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Hey, a Hegseth cold open. That’s…slightly different from what I was expecting
Hey, Jeremey Cuhlane as Hegse…nope, just a random general character introducing Hegseth. Still, it’s good that they got enough faith in this new guy to have him lead off the new season.
It’s nice to see Jost put some juice into his shouting frat bro Hegseth character. Every other word out of his mouth had me laughing. Jost has always been at his funniest to me during his brief flashes of aggression on Update so it’s nice to see the writer finally base, well…half of an entire sketch around that.
I’m glad that JAJ as Trump briefly glossed over the late night TV situation but I was more than a little disappointed that he didn’t say…more and just left it there. This is another one of those times where I wish they would’ve been angrier in the moment. I did appreciate the Saudi/Riyadh and “old and confused/keep an eye on Marcello” jabs as well as the visual detail of JAJ/Trumps’ tie hanging over his waist high pants.
Mikey as Brendan Carr was…cute but didn’t do much for me and ultimately should’ve been cut. B-
Montage
I guess it’s not that weird for them to keep the heavily stylized season 50 intro when you realize that they could just as easily edit around the fact that the new hires are all just at the end.
Too bad they couldn’t just shoot a new transition to Sarah’s appearance that doesn’t feel like such a hard smash cut since she’s now driving a bus that we don’t see at all because Heidi and Ego were on it.
Monologue
Marcellos’ and Juan Jamon cameos were OK. I liked the self deprecating jab at his own "choreography" and the FOX News montage. Otherwise, not much about this monologue stood out to me. C-
Jeopardy
Huh, a regular non-Black/non-Celebrity Jeopardy sketch. This feels…new.
As much as I like seeing Andrew Dismukes on the show, I feel like he has just a smidge too much charisma and personality to play Ken Jennings of all people.
Nice to see Veronika get her first role (even if it was essentially nothing)
Ok, this sketch only has two jokes: Kenans’ character being named “Luck-ass” instead of “Lucas” and Bad Bunny just…not knowing that he has to answer in the form of a question. Great.
…and it’s STILL just a regular ass, aimless, go nowhere game show sketch right after the fucking monologue. Man, old habits die HARD on this show, huh?
God bless Dismukes for trying to make this work, but damn…this just isn’t working for me.
Wow. Ok. Bad Bunny just accidentally answered “Who Is The Who?” out of sheer confusion and frustration…and that’s the big payoff…and then they just left it there and walked away.
Well, that was a LONG ass walk to a rather unique punchline…but I can’t totally say that was worth it. D+
ChatGPTio
Well, that Jeopardy sketch just set the bar so low that it would be impossible NOT to clear. At least this started off with the requisite energy that something that SHOULD be up top in the first third of the show.
Whoa, who did that voice over during the opening scene where Veronika was lying on the couch? It sounded so much to me like a former cast member that I’m thinking it had to be either Heidi or Cecily. Yeah, my money would be on Cecily there.
I know some of you may be sick of Marcello just popping up out of nowhere and growling at you, but at this point I’ll certainly take it. Hell, it may be the closest thing we’ll be getting to another “Immigrant Dad Talk Show” sketch that is worth watching.
I liked Marcello and Benitos’ energy in this but it went on quite a bit too long and initially me too much of the “GPYaass” sketch from the all time bummer Steve Carrell episode from 2018, but thankfully had a bit more going for it.
It’s nice to see Ben Marshall and Tommy Brennan make their cast member debuts in this sketch, but it’s kinda sad that this PRETAPE was the most screentime they had in this episode (especially when you consider the irony of this being the case for Ben Marshall of all people).
This went on a few beats too long but I liked the visual of Marcello drawing a cheap company bread logo with a blue sharpie over a “past due” Xfinity bill. I also liked the Halls’ cough drop bit and Marcello calling Mikey in the middle of the night. I feel it should’ve ended there and cut the bits with the guys hitting on Chloe. C+
Sperm Donors
This seems like a unique premise so far. I wonder where they’ll go with it?
Oh, it’s a sketch where Bad Bunny and Kenan play skeezy, flashy buttinskis.
This is the type of thing I wanted to like a lot more but feel like it WAY wasn’t fleshed out enough. They should’ve gone a lot further with the sleazy inappropriateness of Benito and Kenans’ characters.
I liked Bad Bunnys’ “put it in the front/back” line but really I spent most of this sketch thinking about how much better literally any other male host would have been in his role.
