Okay, here's my review. This was definiteley the weakest SNL episode of 2023 but absolutely none of that was Pedro Pascals' fault. He was a fine host who certainly had fun and gelled with this cast but he didn’t exactly blow me away or anything. Still, there were fun moments to be had in a field of bland mediocrity so this was far from the worst episode of season 48. It's about what I would expect from the third episode of a run of three in a row. The cast felt a little imbalanced seeing as I really missed Dismukes after the strong outing he had last week and Molly was shoved into the background once again. Still, Longfellow, Marcello and Devon had great nights and JAJ and Sarah continue to make headway in a week where Bowen, Ego and Chloe dominated the show. I'd say the biggest thing this episode had going against it was their falling back on old habits when they should be experimenting a bit more in an effort to figure out what their identity will be going into the next era. Let me explain what I mean.
Katy Tur Reports - Something told me this would be the cold open...and something else told me it would be this goofy and aimless...as that's pretty much what this warrants, anyway. I'm getting the sense that somewhere my friend Rubys' nose must be bleeding right now and she will remember none of this by tomorrow and neither will I. Bowens' obligatory role makes me feel like this was supposed to be an Update commentary originally but had to be hastily rewritten once news broke that the baloon was shot down and then they were just like "fuck...ok, we gotta completely change the greenscreen effect we were going with now". Yeah, I'd find it hard to believe this was the original cold open in dress and I'd like to see them try to top this for "worst cold open of the season".D+
Monologue - Pedro seemed like a bundle of nerves at first when talking about The Mandalorian but once he started talking about his Chilean background he seemed more at ease. Near the end, those nerves seemed to have transformed into raw emotion. He was a little more low energy than recent hosts but he handled "charming self effacement" about as well as the rest of these past two seasons of hosts. B-
Big Hollywood Quiz - Well, Bowen hosting a game show (and a rather campy one that seemed to be written just for him) is something different at least. It's more low key and focused than typical "post monologue game show sketches" and it makes a salient point about our current media landscape (especially streaming shows...boy, Taylor Swift must've laughed her ass off at that "Ginny and Georgia" slam, right?). I remember how our friend Ruby made a similar point about how binge watching and streaming affect our memories. If I didn't know any better, I'd say either she wrote the entire show so far tonight or one of SNLs' current writers is stalking her. The only criticism I have of this is it somehow still felt like something we've seen before (like with "What Is Burn Notice?" or any of the Kate Mackinnon post covid "is my brain ok?" sketches) but it was at least a fresh spin on such a vaguely familiar framework. B-
HBOs' Mario Kart - Well, we got our obligatory host sketch and it seems like they were trying to recapture the lightning in a bottle they caught with the David Harbour Joker/Grouch parody from a few years ago but this felt way too telegraphed and predictable for me. I mean, it felt like another one of those pop culture parody sketches where you're meant to admire it more for how much it wrings out of such a thin, simple, nothing of a premise but even looking at it from that angle there seems to be nothing there. I mean, they made good use of Marcello here but Chloe as Princess Peach just made me flashback to Grimes as Miss Peach a couple of years ago and I have a feeling people are gonna react to this the same way they reacted to, well...that. Hell, after that "swole Grimace" sketch from the premiere I'm just thankful that Yoshi and Toad being bisexuality weren't the ENTIRE joke. D+
Coma Patient - This felt like it was written by an A.I. that was fed nothing but Mikey Day and Kroll Show sketches (yeah, I'm aware of how hacky that sounds so don't bother pointing that out. I just bring up A.I. because I was watching aboyt 25 minutes of that endless "Nothing Forever" Seinfeld Twitch feed to kill time before the show and I finally figured out that it was Jon Daly in those Kroll Show "Rich Dicks" sketches that Pascals' voice reminded me of). Pedro seemed to be breaking hard enough to guarantee not one but TWO band shots later in the show, so it's nice to see he was at least having fun here. Other than that, I was just glad to see that such a dadaist nothing of a sketch could have such a sweet, heartfelt ending. C+
Fancam Assembly - Ok, this HAD to have been written by the same writers behind "M3GAN 2.0" since it's mined heavily from GenZ social media lingo (yeah, thankfully I must've missed when "no crumbs left" became the hot new Twitter buzzword) and it features a cameo from Sarah Paulson (was she actually IN something with Pedro Pascal or was she just there because she fit the theme this sketch was going for so well?), so...yeah, whoever wrote this was either very in touch with "the gays" or just paid enough attention to the actual SNL fancams in the replies to tweets from the shows' official Twitter account and could only get this sketch on the air two years too late. I can tell Che DIDN’T write this (not for the obvious reason) but because it was written to humiliate the audience instead of the host and the cast. Plus, you could tell it was written by someone who didn’t hate their job with a burning white hot passion and thus was desperately trying to get fired. Molly's character was my only genuine laugh of the whole