that he MIGHT have been using this monologue to explain that he hasn't been in many memorable acting roles inbetween Aquaman movies because he took some time off to focus on this project. Ironically, this was reminiscent of the type of monologue that your Halseys, your Schreibers, your Damons, and your Elbas gave us the last time Jason hosted. It now seems like Momoa was the only season 44 host to NOT give us one of those monologues then. At least this monologue gives me a bit more confidence about the rest of this show than the cold open did. B-

Masters Of The Pen - Hey, a premise heavy period piece. Maybe one of the writers got some inspiration from that lost Charlie Chaplin sketch Dana Carvey (R.I.P. Dex) posted on Twitter a while ago (or maybe those Jim Carrey "Background Guy" sketches from In Living Color)? I mean that sincerely and affectionately and not as an accusation of plagarism. Maybe Day & Seidell wrote this? I wonder because it also reminded me of his sniper sketch with Chris Pine from 2017. I liked this as a decent glue role for Longfellow and as a fun old timey take on modern technology obsession and its symbiotic relationship with good old-fashioned timeless human narcicissm. Interesting choice though to end this on a zoom out from home base where the old timey footage was being staged from. B-

Ancient Rome Rap - Hmm, I have two theories about this sketch. Either the some of the writers saw the flak the show got for that Britneys' Audiobook Audition sketch last week (particularly Molly's role as Kevin James' meme) and decided to write this sketch as a giant middle finger to them or someone was just saving this for the exact right host because I'm having a hard time imagining any other male host besides Jason Momoa anchoring this piece. Ego, Punkie and Troast (who for a quick second there I thought might have been Tate McRae, Camilla Cabellos' non-union Canadian equivalent) did great jobs in this, but the main thing this will probably be remembered for is a child actor (who seems like they want us to recognize from somewhere based on how prominently he was featured...is he one of Momoa and Lisa Bonets' actual kids?) saying "goddamn Tyrannosaurus". C-

Nightclub - Hmm, it seemed at first like they were trying to bring back that towel boy sketch from Michael B. Jordans' episode (except they made the questionable decision to give Jason Momoa an accent he probably shouldn't have attempted). Then it seemed like they were trying to bring back that restaurant sketch from Pedro Pascals' episode last season (except they let Mikey Longs share some of the burns with Sarah Squirm). Either way, this came very close to working for me but didn't quite get there, but it's still good to see Marcello (and Kenan) try their damndest to put it over. C-

Hudson News Thanksgiving Week Airport Parade - Well, this is an interesting rearrangement of those "regular crazy person red carpet" sketches we got twice last year. Ego as a cohost instead of an interviewee is a nice change. Even if they gave us the obligatory "flirtation" between her and Captain Jason they just gave us a few small concentrated doses of it. Somehow, they managed to give Chloe Fineman actual funny dialogue that she could deliver in a way that landed with me. Usually, Kenan spouting gibberish and Mikey and Heidi as a bickering couple work better for me than they did here. Marcello in a stereotypical gay role is something I'm not sure I needed (hell, the direction and timing of his part kinda blew the eventual reveal that Ego and Jason snuck off to hook up), but Longfellow and Dismukes cameo was a highlight. I liked Molly and JAJs' parts (when in doubt, have a child swear, huh? Let's just be careful and not make that too much of a crutch). Punkie had some funny lines. I will say I feel like Sarah's viral woman felt a little much and could've been cut (if my first theory about the Rome rap is true) but hey, Devon had a good line to tag that with. C+

PDD: Ramen Fever - For some reason, I was expecting this week's PDD short to be something where the joke turns out to be the boys letting their Peacock streaming movie fame go straight to their heads. Instead, what they gave us this week was a short where they built on the formula of the matzoh ball soup sketch from Amy Schumers' episode from last year. Ben and Big Mart-Mart are too distracted by thoughts of gourmet restaurant ramen to console John through his very sudden breakup. I did like the "spicy/with buns" bit in the middle and John subtly getting his wallet stolen near the end. That added a bit of variety to this. Even with their signature quick cuts and manic pacing, this felt just a little longer than it needed to be since they established the joke in a bit of a rush. Still, it had the perfect ending. B+

Update was really only worth it for 2/3rds of the commentaries (sorry Bowen, I don't think we needed to see your Santos again...especially if those were the best OnlyFans jokes you guys could come up with). Weirdly, Jost had better jokes this week with his "feeling menopausal" crack and his meta NBCUniversal/X (even as awkwardly delivered as that was) and Six Flags/fraud awareness jokes. Che's jokes didn't really land with me but I did like his delivery of that "gender death gap" joke JUST for how he and Jost leaned into the reaction to it without cracking themselves up over it. Every bit of Devons' Draymond Green gave me my first genuine laughs of the night. I especially liked how it was written in such a way that you really didn’t need to follow basketball that closely to get the jokes. It's nice to see Devon find another impression role that fits his voice and niche within this cast. He definitely put that over better than Kenan would've. It was great to see JAJ & Dismukes as another musical duo initially (especially as Colins' intro made it seem like this would be more of a unique format break than it was). I even laughed immediately just at JAJs jacket and that sphere/cylinder joke but as soon as it dawned on me that they were just giving us a 2018 updates of Geminis' Twin and Jon Bovi in 2023 (seriously, Dismukes was even vocally channeling Forte REAL hard) I realized this may not have been their best work as much fun as it was to see them pop up at this point. One particular piece it reminded me of was when Beck Bennet played himself on Update in early 2017 to "sing" brief fake pop songs he wrote for himself. Sadly, I think I liked that better than this. C+

Guess Who's Coming Straight Off The Island To Dinner? (Or Yassified Castaway...wait, Yasss-taway is right th...nah, I'll just stick with the first one) - Well, Chloe sure gave us a lot of exposition for what turned out to just be her "Ok, Ego. You had your fun in the airport sketch. Now, it's MY turn to hang off of and drool all over Jason!" sketch. Still, you gotta hand it to Dismukes for trying his damndest to put this one over (and hey, bud...you should be proud of yourself for getting just as much audience lady screams as Jason did when YOUR shirt came off!) C-

Untold: Battle Of The Sexes - Sarah Squirm as the woman who suffered the most gruesome public sports related death imaginable so Billie Jean King could run. It's great to see Sarah finally found a way to sneak in as much Squirmgore as NBC would allow in one sitting. She gave us a more interesting twist on a sketch template we've seen previously when Mikey Day got pummeled by both John Cena and J.J. Watt and when Vanessa Bayer got pummeled by Ronda Rousey. Hell, we even saw it earlier this year when each of the PDD boys got wrecked by Travis Kelce. I also loved how precisely measured it seemed. She knew exactly when to escalate this and what the perfect ending would be. By far, this was the best sketch of the night (minor pacing issues and an unnecessarily edgelordy line from Chloe aside). A-

Cab Ride - This was fun, too. A list of increasingly absurd bad medical news delivered via speakerphone ending with a Kenan comfortably and casually speed walking out of a slow moving cab. Not every little detail worked for me, but I did chuckle at "Hepatitis Gold" and "Purr Night," and Jasons attempt to high five Kenan over the worst things ever. I had heard via the SNN Hot Take show that this sketch was actually cut from Keiran Culkins' episode two years ago. After hearing that, I am thankful that we got a cut sketch from THAT episode instead of any litany of cut sketches from Travis Kelces' episode back in March. I considered the possibility that that's what we might be getting after I noticed a slight facial resemblance between Jason and Travis during the monologue and also just from the semi-gassed out, last show before they get to go on a holiday break feeling I got from this and really most Thanksgiving episodes of SNL. C+

Now, for my updated ranking of season 49...