I kinda liked the ending with Marcello showing up as Benito's illegitimate son, as telegraphed as all hell as it was.
I didn’t like the Sopranos reference at first but I liked the HBO callback to it at the end just for the sheer weirdness of it. Did anyone else think for a second that was just a hard cut to another unrelated pretape for a second? It certainly didn’t feel like an ending. Hiyoooo! D+
K-Pop Demon Hunters
Ok, so a group of friends are just naming random movies and things from current pop culture…and Bad Bunny’s character seems to be stuck on…K-Pop Demon Hunters…to the point of obsession…like they’re the Mango to his Garth Brooks or something.
I guess this is this season premieres’ requisite “blatant pop culture/viral click chasing” sketch? Well, at least the entire show wasn’t that thus far.
Somehow Bowen coming in as a “demon” wasn’t a low point of this since it managed to break up the monotony and brought some energy to this sketch a bit.
I did get a kick out of Sarah admitting to being on the Epstein list and suddenly spitting up blood in “demon” facepaint. Chloes’ Sydney Sweeney reference felt a little too unfocused to me.
Huh, I guess these K-Pop Demon Girls were actually live in the studio. Is this group just…mutual friends of both Bowen and Bad Bunny who wanted to get them on the show? Did Bowen co-write this sketch with that specific purpose in mind?
Well, at least this had an actual ending. The first sketch to have something approaching one so far tonight. This had to be the laziest “button” on the end of a sketch ever but somehow it’s the one I am the least mad at.
Wait...according to Jon Schneider, that was the biggest song of the YEAR at this point? God damn. Song of the summer? I mean, it sounded VAGUELY familiar, but…I apparently missed it? Either I'm getting old or I had a pretty shitty summer (eh, it’s probably both). C+
Weekend Update w/Jost & Che
Boy, Josts’ opening line about the government “shut down” hit close to home.
Hmm, there weren’t many jokes I DIDN’T like from this Update (and except for that Photoshop of Che’s cleavage, the Trump/Coolidge thing and the A.I. Weinstein joke, most of them were after the first commentary…I guess that’s why they looked so nervous at first). Still, I guess I AM more bummed about Ego leaving or these two guys staying for their twelfth season now.
Speaking of commentaries, I’m glad Kam didn’t get shut out of his first show entirely. I didn’t hate his commentary or anything…but it was a little unfocused and rambling for me. He has a slight Colin Quinn quality to him…in that it becomes immediately obvious that Weekend Update isn’t the best fit for his looser style of standup.
Hmm…you know, when Kam said “roll the clip” I immediately thought of, like, three or five times off the top of my head the show said the N-word in the first eight seasons alone (three of them were from white guys and two of them were from Eddie Murphy) but…did Che really “say” it in 2016 or did he just…chicken out and half mumble it? I know Sasheer said it loud and clear that year but…when she did it she stumbled over her own Update commentary so badly it took away the impact of it.
Bowen as Dobby The House Elf from Harry Potter. As reminiscent as this is of things I’ve seen Chris Kattan and Rachel Dratch do on Update in 2003, this might be the most “late period Bowen” thing ever at this point.
I guess the little “wardrobe malfunction” he had shows’ why it’s best from an FCC fines stand point why this WASN’T a Sarah piece like I was expecting.
Ok, I have to say something. It’s become blatantly obvious that Bowen has fully filled the Kate void in the show now where they get a lifetime pass to deliver a sincere heartfelt message about current LGBTQ issues that comes across a bit too “preachy” to everyone else because they’re pretty much viewed as the star of the show now.
Cecily did this a few times with reproductive rights and various women' s issues near the end of her run on the show, but I feel she pulled it off better and made it come across as more genuine.
Hey, I read all the Harry Potter books and watched all the movies until they felt like a chore (so around the fifth book and…somewhere between the fourth and seventh movies just because my dad stayed more into that series than I did and took me to see all the movies in theaters with him. Does that make ME “millenial cringe”? I was just bonding with my dad. C+
Invention Of The Spanish Language
Wow, another sketch in the vein of both “Age Of Discovery” and "Washington' s Dream”, huh? Interesting. This WAS something I was wanting to see them attempt again even if I ultimately feel it didn’t live up to those examples.
This sketch seemed like it had a lot of writerly details that would’ve grown on me upon a second viewing, like the ocean being a boy and the bible being a girl and Marcellos’ closing line “whoever doesn’t die of disease in the night, I will see you tomorrow.” but it felt a bit light and skimpy on those hidden details.