sketch (well, along with Devons' "mid" line and the wat he delivered it). I'm honestly not that shocked to discover how badly I missed that the "big boys" song from the Keke Palmer/SZA episode was the song used in all those fancams because I think I've made it pretty clear as to how and why that song left my brain permanently pretty much immediately after it aired. Still, I did appreciate how this sketch also went for a semi-heartfelt ending that tried to make a point about the relationship today's teens have with their social media (even if they just absolutely HAD to go and dip back into the "lol Covid broke all our brains" well ONCE AGAIN). The way this was acted made me realize that the only time I don't like Ego or Sarah as performers is when she leans to heavily into the trendy, social media buzzword/slang heavy stuff that's more in Bowens' wheelhouse than theirs (but at least when Ego does do this she appears completely at ease and it comes off as more believable and natural than when Sarah takes part in this). I was about to question how high schoolers would have access to that much footage of their teachers or how the students would avoid getting caught and written up for blatantly filming their teachers in class but overthinking this particular sketch anymore would just make me frustrate me more, so I'll just move on. C-
Wing Pit - Finally, this episode delivers on SOMETHING! This was definiteley my favorite segment of the night just for the sheer violent chaos and "Taco Town somehow gained sentience and tried cocaine for the first time" vibes of it. A+
Update was really only worth about two jokes ane one commentary this week. Ches' "Delaware beach house" joke and Josts' "16 year olds on social meda" jokes made me laugh just for their delivery and the "chicken wings" joke only made me laugh for Che's reaction to it. Good to see Mr. Longfellow get another commentary where he doesn’t just play himself. I have to give them credit for giving Michael Longfellow when we were being set up to expect Bowen Yang. It's also great that this was written for Michael and not Bowen. I could tell because they gave Punxsutawney Phil a real "burnt out dirtbag" vibe that only Michael Longfellow could pull off and I didn’t feel like this was supposed to be a Bowen commentary but Bowen suddenly fell ill so they just grabbed Longfellow, slapped Bowens' costume on him and threw him out there. JAJ and Devons' two hander was one of the highlights of the night for me as we finally got to see them break out of their shells (and see JAJ break out if his "political impressionist/southern gent" box) and experiment with some original and pleasantly silly character work. Whatever Kyle Mooney was going for with his "rapper from Holland" character JAJ improved upon a thousand fold with this. B-
Luis' Protective Mom - Nice to see Marcello get another one of his sketches on the air. Weird how this was the second sketch in this episode that made me flash back to David Harbours' episode but I was glad to see there was more to this sketch than just the host in drag and that this was able to focus up effectively mine it's humor from multiple culture clashes (which makes me all the more stunned to find out that PDD helped write this and not the next sketch). B+
Italian Restaurant - Well, I'm just shocked to hear that Sarah didn’t write or even help cowrite this herself because that's really the only way I could have even bought into the outrageously unbelievable and outlandish premise of "Sarah Sherman is repeatedly told by other men that she is ugly and/or unattractive". That's all I'm gonna say there. D+
Lisa From Temecula - While I'm glad to see Ego get another character on, I guess I was just expecting something a little different. This is the first time I've seen Ego do a Debbie Downer/Bill Hader/Kate & Aidy self-indulgent type pieces that seemed designed solely for her to get her castmates to break (or based on how quickly Bowen broke which makes me think this was based on some inside joke betweem them that the audience wasn’t in on), but I guess she's earned her right as a performer to do that at this point. Thankfully, this was short (or just had to be hastily edited for time) and felt more grounded and contained than I thought it was going to be. C+
Goodnights - I don't always comment on these but it was nice to see JAJ and Colin wearing shirts in solidarity with the increasingly-less-likely-to-strike-now-it-seems post production unit. Also, I noticed Chloe was wearing a brunette wig and a leopard print dress which made me wonder if that was her costume from one of the cut for time sketches?
Now, my latest ranking of the season so far...
2. Michael B. Jordan/Lil Baby (01.28.2023)
3. Dave Chappelle/Black Star (11.12.2022)
4. Steve Martin & Martin Short/Brandi Carlile (12.10.2022)
5. Keke Palmer/SZA (12.03.2022)
6. Austin Butler/Lizzo (12.17.2022)
7. Jack Harlow (10.29.2022)
8. Pedro Pascal/Coldplay (02.04.2023)
9. Brendon Gleeson/Willow (10.08.2022)
10. Miles Teller/Kendrick Lamar (10.01.2022)
11. Amy Schumer/Steve Lacy (11.05.2022)
12. Megan Thee Stallion (10.15.2022)
Well, that certainly was another episode of SNL. In three weeks, Woody Harrelson joins the five timers club. Even though his last episode from 2019 has somehow aged the worst out of his existing four episodes (yes, even his 1992 one) I'll be looking forward to this one as Woody is always a welcome presence at the show. See you then!
(...and remember, I am still taking applications for guest blogger, so if you want to write your own guest post like Blood Meridian did or if you want to submit your own fan mailbag question for me to answer like I did for Ken George Jones, PLEASE let me know!)
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