1. Nate Bargatze/Foo Fighters (10.28.2023)
2. Timothee Chalamet/Boygenius (11.11.2023)
3. Jason Momoa/Tate McRae (11.18.2023)
4. Bad Bunny (10.21.2023)
5. Pete Davidson/Ice Spice (10.14.2023)

Well, they sure put that episode as a whole over. After Thanksgiving, SNL returns on December 2nd with Emma Stone (our first female host this season) returning to most likely receive her five timers club jacket! I have to say, I'll be looking forward to this one. Emma has proven herself to be a dependable, versatile host who the writers always knew exactly how to write for. She has proven she can gel well with three very different casts so it will be great to see her do the same with a fourth. Seriously, of the four episodes she has hosted thus far, I can't think of one that stands out as being any worse than the others. Even during the weaker seasons she hosted in, she always found some way to elevate the show. Yes, Emma Stone is a welcome presence at SNL who has demonstrated her deep love of the show (and I mean that literally as she married and had a baby with a writer/producer/director who I'm fairly certain has left the show recently) so it should be great to have her come back and try to steer the show back on course. See you then!

Timothee Chalamet/Boygenius (11.11.2023)

Okay, here's my review. This was an episode that took some wild swings that may not have paid off and relied a bit too much on old sketch premises (some not even from this particular hosts last episode). Still, the highs were higher this season than they've ever been and the lowest were just shocking blows coming out of nowhere. It's still a wildly uneven episode, though. Certain things were holding this show back from being the best of the season. I'd say it was second best behind the comfortably consistent Nate Bargatze episode and just ahead of the slightly avant guard Bad Bunny episode. Timothee was still a likable presence as host, but he didn’t seem to be giving it his all like he was three years ago. Unsurprisingly, Heidi had a great night. More surprisingly was how Ego and Punkie managed to have great nights this week. JAJ and Squirm dropped in with some assists. Longfellow was barely present but he managed to make the most out of what little screentime he did get (much like everyone else even if they weren't given the best roles). Anyway, let's just get right to it because there's a lot we gotta break down this week.

Republican Debate 2024 - Jesus Christ, old habits really DO die hard on SNL, huh? Well, good on Kenan and Devon for trying the hardest right out if the gate (even if Devon ended up accidentally doing the hackiest Bill Clinton impression 1993 had to offer...geez, I sure hope he isn't recovering from a bout if laryngitis or something), but Ego, Heidi...why? I mean, I hope it wasn't you guys' INTENT to send a cold chill through my very soul like that. You know, things aren't going great when one of your first thoughts on trying to process this cold open is "Hmm, okay... maybe out of all of these new political impressions I MIGHT not mind getting to see Molly Kearney as Chris Christie some more?" Oh, thank God for JAJs' scene/focus stealing abilities. I mean, I don't like how SNL is basically using his Trump to give it's audience Stockholm syndrome at this point but I was holding out hope that this would be some kind of low-level fakeout that would turn out to be worth not completely tuning out of and letting my brain turn into unpleasant white noise at some point. At least Ego as Vivek and John Higgins as Michael Longfellow as Arturo Castro as Ron DeSantis were only there to set up a meta moment. I just wish it wasn't the type of meta moment we used to get in either season 20, 43 or 48 just to shake off the cobwebs and dead weight and work through their baggage of 47 (although I will admit to chuckling at that Paul Rudd line as well as the slams at Vivek as a candidate and the jokes about Trump going after his judge). D+

Monologue - Well, already Chalamet isn't quite bringing that season 46 energy to the monologue. It's all right, bro. That cold open really drained me, too. Anyway, I wasn't expecting him to reference the SAG-AFTRA strike ending THAT directly, but go off, I guess. I appreciate the attempt at a "pure imagination" parody as clumsily and sweatily written as it seemed. This was one of several moments where Timothee was visibly on the verge of breaking (although this actually was the only one where the entire audience was right there with him). The only way I can process it is that everyone was just as taken aback by that one guy just voluntarily giving up his seat so easily for Timothee to sit down in or he thought the CGI bleachers crowd was as funny as I did or just the Wonka portion of this monologue was heavily rewritten between dress and air Stefon-style so Timothee was reading a lot of those jokes for the first time. This wasn't quite the meta moment I wanted either, but compared to that cold open, it's the kind of meta moment I can live with. Thankfully, Marcello, Punkie Minaj and Kenan Thompson were there to liven this up for me. Sadly, none of this was enough to distract me from wondering "why the hell did they just smash two different monologues together instead of just doing the baby face rap as a pretape? I mean, I realize that the Wonka song was probably written after the SAG strike ended and the rap was written before, but just pick ONE monologue concept and stick with it! Did they just not have it in their budget for one extra pretape?" B-

50 Years Of Hip Hop - Frankly, I was hoping they would leave this a one off and not try to recapture lightning in a bottle for the sake of YouTube views and TikTok hits but shockingly this worked better for me without Pete. It does help that they also switched around pretty much all of the impressions starting with Punkie J. Blige. Chalamets' character in these is somehow funnier when he is playing off of someone who is not trying to match his wild energy. JAJs' Rick Rubin in particular was really the yin to Chalamets dialed back yang here. Plus, Timothee had several actual lines here that were funnier alone than the entire last sketch such as the one about hip hop being discovered in 2014, his dad making him get braces instead of Invisalign, his explanation of the absence of Pete's character, listing Jason Derulo and Dixie D'amelio as "GOATs" and him only knowing Kenans' Cornell West from a Matrix sequel and, last but not least, him dissing Biggie Smalls just to drumroll his new Soundcloud single. The ending with Kenan spanking him was a bit too similar to the last one for me but it would've worked more if Timothee would have sold it a bit better. B+

