Ariana Grande/Stevie Nicks (10.12.2024)

 Family Feud Election Showdown

- Huh, I certainly wasn't expecting them to dig this template out of mothballs. They were always the strongest use of Kenans' Steve Harvey impression. That "Diddy parties" joke made me laugh. I always liked...some of these, but I'm not sure the current cast/visiting cameos can really pull these off. 

- This wouldn't have been my first choice, but it's not completely inappropriate. I wouldn't have made it the cold open, though...but OK.

- All this season's big cameos still work in this format, I guess. It's not the most ambitious thing they've done, but I haven't been expecting much from this season's election material going in.

- I guess it was real slim pickings this week for the cold open. They didn't have much else to choose from besides "wow, Kamala Harris sure did a lot of interviews this week, didn't she?" and yeah, I can see how hard it would be to stretch that alone into a cold open, so they just had Maya acknowledge that quickly and...move on?

- When Carveys' Biden gets more laughs out of me than Gaffigans' Walz, something may be wrong.

- JAJ as Trump has gotten a bit more...visually jarring. Hope he's not wearing out his voice too much doing this. I liked the brief "where's Melania?" fakeout here but other than that, the writing for the republican side if this was just...a whole lotta nothing. At least this ended much quicker than I was expecting and at least this was more watchable than the Game Of Thrones vs Avengers Family Feud Cold Open they did a few years back (but not that much better than the Trump vs Hillary Family Feud from a few years before that). C-

Monologue 

- So, she's basically singing Justin Timberlakes' 2011 monologue to the tune of Jean Smarts' monologue from...last month?

- Oh, I see. It's now a medley including "Baby One More Time" and "Don't Speak". The Miley impression was...fine.

- It's like they suddenly remembered Arianas' Tidal sketch from 2016 was a viral semi-hit and thought on Thursday "oh wait, we forgot to write another one of these for her...ah, screw it, we'll just make that her monologue this time."

- Bowen in drag. Should've expected that.

- Meh. Not a great start so far, but the hardest part may be out if the way. Let's see what else they got. D+

Singing Bridesmaids

- Ok, now she IS singing...again. Now, it's a purposely bad, off key parody of "Espresso".

- The lyrics are just as jumbled as the original but at least I can sense that the point of this song seems to be to humiliate Andrew Dismukes' groom character. He might be the strongest part if this sketch, so...good for him. I liked his "rhyme scheme" line.

- I'm starting to think this may just be just his "island castaway" sketch with Jason Momoa from last year...just set to pop music and set arcade wedding.

- Now, Marcello shows up as the guy they were singing about. Not crazy that the ending was so rushed here, but at least it did end. I was starting to think it never would. D+

SNL Midnight Matinee: My Best Friend's House

- Hmm...new title card? Possible new branding for pretapes?

- Nice use of Pee Wees' Playhouse style puppetry in this. 

- This was obviously more "cute" than "funny" until the insane sudden reveal if Mikeys ' dad being a serial killer.

- Sarah appears as a severed head in a fridge. Honestly, a bit surprised she didn't have a much bigger part in this. Still, this one of the more successful outings of the "sudden explosive, near vomit inducing gore" pretapes she's been involved with in the past couple of years.

- A Dan Bulla Short? Good for him getting to branch out into directing from *just* writing. Since his ending vanity card indicates he also wrote/directed/produced "Tiny Horse", "Shrimp Tower", "Meatballs" and "Pongo", it looks like they might have been grooming him to take the Smigel/PDD/TLI mantle since...season 49 or 46 at the earliest? B-

Charades

- Jane and (especially) Emil are featured prominently in this. Let's see where this goes. (Spoiler alert: no where for Jane and Emil sadly).

- Bowen seems to be playing a more low key grounded role here and his chemistry with Ariana actually works for me here. I like the idea of them sniping at each other. 

- Arianas' Judy Garland-esque 40s actress voice is a strong choice (is that her "big theater kid energy" coming out or...has it really been that long since she acted?) but it works well with the antagonistic energy of this.

