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!