Auditions For Britneys' Audiobook - Um, I...thought we were PAST the era of "impression parades," but I do have to give the 2023 cast credit for finding a new angle that keeps these fresh. All right, let’s just get through these as quickly as we can. First of all, I'd like to thank Chloe Fineman for limiting her presence in this to her few impressions thst worked for me (Britney, Natasha, her Julia Fox even if it seemed a little aimless and pointless in this and her Chalamet even though I still think that the real Timothee may have aged out of whatever early era of his career she based that impression on...but at least they got the hair and the over all current look right?) and I'd also like to thank Chloe Troast for debuting a Maggie Smith that was silly enough to work for me. Speaking of the real Timothee, his Scorcese was a little run of the mill for me. I've seen plenty of other Scorceses that were just like his but shockingly he msy be one of the few to impersonate him who also worked with him. It's always nice to see Heidi's Allison Janney and Kenans' Neil Degrasse Tyson again (although in the context of this sketch Kenan sound more like he was chanelling his Virginica character and his Deep House Dish host at the same time with a dash of Rick Ross thrown in to taste). I wasn’t expecting Sarah to have a Mulaney in her back pocket but that may have been my second favorite moment of this sketch. She really nails Mulaneys' stand up style. Vocally, it worked better than Melissa Villaseñors' impression whereas Melissa's worked mainly based on a slight facial resemblance between her and Mulaney. My absolute favorite moment of this sketch may have been JAJ as Werner Hertzog just for the "entranced by this Floridian vernacular" line they gave him. As much as I like seeing Molly Kearney used on the show, their Kevin James meme impression is something that should've been cut entirely. I feel like the show actually is starting to lean on Molly playing heavyset men as a crutch too often lately and it may be diminishing their presence in the cast. The same goes for Egos' Jada Pinkett Smith as that impression (and moreso the material it is based on, really) have both more than run their course. Bowen as The B-52s' Fred Schneider and Punkie as Ice Spice were two impressions that worked better than they had any right to in this. Hell, I might have laughed a bit harder than I should have at Bowens part. The age and height differences alone between Punkie & Ice Spice made me doubt she could pull that off until I actually saw it but then again, Punkie just has a certain knack for playing female rappers in general. Speaking of parts of this sketch I laughed at more than I should've, I got a kick out of Mikey as Steve-O stapling his nutsack to his leg. The voice was a little less nasal and a little more Tiny Tooms Buster Bunny than it should've been and with that wig he looked a little more like Knoxville than Steve-O but it was just dumb and goofy enough and I could see where he was pulling from. I appreciate that they gave us Michael Longfellow as Bill Hader even if it only seemed to exist as the shows' mere acknowledgement that yes, there is a slight resemblance between these two gentlemen. C+

Lost Bag At Shred Gym - Hmm...DID PDD write this? I mean, it does seriously lack their signature pacing, but it DOES seem like someone HEAVILY diluted their Spectrum sketch with Kieran Culkin. Either way, this worked for me just for containing the exact right amount of dumbness and not iverstayimg it's welcome. As soon as I said to myself, "Ok, Sarah's gonna come out," it ended. C+

Tiny Horse II: Giant Horse - Hey, I gotta give 'em credit for the way they decided to Trojan ho...nope, not going there. Uh, uh. It's not worth it. Anyway, I wouldn't prefer they kept this a one off too but at least this worked well enough as a well plotted sequel. I also got a kick out of the visual gag of Bowens' severed Alien-like robotic head singing along to the "tiny horse" song. Also, did anyone else get strong David Mitchell vibes from JAJs' Palpatine Malfoy character? B-

Update was thankfully short considering how all over the place the jokes were and what the sole commentary was. I liked Che's Eric Adams/Trump bibles/couples therapy/Instagram app jokes. Josts' elephant/Jared Leto jokes were solid but his Bankman-Freid/Streisand jokes were so heavily telegraphed I could see the punchlines coming from two towns over. Che's "Israel School" joke was only notable for how shockingly hesitant he was to even tell it. All the rest were just pure white noise to me. I wasn’t crazy about Heidi's performatively busy coworker the first time. I certainly didn’t need to see it again, but with more phone throwing and Peepers-esque burrito consumption. I will say that having her occupation be "Britney Spears' Instagram coreographer" was an easier joke to get than having her be Che's assistant (which again, felt too "inside baseball" even for me). On a personal note, I will add that this commentary gave me some pause and left me more time and space to look inside myself and examine how much Heidi's work/life habits might have mirrored my own these past few months (especially as I try to get these blogs finished and posted on time) as I prepare to swtich jobs for the second time this year, but I won't to too much into those details of my personal life on this here blog. C-

Troy "Sleep Demon" Sivan - Hmm...well, they knew exactly who their audience would be for this episode. This wasn't exactly what I was hoping a sketch that opens with the visual of Sarah Squirm with electrodes hooked up to her temples would be. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say Bowen had a hand in writing this. Thankfully, he made it seem more like a vanity piece for Timothee than for him (well, at first. Hell, given how out of step he seemed with Timothees' already inconsistent and seemingly under-rehearsed choreography I'm not sure calling this a "vanity piece" for either one of them would be entirely accurate...heyoooooooo!). I'm not quite sure the Boygenius girls needed to make cameos in this, though (though I find it oddly funny how the one who clearly has the most tattoos was the most seemingly hesitant to show her underwear). Don't you just love it when modern-day SNL writes an entire sketch devoted to just simply explaining some current pop culture ephemera to you? Now, I do remember about five (almost six now, really) years ago now when Mr. Sivan himself was an actual musical guest on this show. Since I'm already vaguely familiar enough with him just to know the name but not whatever HBO show he was on (I wanna say "The Idol" which I never bothered watching but, I mean...that SOUNDS right, doesn't it?), it honestly makes it all the more confounding as to why they would do this sketch now and not six years ago. Either way, I can't imagine ol' Troy having an enthusiastically positive reaction to this if he even is made aware of it (unless he and Timothee are friends which I can't imagine as easily as him being friends with Boygenius). Oh yeah, and before I forget, I will admit to having seen one interview with him in the past so I do really appreciate Timothee just straight up calling himself out on his own inability to do an Australian accent because if he didn’t, that would’ve gotten under my skin for the entire sketch. C+

Also, quick side tangent, those "Prime" water drinks are made by fucking Logan Paul? Yeah, I tried those and they weren't that great. (Hey, that had ones flavored like Rocket Pops! I'm not completely made of stone!) I think I'll stop buying those and just stick with those "Hoist" drinks. They're not made by anyone that bad, right?