- Dummy fight!

- This might have been my favorite live sketch of the episode. Well done. B-

Celine for UFC

- This may not be the first time Ariana has done her Celine Dion impression on SNL, but the sheer strangeness of this was enough to pique my interest. I didn't laugh a whole lot at it but, still...not bad. C+

Weekend Update w/Jost & Che

- Josts' "subway series/livestreamed car crash jokes" and Che's "R. Kelly" jokes were the only things from them that rose above the level of "white noise" for me. Che almost had something there with his his "78% of black voters" rant but...he didn't quite put that over for me.

- Hey, another wonderfully deranged, manic one-off Ego Update character! This was the exact type of performance I've always liked seeing from her! I especially liked the "drone/STD/USB" joke. Makes me feel a bit guilty about those new earbuds I ordered from Amazon on Wednesday, but...oh well.

- JAJ/Squirm is a pairing we have yet to have seen. Their Gallagher bros commentary may have been goofy and juvenile but...it certainly felt unique to their voices so it was easy for them to make this fun. C-

Sounds Of The Italian Renaissance 

- More JAJMukes nonsense leading into some Samberg/Rudolph nonsense mixed into a white sauce and drizzled over some pizza pasta to reveal that...Ariana is playing a castrati?

- This may seem quite juvenile but once we got to "opium induced coma" this had a "slightly writerly feel" to it. The thousand yard stare from Ariana added a likable oddness to this. It's at least nice to see Maya and Andy being used in the odd non political sketch deep in the show (like Maya was early on in season 46) as long as they're hanging around. Maybe they could get Gaffigan and Carvey in on this? Wouldn't hurt, imo.

- Once again, this sketch had not even a trace of an ending. They just took the longest way possible to there "how do we even follow THAT?" point of the sketch and just slammed on the brakes there, as if they had to make some abrupt sudden cuts out of nowhere. That was the only thing this had really going against it. C+

3 Jennifer Coolidge(s) 3 For Maybelline 

- I didn't mind either Chloes' or Arianas' Coolidge impressions. I certainly wasn't expecting them to have both of them do their impressions together Fallon/Jagger style. I mean, it's not great that this is mostly making me wonder why the actual Jennifer Coolidge hasn't hosted yet, but it's not taking anything away from this episode at this point.

- Carvey as Coolidge was a nice (if not jarring) addition to this. (Careful what I wish for, huh?) Thankfully, he kept this from getting too monotonous (even if all his impressions sound like they're running together now). 

- I wonder if this was originally a pitch Chloe was saving for the real Jennifer Coolidge if the last writer's strike didn't happen and she got to host the season 48 finale? C+

Hotel Detective

- Wow, helluva quick change for Ariana there. They really slammed into this one. (*someone whispers in Caseys' ear*) What's that? Oh, there WAS no quick change? Oh, this sketch is actually a pretape of a live sketch that was originally cut from dress rehearsal suddenly tossed in because the soundboard froze for a like a full minute before Stevie performed "Edge Of Seventeen" and thus the entire shows' timing was thrown out if whack so a planned Reese De'What sketch about The Blob had to be cut? OK, then. 

- They haven't put any live looking non commercial pretapes into the show since at least 2002 so this felt like an interesting throwback in multiple ways.

- One good thing to come out of this episode was the opportunity for JAJ to do another old timey, fast talking 40s G-man voice. Nice of them to let Dismukes get in on this action. Ariana already did one of these but at least this sketch actually called for it. Plus, this also had a writerly feel to it, so...while I can see why this would've gotten cut (redundancy) it's nice to actually see it because it actually grows on you after multiple viewings. I have a feeling this would've gotten thrown up on YouTube either way.

- Ariana does Judy Garland and Dismukes does...either Charles Bronson or Rod Steiger? Either way, Andrew's enunciation was certainly...a strong choice.

