Jake Gyllenhaal/Sabrina Carpenter (05.18.2024)

Okay, here's my review. Jake Gyllenhaal helped stabilize an uneven and otherwise unremarkable episode. Truly, this was the finale that season 49 of Saturday Night Live deserved. It's a good thing the writing showed faint signs of improvement because we all know that season fucking 50 is going to deserve better. Yes, my expectations for this episode were already at the floor but putting my own personal feelings regarding this current season of SNL and Mr. Gyllenhaal himself aside, I will admit this. I did like that Jake struck a better balance between "intensely committing to every sketch from the strange to the banal" and "blending in well with the cast". Jake didn't stand out TOO much but unfortunately no one else in the cast seemed to either. Thankfully, no one was shut out entirely (although Punkie almost came close). Anyway, let's break it down, shall we?

Courthouse Trump - Well, at least it will be nice to get a break from these...for four months. Not the best follow up to a very sweet mother's day cold open but then again SNL has always had some trouble timing these Trump cold opens. The "don't wanna go back to the White House" and "Trump Torah" spiel got a chuckle out of me (real November 2016 throwback) and Sarah's brief walk on/off, the Jake Paul/Tyson, short bus/list felt like biffed jokes that could've worked concievably? It still baffles me how the "juror 6" and "Trump Espresso" lined got the reactions they did, though.  Thankfully, Devon and Longfellow were there to help break up the monotony of this. Could've done without Heidi walking on just to recreate the most famous National Lampoon cover ever. C+

Monologue - Well, the Conor McGregor and Ed Koch jokes got chuckles out of me and I liked the Paul Rudd throwback vibes I got from this. I know Jake Gyllenhaal likes to sing at the top of this show but I wasn’t crazy about the idea of Jake Gyllenhaal up on stage alone singing a parody of Boyz II Mens' "End Of The Road". Thank God the shows' actual black cast backed him up on this one. Lord knows this show hasn't had great luck with white dudes singing Boyz II Men covers out of nowhere. Just ask Bob Sag...oh wait, nevermind. Anyway, while I appreciated the meta fan service behind this, I hope their hyper awareness of their own anniversary translates into Lorne an company actually sitting down to seriously take stock of where the show is, where it should be and making some serious substantial changes to the show ahead of season 50. B-

Meeting The Folks/Cookie - I guess this was the requisite "Jake Gyllenhaals' intense commitment to acting is played for goofy laughs" sketch of the night. Thank God Dismukes natural, unforced intensity was there to balance this out. Thankfully, this had an actual ending and was written in a restrained way that didn’t make it feel too long. C+

Scooby-Doo - I appreciated the visual elements of this and this was a nice way to sneak in Sabrina Carpenter. (SIDE NOTE: I do like how they made her second performance a technical "medley" and tacked on the last two lines of "nonsene" in there JUST so we could get one of her famous "nonsense" outtros dedicated to SNL.) Still, it's a sad, state of affairs when a Sarah Sherman sketch that involves decapitation and dismemberment gets a real "meh, been there, done that" reaction from me. I felt like George Harrison seeing the Be Sharp's song "Baby On Board" on Moe's rooftop. I mean, the gag (pun NOT intended) of CGI Scooby eating JAJs face (possibly followed by some vomiting?) was probably the level of gross out gag this should've aspired to instead of just faithfully hitting the exact same beats that Sarah and Mikey did in "Battle Of The Sexes" and "Christmas Carol" (and Pete in "Farewell Mr Bunting"). Granted, what I just suggested sounds like it would still hit the same beats as "Massive Headwound Harry", "Rookie Cop" and "Kuatos" but still, it might feel fresher than things we just saw within the past year and a half. Still, I'll settle for Scooby shooting Fred/Jake after he shoots all the "witnesses". That at least KINDA makes up for them cutting that quietly solid (and thematically similar) Limu Emu pretape from Shane Gillis' episode (which would've drastically improved that whole episode overall). At least the gratuitous violence and shootings we ended up getting this time escalated well but it truly escapes me how I stopped myself from groaning LOUDLY at that Apple Face ID tag at the end. C+

OK, I told myself I wasn't gonna bring THIS up, but...fuck it. I remember seeing the exact same face-tearing-off gag in an old MAD magazine comic strip from.mid 2005 called "Scooby Don't". No, I don't really care to dig that issue out or post it here or anything. I just decided to mention it because if you're reading this, I inherently trust you to not contribute to any "Oops! SNL did a plagarism again" discourse on social media. There, thanks for indulging me as I got that off my chest.