PDD: Frank & His "Music" - Goddammit, PDD. Thank you for coming in clutch once again and giving me my longest, most sustained laughter in this episode. I've said this to you guys before, and I'll say it again; Never EVER stop being you! B+

Lil Orphan Cassidy - Hey, a Chloe Troast led sketch! It's also a very writerly character piece with a lot of absurd escalating little details! She even makes Maya Rudolph in Dreamgirls-esque singing work pretty well. The assists from Mikey & Timothee didn’t hurt this sketch either. I think I have an idea who wrote this too. Don't ever stop being YOU either, Chloe T! B+

Calm App Sleep Story Recording Session - I'm not too crazy about these types of "already strange recording session gone gradually more and more wrong" sketches we first got with J.J. Watt and Owen Wilson either but Mikey Days' absence makes me think this isn't exactly one of those. Whatever the hell this was, at least it gave us a fairly short burst of Timothee and Andy Dismukes matching each others' passive agression with aggressive aggression. I didn’t like how this ended with a cameo that felt like just as much a slap to the face as that cold open was. Man, I hate to sound like a broken record but old habits really DO. DIE. HARD. on this show, don't they? C-

Now, for my updated ranking of season 49...

1. Nate Bargatze/Foo Fighters (10.28.2023)
2. Timothee Chalamet/Boygenius (11.11.2023)
3. Bad Bunny (10.21.2023)
4. Pete Davidson/Ice Spice (10.14.2023)

Well, that was certainly a wild ass ride. Next week, Jason Momoa returns for his second time hosting. Again, I am cautiously optimistic about this one as well for different reasons. While Momoas first episode from December 2018 wasn’t that strong, his social media posts in the weeks leading up to his episode showed him to be almost as big and as an enthusiastic of an SNL nerd as you or I (emphasis on "you" if you are still reading this far). Unfortunately, that energy didn't translate as well onscreen as it should have. Still, he hosted in the middle of a slightly troubled, mostly D.O.A. season so I'm sure that had someone to do with it. He seemed like a fun guy to work with even if the writers may not have figured out how best to use him. Fortunately, the show has shed all its dead weight from season 44 and we have a new, more dynamic cast that I can already tell may be able to play to his strengths better so we should be in good shape. See you then!

Nate Bargatze/Foo Fighters (10.28.2023)

Okay, here's my review. For once, SNLs' crazy wild gamble of booking an actual comedian to host their sketch comedy show paid off and got this season on the right track. Nate Bargatze was a terrific host and a fine first time sketch performer. The show knew how to play to his comic voice well. Naturally, this turned out to be the strongest episode of the season up to this point. It was WAY more stable of a show than last weeks (outside of maybe three or four questionable sketches at most but the highs were so.mich higher that the lows were barely noticeable we'll get to that later). Sarah had a surprisingly strong night, but not in the way that I had hoped given that this was a legit Halloween show in a couple of ways (one of which she was directly involved in). A couple of other people faced a steep decline in screen time (and come to think of it Kenan had a surprisingly light night) but we'll get to them later. Anyway, let’s get right to it.

Bidens' Boo Back Boo-er - Okay, we got a LOT to unpack here! My immediate first thought when this started was "Hmm, ok...nice to see them using JAJs' Biden once again instead of his Tr....MIKEY DAAAAAAAYYY? WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA?!?!?" Well, this impression works for me. It may seem like Mikey doing a cheap impression of Carveys' Biden but at least Mikey does facially resemble Biden much more than JAJ ever did and he certainly seems to be having more fun with the material (especially the prerequisite "lol Biden is very old" jokes). From his "cancel culture" for preschoolers" Update commentary with Heidi a few years back, I could tell both Heidi and Mikey had slightly conservative bents to their styles of comedy that they could at least keep hidden from overtly political sketches and just sneak into a bit character part in the middle of the show and in ten to one sketches and stuff like that without it coming off as too off-putting to the audience. They could play seemingly right leaning characters that could be the butt of the joke without coming across like they're pushing some kind of uncomfortable agenda on you. It actually serves to make Mikeys' Biden characterization feel that much more focused and you can tell he relishes in it. I can't imagine JAJ is taking this too hard as I imagine they must be trying out a different Biden just in case the 2024 debates do turn out to be a Biden/Trump rematch and they've already decided they don't want to rely on any Carvey circa 1992 style pretapes. In fact, this cold open might be the biggest, longest mislead in recent SNL history. We didn’t get a Chevy style fall when Mikey was on the ladder and instead of a walk-on from JAJs Trump, we got walk-ons from...Longfellow and Devon as both Mike Johnstons (who provided my biggest laughs in this) and...Walken! (heyooo). Even if he didn’t get any hard laugh lines, Christopher Walken is always a welcome presence on SNL (and no need to wonder why he isn't hosting as his face says it all. Speaking of "saying it all", I can't believe it took until the first Foo Fighters song to realize the REAL reason he was in the building. Shows what kind of an SNL nerd I REALLY am, huh?). B-

Monologue - Having heard great things about Bargatze but not bring familiar with his material, he seems like a friendly fellow who just doesn't have the most captivating stage presence in the world of standup comedy. I liked his ability to do "well, I'm not THAT old but I'm mow just getting old enough that I find it difficult to relate to some things about the modern world" jokes without going full on "old man yells at cloud" and just moving on. Speaking of, he may not exactly be the "segue king" but he has this ability to transition between various topics like state fair animal stunts stealing focus from his magician father to his parents family destroying nasal spray addictions to just general challenges with reading the sheer volume of words one finds in a book just by riffing on the sheer absurdity of these things and the bewilderment they induce in him. This allows him to move through his jokes so seamlessly that his entire act runs together (for better or worse). It's definitely a monologue that will take you at least a second watch to fully appreciate. B-

Chef Showdown - I liked the writerly premise and detail heavy nature of this. On paper, it seemed like tired, thin racial humor but it was expertly cast and performed and had enough different elements to keep it from just being each character hammering home the same sense of befuddlement for four straight minutes. Nate said upfront that he is vaguely southern so I wonder if he at least pitched this himself on Monday? The Padma Lakshmi cameo didn’t do a whole lot for me, but she was a good sport at least. C+

Hallmark Horror Movie - This premise seemed like it was going to be interesting at first but it quickly became obvious that they didn't go far enough with it. It was well performed (Chloe & Nate were the ideal comedic actors to parody the bland white emptiness of Hallmark productions) but the only laughs I got were from Punkies' lines and the severed hand gag. C+