I definitely wanted to like this but it was another “just OK” sketch premise that went on for a beat too long and could’ve had a couple of things cut.
Mikey as the “Delegate from Barthelona” who suddenly gets beheaded stood out to me but it’ s not the greatest sign in the world for this sketch that Marcello suddenly holding Mikey’s fake severed head was the main stand out moment.
Benicio Del Toro was a cameo I wasn’t expecting but…hey, I’ll take it. He didn’t exactly blow me away or anything but I liked his lines just fine, like the “what if the letter R went on for a really long time?”. C+
Principals’ Office
Well, the big positives to this sketch are that a) they buried the requisite “host is hot” sketch near the end of the show and b) Ashley Padilla really got a chance to shine as a performer/sketch lead.
Also, the drawings and (to a lesser extent) the visual of Marcello in that shaggy scene kid wig were pretty funny.
The only thing I wasn’t crazy about was Andrew Dismukes in the cuck role (I was going to say “cuck adjacent” until he said his last line). B+
El Chavo de Marcello
So, I guess we’re getting this instead of a third Sabado Gigante sketch from Marcello? I’m fine with that. I have some vague familiarity with “El Chavo del Ocho” and “Chespirito” so I DO get what this was supposed to be.
Did anyone else get flashbacks to that awful wheelchair sketch from Scarlett Johanssons’ 2010 episode when they saw Kenan fall on the ground as “Mr. Stomach”?
I liked what this was going for and I liked the visual commitment to making this look like an actual early 70s comedy show, but even on rewatch parts of this seemed difficult to parse and the live audience seemed as extremely confused as I was
I feel like I would’ve liked this more if it were more of an indirect parody of “El Chavo de Ocho” rather than just a word for word English translation of one of those episodes that the show must have had to get clearance from the estate of Roberto Gomez Bolanos to do.
If that truly was the case, I feel a lot of this got LOST in translation to the point where this felt like a redux of Cleese and Palin recreating the parrot sketch in January 1997 or Horatio Sanz and Colin Quinn doing that “latin comedy explosion” thing on Update in October 1999 that the audience may have been even more confused by (judging by how seemingly the only genuine non-laugh track audience reaction seemed to be applause from Jon Hamms’ inexplicable cameo). C-
Overall Thoughts
Well, this episode started out showing a lot of potential for a modern SNL season premiere but suddenly faced one of the biggest nosedives in quality I’ve ever seen with this show.
I think the biggest problem I had with this episode was the constant leaning on tired modern SNL tropes throughout instead of trying to recapture the more unique experimental feel of Bad Bunny' s previous episode, but its’ a season premiere with substantial cast and writers’ room turnover so…what are you gonna do?
I don’t really have a problem with cast usage in this episode (don’t worry Tommy, you’ll get your chance some day). I expected Marcello, Chloe, Kam and Sarah to be used as much as they were and I expected the show to continue to forget that Jane Wickline existed. I was expecting Ben to be used a little more but I think the show felt that its regular viewers were familiar enough with him already. Surprised to see Bowen used as little as he was though.
Closing Thoughts
Well, that certainly was a season premiere. Next week, on the actual chronological 50th anniversary of NBC’s Saturday Night Live, beloved former cast member Amy Poehler returns to host for the fourth time.
Amy was someone who left and didn’t give us much of a chance to let us miss her with all the cameos she made right after leaving (much like her castmates Tina and Amy) but she’d gone on to great success and took a break from the show since then.
In fact, I’d say she was the Sarah Squirm of her time in that they both started out doing crazy, outrageous underground comedy before getting hired by the show and used in such a way that was FAR removed from their pre-SNL personae and sensibilities that eventually some of her long time fans were disappointed (more with the show than with them personally).
Still, they both carved out their own little acting and comedy niches outside of the show and Amys’ run was from an era that is now so far removed from the show that I am genuinely curious to see how they would interact with the modern cast and writers.
Also, she is and always was a likable presence on SNL and pretty much everything else she’s done. I may not be expecting this episode to correct the course of the season or anything but I am looking forward to it. See you then!
Oh, and by the way, Deej and I are planning to review the SNL season 32 finale with Zach Braff and Maroon 5 on the next episode of We Heart Hader so be on the lookout for that episode of the podcast and for that write up on this very blog as well this coming Friday.
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