- Wow, sudden Rod Serlongfellow! OK, that may have been the best ending to anything this entire episode could've asked for. I mean, I've seen better Rod Serling impressions on SNL but it was a breath of fresh air in this episode. B+

Ranking The Season (Best To Worst)

1. Nate Bargatze/Coldplay (10.05.2024)
2. Ariana Grande/Stevie Nicks (10.12.2024)
3. Jean Smart/Jelly Roll (09.28.2024)

Overall Thoughts

- This was far from the worst show of the season so far, but not quite the best. It was wildly uneven. 

- It got off to a rough start but it took a lot more chances than either of this season's previous episodes. For the most part, they paid off and the episode grew on me.

- Ariana Grande turned out to be a strong host who worked well with any cast. She really elevated the material and the cast and writers really knew how to play to her strengths. 

- Bowen didn't quite have the big night I was expecting him to have in an Ariana Grande episode. Fortunately, JAJ and Dismukes had surprisingly strong nights. Chloe, Kenan and Longfellow did well, too.

- Jane and Emil continue to barely earn a paycheck while Ashley Padillas' conspicuous absence continues. I heard she had her own Update piece cut, so...progress? Keep at it, Ashley. You'll get some lines on screen at some point.

Closing Thoughts 

- Well, this season continues to show unexpected signs of promise. Next week, Michael Keaton hosts for his fourth time with Billie Eilish as musical guest. SNL has pulled off successfully good episodes with both of these people at the helm before, so I've been looking forward to this episode the most out of any others that have been announced so far. Hope they don't let me down! See you next week!

(Oh, and soon I will be publishing a blog I wrote reviewing the new film Saturday Night. Keep an eye out for that!)

Josh Brolin/Ariana Grande (03.09.2024)

Okay, here's my review. This episode turned out to be much stronger than the previous week, although that isn't saying much. They were able to play to the strengths of their hosts better this week, but there's still some issues with the writing that have permeated this whole season (and in on case several seasons ago) that we need to talk about. Josh Brolin has previously showed that he doesn't have a huge fragile ego or any limitations as a performer that the show would’ve had to write around. He doesn't have any obvious personal or physical hooks that the show just wanted to cling to either (unlike last weeks host). He showed he still has the ability to seamlessly and effortlessly fit into the modern SNL mold no matter what type of material he is given. Still, he seems to have an uncanny Paul Rudd-like ability to get washed off the screen (not "upstaged" necessarily) by a pop star musical guest cameo who may be a bigger name or "star" than him but performance wise he seems to take this in stride better than Mr. Rudd nonetheless. The writers clearly were never afraid to pitch any of there more offbeat conceptual pieces to him and he always gave them his all. This still makes for a more interesting and challenging show to write about which is why I'm honestly feeling a little bit better about continuing to review the show than I did last week. Already online, I'm seeing that this episode wasn’t QUITE as divisive as last week and that my takes on this episode mostly fall in line with the general consensus on this episode. Cast wise, no one was shut out but Devon, JAJ, Longfellow, Molly and Ms Fineman took some hits this week. Marcello took the smallest hit of all. Sarah and Ms Troast are visible but are still underutilized. Bowen, Heidi, Ego, Punkie and Kenan dominated this week (but not necessarily in ways that best suit them for the audience). Anyway, let's break it down, shall we?