Washingtons' Weights And Measurements - This was definitely the weakest sketch of the night (and possibly the whole season at this point). I'm sorry, but this one almost lost me from the first minute. This might have worked better with a different host who is more experienced with acting to lend some faux-gravitas to the role of George Washington. This seemed like it would’ve been better performed as one of Nates' forgotten standup bits (just typing that sentence out just gave me flashbacks to Andy & Timmy deconstructing that Bob Saget track coach sketch. Sorry Andy, but I disagree on your extremely hot take that this is a "boom stamp classic" as you like to call it). Still, there were some small details that I liked. The sports stuff was okay. Also, as a Coloradan, I do unironically agree with the line about 5280 being an "easy number to remember" as the number of feet in a mile. You see, Denver is known as the "mile high city" given that it's elevation above sea level is exactly one mile. If you've ever lived here or just visited recently, you might be surprised at the number of Denver based local businesses with some variation of the number 5280 in the title. I mean, it's the name of a local magazine for cryin' out loud. Kenan, obviously, had the best lines in this at the end so in a way, I'm glad I hung on. Also, it's nice to see JAJ actually have a love role in a sketch after being conspicuously absent from the cold open. Guess he didn't have to go home sick tonight or anything. D+

Down On The Lake Beach - This might have been my favorite pretape (if not my favorite piece overall) of the night. It was more classic Dismukes/JAJ down home southern fried cartoon level absurdity that made hay out of one of the most obnoxiously overdone tropes of modern "bro-country" music. They even made excellent use of a Dave Grohl cameo (who wore a wig that made me think he was Danny McBride at first). The only thing bad I can say about it was that it happened to be Molly and Marcellos' only appearances of the night (but Marcello had such a much needed on his part strong start to the season so he deserves to take a bit of a breather this week). A-

Happy Fran-o-ween - Well, I'm glad we got a Sarah led Halloween sketch but if you told me before the show that we'd get just that alone, this would NOT have been what I'd have had in mind (but hey, it's still Sarah Sherman so I'll still I'll it). Of course, Sarah did a fine enough job intentionally doing a Fran Drescher accent. I mean, she always seems to be doing a Fran Drescher impression at varying levels even when she's not trying. She just has to dial back the "Sarah-ness" to get into character. (I mean that literally, as I keep picturing a wardrobe person or stagehand flipping a giant switch on Sarahs back from "Sarah" to "Fran" backstage). It did a decent, if not maybe a little incomplete job of actually explaining those strange Halloween costume rules surrounding the SAG-AFTRA strike (that may have been rolled back earlier in the week thus possibly renderingthis sketch utterly pointless). It felt a little too long and seemingly managed to discover a new form of clapter (probably in a misguided attempt to unmuddle this sketch for anyone who they think could criticize it as being anti-union when everyone on the show is part of a union...even the cast is part of a different SAG-AFTRA contract thatcis not being renegotiated or struck agsinst) but given the context of the sketch, that is to be expected. Sarah's constant costume related jabs to Nate and her "exhausting" lone were all right. The child actors did a fine job here (especially the kid dressed as Hoda). C-

Update was a step up for this season. The highs were higher (Josts' Mike Johnson/Cohen/Pence/Hitler kiss cam comments, Ches' Trump/Biden/Kill Me and Charles/Megan and white strip club jokes) and the lows were...just there. They were more like mediums. Glad to see that "Sarah as Josts' agent" that was cut from last week make it to air. Yeah, it was another Jost roast and yeah it was another Sarah drag role but this was at least toned down quite a bit from her pervy boss in the Quinta Brunson episode and at least this was a newer fresher framework that allowed Sarah to go harder in the paint here (even if it felt a bit long and after hearing about that Punkie ghost story commentary that got cut, this might have been a better choice). Her Thomas the Tank Engine line got a laugh out of me. B-

Lawyer On A Plane - This was decent. I liked all the additions to it. Dismukes did a solid job anchoring this. Even Chloe Troast added something to it. Boy, her actual resemblance to Cecily was out in full force in this one. Dismukes & Mikey had great lines and this was my second favorite Dave Grohl sketch cameo of the night. B-

PDD: Dawg Food - After a strong start to the season, this was a rare miss for Please Don't Destroy. It seemed to rely mainly on quick cuts and sharp pacing in favor of any escalation whatsoever. At least it was fairly short and the "R.I.P. John Higgins" ending was the highlight. D+

Now, for my updated ranking of season 49...

1. Nate Bargatze/Foo Fighters (10.28.2023)
2. Bad Bunny (10.21.2023)
3. Pete Davidson/Ice Spice (10.14.2023)

Well, this season of SNL has finally found its footing. In two weeks, Timothee Chalamet returns for his second hosting gig. Man, they really must've been counting on the SAG-AFTRA strike to be settled by that point, huh? Seriously though, I'm looking forward to seeing Chalamet again. He was a solid professional host and his episode was one of the genuine bright spots in the troubled, difficult 2020-21 season. See you then!

Bad Bunny (10.21.2023)

Okay, here's my review. To start off, this episode truly felt the most "different" from a lot of recent SNL as circumstances this week (not just the ones that may have been induced by the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike) essentially forced them to take some more risks and try different things. Some risks paid off, some risks didn’t but it felt like the show truly found a way to work with the host rather than around him. As a host, Bad Bunny didn't seem like he was difficult to work with. He seemed like he got along with everybody on a personal level. Still, there was a very noticable language barrier present but the upside is that this forced the writers to dig a bit deeper and come up with some fresher sketch premises and sharper writing (or at least bring back a couple of things that worked well last season to fill in the gaps). A lot of the humor in this episode came from the host's culture so it relied a bit less on dialogue and more on some slightly broad visuals but thankfully this staff was more than adept at making sure nothing got completely lost in translation. With this episode, it felt like they actually successfully pulled off what they were trying to do with Megan Thee Stallions' episode from last year. This is probably because Bad Bunny seems to have a more easily accessible brand/image than MTS did. Plus, the show has people on staff that better understand his cultural heritage, what his audience would want to see, and how to better play that to viewers outside of the host's audience. Also, as long as I am making previous host comparisons' Bad Bunny as a host felt like an exact cross between Regé-Jean Page (an non-white male host from another country with an audience of thakfully less distractingly shreiky fans lends his talents to a number of sketches revolving around his sex appeal to women) and Nick Jonas (a previous male musical guest who is used to making the odd sketch cameo now and then is billed as host but somehow still manages to make so little impact that it truly feels like a hostless episode punctuated with musical guest cameos) with a little dash of Jackie Chan thrown in for good measure (do I really need to explain that one to you?) With all that being said, this was definitely a better episode than last week. After a season premiere that was as rote and by the numbers as ever culturally (as SNL season premieres often tend to be) it's nice to see an episode that may have started off a bit rocky but thought outside of the box enough to be as rewarding as it could the more it went on. There were a lot of cameos this week but fortunately they came off less distracting than they were necessary in a way that made some sense once they sunk in. Thankfully, no cast members got completely shut out. Marcello may have had the strongest night of them all with Devon, JAJ and most of the women (especially Troast) coming in second. However, Longfellow, Dismukes and Squirm saw a noticable drop this week. Anyway, let's break this down further.