State Of The Union 2024 - Ok, a flashy, jumbled, style over substance, increasingly telegraphed "political" checklist cold open that relies on a celebrity cameo to do the heavy lifting? Is it 2017 again? I mean, I didn't hate this necessarily. I feel we're enough years removed from that era of political cold opens on this show that I can deal with it this week. I just hope we don't return to this being a permanent fixture on SNL as we approach another election with one of the exact same candidates of said era as a major player. It seemed like they were actually going to try a new approach to Mikey as Biden tonight and no, it's not just them avoidimg making a string of "lol Biden is old and evasive" jokes or fitting Biden into the JAJ Trump template of "commemting on the people who are now forced to sit silently behind him." I wished we'd gotten to see more of the sketch expanding on the new-ish character of "amped Biden" than having to see Ego clumsily stitch two separate sketches together. Also, the joke about Biden having caught a "glimpse" at the opposing response to his SOTU speech felt like the laziest writing ever to me and should've been cut. Scarjo making a cameo is obviously less a question of "how" than "why?" at this point but again, we're a few years removed from the point where the show did this frequently enough that it became a problem so I wasn't too bothered by it other than the fact that the only real bite this sketch had was when they just flat out stated how Katie Britt lied about key facts in her sex trafficing story. Yeah, we all knew EXACTLY where that 2020 joke was headed (but it couldn't have been cut, so...) and that the Get Out reference (in 2024? really?) was too forced and needed to be cut. Thankfully, I haven't seen any bellyaching on social media about how Punkie unfairly "replaced" Maya as Kamala now. Speaking of replaced impression roles, Heidi as MTG feels so cheap but also something I wouldn't mind seeimg more of if they absolutely have to do it at one point. I just wish the interaction between her and Mikey didn’t have that "botched timing" feel to it. B-

Monologue - Well, I was considerably happier with the reminiscing that began this monologue and the ice plunge that ended it than I was with "creepy male poetry" being the central theme of most of it. The reminiscing was just OK. At least he knew when to cut back on that before it got too...Baldwinny. The sudden strip down to an ice plunge is the type of thing that reminds you just how much of a ridiculously "game" host he is who will commit himself to any strange thing the show will throw at him...even if it has the potential to throw the entire live show off track logistically (well, at least as far as quick wardrobe changes go). B-

Chase Bank Robbery - Once Devon and JAJ walked in, this screamed "some SNL writer would rather get this on the air than go to therapy" to me. The problem I have with that is more that it's also one of those "i feel like I've seen this basic threadbare premise done multiple times before...not just on SNL but in comedy in general" sketches. Immediately, I got the vibe that this was a much hornier modernized version of Wiigs' "Don't Make Me Sing". I appreciate how Heidi and Josh threw themselves into this tired, worn out template, though. C-

In Flight Entertainment (Airplane Song) - This really felt like something only Dismukes could really put over for me. It also behooves this sketch that it doesn’t feel like a "relatable" observational trope that has been done to death (and that Andrew Dismukes is a stronger singer than Josh Brolin...I just wish they would quit teasing us with more Troast singing just as a sketch is ending). I mean, I kind of thought this was done funnier when The Simpsons (and to a lesser extent Family Guy) did these same jokes but about DVD players in the backs of cars (and that was back in the 2000s so...what does THAT tell you?) I guess it makes sense that this song sounded vaguely enough like one Arianas' songs from around the time of her and Pete having been an item. I mean, even though she had no cameo in this whatsoever it was obviously setting up her appearance in the sketch that followed. B+

People Pleasers Support Group - I definitely feel like I would’ve enjoyed this season 36 ass sketch more if it didn’t spell its whole premise out too fast and too early. Hell, Aidy Bryant did a whole Update commentary on this subject matter six years ago that I honestly enjoyed more than this. It was well performed but not the easiest thing to stay engaged with. It's obvious Bowen wrote this as it has his fingerprints all over it (themes of therapy/mental health, a promiment female pop star who happens to be this weeks musical guest suddenly becomes the center piece). Still, Ariana didn’t do a bad job here and the prayer ended this well. C+

Wine & Cheese Night - This was reminiscent of other sketches the show has done recently. Specifically, it reminded me of sketches they did with hosts like Austin Butler and Kate McKinnon recently but this had much more going for it. Here there were more writerly details mixed with an absurd escalating intensity and gleeful comittment from the host that made sitting through a mush of GenZ slang laden fart jokes (almost) worth it. C+

Shrimp Tower - This definitely felt like another writerly sketch that was a little more unbalanced. It put a little too much exposition up front and the ending felt phoned in, but I did like the raw physicality that Sarah and Josh bought to it and Kenans' one line was funny. C+

Shonda - This felt like another sketch that spent a bit too long working up to its big reveal. Still,  Josh really disappeared into his role and the supporting cast played into this reveal quite well by just all...gradually exiting awkwardly. This sketch was helped by its own willingness to go to odd places, but part of me wished they weren't places they've seemingly gone to before. B-