Jim Jordan And The Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Vote For House Speaker - I guess the main difference between this and literally any randomly selected season 42 cold open is that the Trump impersonation is weirdly the STRONGEST thing it has going for it? It was a safe choice for a political cold open right now, at least. Perhaps it was a little TOO safe and expected, but that's not the main thing I'm holding against this sketch. What I AM holding against this sketch were the choice to center it around Mikey as Jim Jordan (him breaking the phone was basically my reaction to the whole "oh, so I see we're going back to just opening the show with a completely unearned applause break again? Fine, whatever" thing) and the Santos jokes that were low hanging fruit (no pun intended). As a Coloradan, I appreciated the idea of taking jabs at Lauren Bobert again until I saw they were just going for more tired ass theater groping jokes. C-

Monologue - It's nice to see Bad Bunny address the possible language barrier right off the bat. I wasn’t expecting him to make that the ENTIRE monologue, though... but at least he bought Pedro Pascal out on stage for a bit. Sadly, that didn’t quite solve this monologues' pacing issues. I liked the nice meta moment where Pedro deconstructed modern-day SNL monologue tropes. Unfortunately, that didn’t distract me from the fact that Bad Bunny seemingly forgot how to not come off too cocky by that point. Oh well, at least HE did a decent job of hiding any visible nervousness in this, and he expressed some sincere appreciation for the show and eagerness to host. C-

Rap Battle - Wow, nice to see Benito stretch as an actor and break out of his comfort zone right out of the gate. This sketch just left me wondering if it was Mikey and Streeter Seidell who wrote those WWE promo sketches from the last two Dwayne Johnson episodes (or if not, did whoever actually write this sketch happen to watch Scary Movie 3 recently?) At least it was short and had an unexpectedly heartwarming ending. I admit that the lines about Mikeys' character having four testicles got me. Also, it just dawned on me that they had a rapper play a fictional rapper in a sketch and didn’t have the actual rapper rap once. Both this and the lack of a Kendall Jenner cameo (hell, they even inexplicably got Lady Gaga to introduce his first musical performance instead of her for some reason) just goes to show you that this show will somehow find a way to consistently subvert even the most base level expectations you could make based on even the smallest bit of information you gleam from any host. You gotta love SNL for that! C+

Age Of Discovery - Well, doing a sketch entirely in subtitled Spanish may have been a risk, but it was certainly worth the risk. Normally, I run a bit cold on Fred Armisen cameos, but he worked just fine for me here. This did remind me of a sketch he led about ancient Mayans discovering chocolate for the first time from the 2006 Matthew Fox episode for whatever that was worth (and a certain early Monty Python sketch when the llama was bought out). This sketch felt a little unfocused at first and a little derivative near the end, but it all came together, and again, it was the most "different" thing the show has tried in recent memory. It is definitely the type of thing that grows on you more upon a rewatch or two. C+

Telenovela Shoot - Wow, so pretty much all of the live sketches in this episode were designed to give our host as little English dialogue as possible, huh? I mean, aside from pacing issues this caused here, in the monologue and in one other cameo laden sketch later on, I don't really have a problem with that. I guess I should've expected this to be a strong night for Marcello. He does naturally play off Bad Bunny well. I wasn't expecting Bowen to turn in a heavily padded performance reminiscent of Scott Thompson in the Kids In The Halls' "Shitty Soup" sketch. I certainly wasn’t expecting Punkie to pretty much steal this sketch, but hey, I'll take it! I'm really starting to notice how much Punkie can really add to a sketch she's in given the chance. I most definitely wasn’t expecting a random ass Mick Jagger cameo where he shows us he can handle dialogue in Spanish just as well as Marcello and Bad Bunny but I can appreciate that and wonder why (beyond just old age and other commitments of the week) he could've been as big a part of this episode as he was the season 37 finale. B-

PDD: Shrek Screenplay - Ok, suddenly the best sketch of the night and the thing that gets me fully on board with this episode is Ben, Martin and Johns' sheer bewilderment trying to figure out why Bad Bunny just wandered into their office unannounced in a full on Shrek costume? And he makes them read a whole ass screenplay he barely has any faith in? And these moments are punctuated with some of the cheapest Rapsittie ass CGI ever? Goddammit, PDD. Don't ever stop being you! B+

Update was a bit strange tonight. It was so short all I can really say about it was that Che had the only jokes that landed with me (Desantis, Coney-Barett/Thomas, WNBA, alcoholism) and Egos' Jada Pinkett Smith commentary (questionable wig and topicality issues aside) was the real highlight for me. I especially liked the "brutiful/Tupinkett/publicly cucking/never go to bed happy" lines. This is the type of more focused, pointed character work I'd like to see more of from Ego on the show. C+

Protective Mom (Now With Aunt!) - With Pedro being in the building along with this basically being a bilingual episode and Marcello being used to pick up the slack a bit this week, I should've expected a reprise of this sketch tonight. I'm glad that we got to see this again because it was one of the true highlights of Pedro's episode back in February. This sketch still has sharp writing and should probably have been placed earlier in the show. The fact that the wordless scene where Pedro casually dumps Chloes' cookies in the trash and then filled the empty tin with her sewing thread was met with more roaring applause than laughter from the audience (mostly the same screaming Bad Bunny fans from the monologue) really signaled that the entire show was playing to a very different audience than usual (and succeeding largely by playing on the charisma of it's guest performers who know THEIR audience and how to play this type of material to their own culture very well). That seemed like a joke pulled from a Black Jeopardy sketch but played out visually for a different audience).The ending was very sweet and the entire Spanglish conversation between Pedro, Marcello and Benito that kicked off with the "septum piercing" joke was funny to me. Plus, it's nice to see that by her second episode Ms. Troast can easily ingratiate herself with this cast. Anyone else get strong Arden Myrin vibes from her in that blonde wig? B+

The Right Track - Speaking if things SNL did earlier this year with hispanic hosts, I was glad to see this pretape template from Jenna Ortegas' episode return. Unfortunately, I have to say I still liked the Waffle House version of this better. Sadly, the craziness happening on the subway didn't quite steal focus from the solid dramatic acting chops that Devon and JAJ were showing (again, talk about ingratiating yourself into thr cast, huh?) Plus, that CGI rat was distractingly bad. C+

Sisters - Wow, either Kearney and Fineman are the only ones who DON'T secretly have the hots for Bad Bunny & Mick Jagger or they just dusted off and resubmitted an old script from either Regé-Jean Pages' episode (or pretty much any episode from season 24?) Either way, I'm glad to see that SNL in season 49 has a strong enough female cast to be able to fully put over such a threadbare premise. I also liked seeing that Punkie, Ego and (especially) Sarah have now gained this Chris Redd like ability to steal a whole sketch with a single line delivery (but Sarah only do this in the horniest of sketches for some reason. Wait, did she cowrite this with PDD and Ke$ha?). B-

Burts' Bees - This may have been the most ten-to-one ass ten-to-one sketch the show has done in quite a while, but it really started to pick up for me once Ego just sassed Mikey about his six year old daughter out of nowhere. That's literally all I have to say about it. C-

Now, for my first official best-to-worst ranking of season 49...

1. Bad Bunny (10.21.2023)
2. Pete Davidson/Ice Spice (10.14.2023)

Well, that was a mostly successful experiment. Next week, stand up comic Nate Bargatze makes his hosting debut. I'm not too terribly familiar with Nates' act, but I've seen bits and pieces before and I know he's friends with Fallon so he has connections to the show there. I also heard he has a rather PG-13 Jim Gaffigan-like, "safe for the whole family" style act (which must be true since I can't immediately recall any jokes of his I have heard). Still, I like thst their going for another comedian host with little exposure. I do hope the SAG strike gets resolved but until then I'll enjoy seeing SNL having to make itself take risks and make more different out-of-the-box type hosting choices. It was nice to get an episode like this but it'll still be nicer to see another traditionally comedic host help the show find it's footing again this season (and this episode may now be the best of the season by default but hopefully if the rest of the season goes right, it will be somewhere in the lower middle of my rankings). See you then!

Oh, and by the way, in case you haven't seen it, here is my latest appearance on the Saturday Night Network Patron Podcast as part of their ongoing countdown of the 50 greatest cast members of all time. I'm particularly proud of this one and I really feel that it's my best podcast appearance yet. You might be surprised by some of the names we discuss in depth here!

Pete Davidson/Ice Spice (10.14.2023)

Okay, here's my review. All things considered, my expectations for this episode were at the floor. It was a season premiere coming back from a WGA strike that ended a mere three weeks earlier so I knew they'd have a few more weeks of cobwebs to shake off than they normally would around this time. Plus, there was some dire geopolitical news for the show to have to navigate. Oddly enough, Pete as a host was the strongest part of the show. He really gave it his all performance wise and didn’t do all the things we expected him to based on his previous eight year stint in the cast. Maybe we all just underestimated Pete or maybe we all just forgot about tye possibility that Pete could be a great guy to actually work with behind the scenes. We all know Pete has a deep heartfelt connection to this show and the people he worked with here and it really did come through on his part. It's clear that Pete actually did want to come back and host this season and from this episode one can see how he has a comittment and a strong enough presence to put the show over when it needs a little extra help this week of all weeks. Thankfully, this season's premiere only seemed to be dealing with external baggage rather than the internal baggage they were all too willing to put on full display around this time last year. I know I joked just before the strike started that this episode should have the words "TOO SOON" stamped all over it in big red letters but instead it seemed to have the words "COMFORT FOOD" and "SWEATILY ASSEMBLED DESPERATE ESCAPISM" stamped all over it in big red letters. Thankfully, none of the cast got completely shut out of the show and nobody new got Luke Null'ed off screen. Also, goid to see PDD get the Robert Smigel TV Funhouse treatment in the opening credits. I suppose if they were never going to be added to the cast, this would be the next best thing. Anyway, let's break this down, shall we?

Cold Open - Well, up until this week, this was not the cold open I expected this episode to have (especially for a season premiere coming back from a WGA strike no less) but this was a very important, urgent issue weighing on everyone's minds and at least it was done in an appropriate and respectful manner. Also, Pete's known for making comedic hay out of his personal life but this may be the first time he's made a truly meaningful personal connection to the audience using the event that impacted his young life the most at a time that truly called for it. We all know they like to open with the hard news these days and when the hard news is dominated by tragedy, they gotta do what they gotta do. I appreciated that they weren't too concerned with taking a side or a hard stance on the Israel/Palestine conflict and that this was done in the same vein as what Cecily did mid-season 41 and what Lorne (and only Lorne) did to open season 27. 

Monologue - After all the tabloid drama Pete has been through in nearly a damn decade, it's nice to see Pete can deliver a classic hand mic standup monologue in such a way that he could almost make you forget he was ever even on this show before (or even if you're just tuning into SNL tonight after somehow having been made aware of the shows' existence for tte first time in your life last week you could be watching this monologue and think to yourself "Wowa Who's THIS kid? He's really gonna go places someday!") All he needed to do to bring up the energy level after that cold open was to emphatically scream the word "incest" at us during a bit about Game Of Thrones. I also liked the football coach jokes and even the obligatory Staten Island self-flaggelation took an unexpectedly dark and personal turn that worked for me, too. It was a great upending of the shows' expected format to do this as a monologue instead of having him do it as an Update piece straight into the camera. The last thing the show would want to do right now is call attention to the fact that this is one of only two rare times I can think of when a cast member is hosting the show with the same Weekend Update anchors as they had when they left. A-

NFL on FOX - Uh oh, just from the on set bumper I accurately smelled a Swift sketch! I guess since we didn't get one of those "political checklist" cold opens tonight that leaves them room to apply that approach to pop culture try and spread that exact same energy through at least the middle third of the show (either that or this WAS originally this week's cold open before they decided on Thursday or Friday that a different approach was necessary). Well, at least this one was actually well written and should convince the Swifties out there that at least some of SNLs writers are on their side. Having seen Mikey show off his friendship bracelet (confirming his Swiftie status) I'm guessing he had a hand in writing this? Anyone else get any flashbacks to the Jeremy Lin cold open from Maya Rudolphs' season 37 episode? Petes' role as the sideline reporter was the comedic high point of this for me. He definitely gave me the most laughs. The Travis Kelce cameo seemed a little gratuitous and tacked on but I will hand it to them that it tracks with his numerous public statements on not wanting his new love life to be the focus over his performance on the field. In fact, Travis (whom I had absolutely zero expectations of seeing on thr show at all during the regular football season) seemed so rushed and tacked on to the end of this that I have zero trouble believing that neither he nor Taylor were present at dress rehearsal. What I am having some trouble believing is that neither of them had anything better to do together tonight (heyooooooo!). B- 

Seriously though, while I do genuinely LIKE seeing Taylor on the show (or anywhere for that matter) and I know she lives in New York and all but having her come on JUST to introduce the SECOND Ice Spice performance (and I know they're supposedly great friends and all and Ms. Swift is nothing if not extremely supportive of her friends) may have been the most baffling way they used a "big get" cameo in recent memory. At first, I thought she may have backed out of a planned sketch cameo between dress and air but now I'm starting to think the show wanted to have her on but were afraid of a massive applause break throwing off the whole shows timing causing sketches to be cut or drastically edited.