Update was shockingly short but fun while it lasted just for how much fun Jost had in his delivery (especially with the Katie Britt material and how that JetBlue/Spirit punchline hit you out of nowhere) and how Che seemingly found the right balance in "gleeful delight in bombing" without exhibiting Gillis levels of self sabotaging self awareness. B-

Moulin Rouge Medley - Wow, I haven't seen this level of "big theater kid" energy on SNL since at least 2016 (or at least this level of "the two lead performers in this sketch absolutely refuse to let the audience in on their little inside joke" energy since 2019). If I didn't know any better, I'd say this sketch is Bowen trying to break out in a new career as a Todrick Hall/Pentatonix type YouTuber so he can finally leave SNL and start making the big bucks! Hell, the guys' already a part time podcaster, he's already at lesst halfway there! Get on it, Bowen! Seriously though, that's all this sketch felt like to me. Well, I know a lot of us are sick to death of what we've come to know as "Bowen vanity pieces" but at least this was more palatable in that it's something that would fit nearly any other castmembers' definition of a "vanity piece" and not just Bowens' with his niche sense of humor. Josh occupied a very strange place in this sketch where once you immediately see him enter the scene you go from wondering "why isn't the host in this?" to "why wasn't the host cut from this at dress?" Gee, if it weren't for my local affiliate airing a commercial for the actual touring production of "Wicked" coming to some theater district near me, I might never have caught that nod to the musical that Ari threw in at the end there. C-

Side note: they included a snippet of "You Belong With Me" in a sketch parodying a movie we all know came out in 2001?

Sandwich King - Weirdly, this gave me my first genuine laughs of the night. I got into this more this sillier and goofier it got. Everyone played into the ridiculous details and reveals well. B-

Lisa From Temecula III - (*sigh*) Someone at the show must've heard my comments on this sketch on the last SNN Patron Feedback show. Way to Trojan Horse this on us. Still, while I wish they would've changed more of the basic structure of the sketch, I appreciated the smaller details they did add to this. I did like the line "erasable pens for the win, am I roight?" as well as her admitting to stealing soap from "Walgroans" and calling Bowen "negro-divergent" as Josh (instead of Punkie) acknowledges/speculates on Lisa's many, MANY personality and psychological flaws. Granted, it feels just like they're doing to this sketch what they did to the Mulaney NYC musical medlies but I'll reserve my judgement on that until the next time this sketch recurs since it does so quite irregularly at this point. I didn't mind the breaking so much since we got a delightful sudden wheeze out of Punkie. Still, if they were gonna bring back one of Ego's old catchphrases from the previous two sketches I would’ve much preferred "toss my salad" to "cook my meat". Hell, this might be the first Lisa From Temecula sketch I watch more than once. 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. Ayo Edeberi/Jennifer Lopez (02.03.2024)
4. Kate McKinnon/Billie Eilish (12.16.2023)
5. Timothee Chalamet/Boygenius (11.11.2023)
6. Emma Stone/Noah Kahan (12.2.2023)
7. Bad Bunny (10.21.2023)
8. Pete Davidson/Ice Spice (10.14.2023)
9. Josh Brolin/Ariana Grande (03.09.2024)
10. Sydney Sweeney/Kacey Musgraves (03.02.2024)
11. Shane Gillis/21 Savage (02.24.2024)
12. Dakota Johnson/Justin Timberlake (1.27.2024)
13. Jacob Elordi/Renée Rapp (01.20.2024)
14. Jason Momoa/Tate McRae (11.18.2023)

Well, that was a slight step up. In three weeks time, "Poor Things" star Ramy Youssef makes his SNL hosting debut. I don't know much about this man but I know he's a stand up comic (which is why the name even rings a bell to me). Thankfully, with his rise to fame he seems like he's gonna be more like Ayo Edeberi than Shane Gillis as a host so it will be nice to go into a show with that being literal my only expectation. See you then!