He's Just Pete - You know, I honestly still haven seen Barbie but thankfully I've read enough about Ryan Gosling having done songs for the movie that this monologue didn’t quite go over my head. Still, I would say this was preferable to another Yo! Pete Raps ditty or a sequel to Three Sad Virgins with Ice Spice. My only real complaint us that I thought the black hoodie/BDE dance number could've been edited out (along with maybe the crash at the end and the brief Ye memlntion but screw it they way they pulled that off made me giggle). I did like the acknowledgement up top from Punkie and Dismukes of the questionable nature of Pete hosting...really at all as well as the magazine shot of Pete dating Lois Griffin and Devon as "Black Pete". It was a great change up from people's pre-concieved notions of what this particular show was gonna be that we got this instead of another "Chad" pretape, that's for damn sure. B+

Wired Autocomplete Interview - Um, did someone resubmit a sketch that got cut from the table read for Jonah Hills' 2018 episode? No? Wait, what's that? This sketch was based on a recent real life incident? Well, Ok, then. I've never seen a sketch before that I could describe as "SNL parodies a type of viral YouTube video that Casey has never seen beyond the thumbnail" but they pulled it off expertly! I did like how this quickly escalated to light absurdity and then ended it at the exact right moment. C+

Trudy - Well, I felt like this didn't really go anywhere but I liked it a bit more than I liked a lot of Heidi-centric sketches from previous seasons even if it didn't seem to go anywhere interesting besides just having a random burst of Farleyesque physical shtick out of nowhere. C-

PDD: Princes Of Comedy - This might have been my favorite piece of the night. I loved how the child actors playing Ben "Smoke Dawg" Marshall, J.D. Higgins and Big Mart-Mart Herlihy really sold the hell out of 90s/00s Def Jam comedy that (even by its own admission) does NOT hold up. I even appreciated Pete referring to Ben as "Ice Spice" and the self deprecating cameo from a shockingly but like not THAT shockingly aged looking these days John Mulaney (possibly included here as a nod to his Home Alone 2 bit from "New In Town?"). I also loved Big Mart-Mart roasting that white preppy dude in the audience who was the only one laughing at Mulaneys' quicksand bit. I especially loved that frank and lively Lunchables joke that almost sounded like it could've only aired once before bring replaced in all reruns by a grim, seeious Jim Downey voicover telling us how this nearly cost them all their jobs. My only complaint is that the but where Ches' grandma wanted to meet Ben "Smoke Dawg" Marshall felt super telegraphed to me. A-

Update started out a bit rough but picked up some stream quickly enough. The only joke from the first run I liked was the Bob Menendez one just for its sheer strangeness. Sorry, Colin, but "peoole be postin' some weird ass takes on Israel/Palestine" is not a particularly fresh or unique observation. Bowens' Christopher Columbus commentary may have been the most bland and uninspired  thing I've seen from him in a long time. It's like he just put his George Santos and Jafar from Aladdin commentaries in a blender. It's something I might have preferred to see delivered by Michael Longfellow, but even that might not have put it over for me. Thankfully, there was just enough to this to keep me from tuning out completely like I did with Jafar. Ches' subtle reaction to being forced to read that line about Boygenius off the cue card was pretty funny too. Fortunately, they saved this Update after that with that run of Russel Brand/Ebony Alert/New Jersey/Spirit Airlines jokes even if those were followed by some noble (and maybe one less than noble) failures. Thankfully, they ended on a high note with Kenans' Neon Deon commentary. It may have been a little repetitive, but it I appreciated it as a Coloradan who went to CU Boulder nearly a decade ago and as enough of an SNL nerd to appreciate a deep cut shout out to perhaps the most harmlessly ridiculous moment from Deons disastrous season 20 episode. C+

Space 2044 - Immediately, I got bad flashbacks to that other spaceship sketch from the season 33 Bon Jovi episode where Kristen Wiig couldn't find her purse Thankfully, I was able to convince myself to give this a fair chance and I ended up only disliking this slightly less than some other recent Bowen-centric sketches in recent memory. I do like how glammed up Heidi was even if it seemed like a season 20 level near waste of money and resources on something that barely worked for a cast member who had minimal lines and wasn't even the main focus of the sketch. C+

Grandmas' Bean Farm - Even if it's this late in the episode, it's nice of them to give us a low-key "more 'funny strange' than 'funny ha-ha'" sketch centered around an Andrew Dismukes character. I liked how this seemed to more successfully go for what Amy Schumer went for in that Matzo Ball soup sketch from her episode last season. Also, it was nice to finally see Squirm amd Troast pop up on screen. I was starting to get concerned for Ms. Troast as I realized mid-Update that we haven't seen her. B-

Glamgina - Good to see a sketch Squirm got to lead near the end of the show. I liked this just fine for it's scattershot nature (how they managed to shove every female cast member and Kenan in there so haphazardly was silly enough for me). Still, it felt a little unambitious by Squirm standards (especially with previous scatalogical/vaginal material I've seen her do on and off this show). C+

Roadhouse Bar - This started out promising enough, but it got a little too repetitive once Pete showed up and they started doubling down on the talk of selling feet/genitalia pics online. I'm still glad to see they're giving Dismukes two sketches per show. D+

Well, the 49th season of SNL has officially begun. Next week, one time musical guest Bad Bunny makes his double duty hosting debut. Now, this guy may be a more intriguing host than Pete because he's not a cast member who's coming back not so long after ending their eight year stint on the show. Granted, he has appeared on the show as a musical guest before and cameoed in a sea shanty sketch I barely remember but I do remember his cameo in Kenans' Big Papi Covid Cooking Show sketch from one of the season 45 At Home shows. He held his own pretty well there. I may have to rewatch those along with the Simpsons short he did for Disney+ before Saturday but my point is, Bad Bunny is a host I can go into the show with little to no expectations for. He'll likely be a decent host as long as they don't have to cater the whole show to him and his image or brand like they did with Megan Thee Stallion last year (and even her I've come around on since my main take away from that show was that she seemed to be more heavily promoting her own mental health foundation than just her music and she turned in a strong performance in that substitute teacher sketch). See you then!

Oh, and before I forget...my friend Jon Schneider of The Saturday Night Network has been doing a new Patron Podcast where he counts down their fan voted list of the 50 greatest cast members of all time. Be sure to catch the next installment of it because I will be on it. In fact, I was also a part of their countdown of the 20 greatest SNL impressions of all time earlier this summer but apparently I just plum forgot to promote that on any of my socials. In case you missed it, here it is.

Also, my friend and fellow reviewer Blood Meridian has just been upgraded his own site. I'd advise all of you reading this to check out his reviews here simply because I admire his dedication to his craft and vice versa. 

See you next week!