Beautiful Girls And (especially?) Boys - Well, at least this was some nice eye candy for the shows' female viewers. Lord knows Longfellow, JAJ and Dismukes still have plenty of stans on Twitter/X. I liked the "biggest heart/fattest wallet" joke and the dialogue from/outfits on Ego, Chloe and Sarah. Other than that, I have literally nothing else to say about this except that it also gave me Paul Rudd vibes in that it reminded meca lot of how his fitst episode featured a gorefest pretape with a hint of vomit as a lead in for a musical sketch that just straight bored the hell out of me by comparison (except obviously the highs were higher and the lows were lower here). Yes, the overhead shot was technically impressive. We don't truly get a lot of those on SNL nowadays. Other than that, this decidedly was...not for me. C-

Rider Inbound - This felt like a sketch that not really any host could save. Maybe the tonal shifts felt too unbalanced. Maybe two Apple mentions only separated by one sketch kinda bugged me. I appreciated how this was staged differently from most live SNL sketches and I did like seeing Jake roll backwards down the hill. For God's sake, I even liked what Bowen bought to this one. Otherwise, I barely have anything to say about it. C+

Xiemu - Finally, something that felt focused and had a point. I liked the sharp takedown of unethical Chinese labor practices in online retail. I even like how the clothes and outfits fell apart on camera and how they called out our own complacent hypocrisy on this as American consumers. I feel like Che had to have written this since it's definitely in his wheelhouse and is too short to be muddled in typical Che fashion (again, no pun intended...it just came to me in the moment). B-

Update was...mostly pretty typical of this season. I liked Josts Matt Gaetz joke and Che's "black vote/Trump Boeing" jokes. Hell, I took note of his Prince Charles/Meghan Markle joke JUST for it being the longest he went without any of his usual self conscious asides to Jost & the audience (hell, possibly of the entire season rather than just this episode...yeah, and I say this while unintentionaly setting a new record for parentheticals and italics in my own review). Kenan and Marcello as two d-bag cicadas from 2007 and 2011 respectively turned out to be more tolerable than I thought it could be. Somehow, Marcello got more laughs out of me with his sheer commitment to the bit. Granted, about half of this sketches gags were mined from 2011 nostalgia (a Kreayshawn reference for one which somehow got my biggest laugh out of this segment) so...low bar to clear here but I was still desperate for any laughs at this point in Weekend Update. Thankfully, this ended right when it felt too long. I was glad they ended with another joke swap but compared to previous ones, something about this felt a little...off. The rabbi felt somehow more out of place than Daphne "Hattie Daniels" Skeeter did last Christmas. I did like how Che finally got to tell some jokes that cut deep for him with that Kendrick Lamar line but parts of me thinks the "You + Me = 69" may have been a step too far? Jost ending the whole thing with a rabbit puppet that looked like a prop from a Crank Yankers episode that Comedy Central still refuses to let anyone see culminating in one of the most awkward jokes ever...felt like too weird of a moment to go out on. I heard they switched that one with the Weinstein joke in dress which...yeah, they should've made sure the Weinstein joke could work as a closer instead of doing that. Boy, this sure ended up being the everyone's least favorite of the Jost/Che joke swaps, didn't it? What a fittingly dull this to end what is evidently not Jost & Ches' final season at this point. C-

SouthWest Airlines Customer Service - While I should be glad that the PDD boys decided rewrite the old script to their Spectrum Cable sketch from Keiran Culkins' episode, I still feel this is an inferior sequel. It felt too static and confined compared to the original. Plus, it didn't take me long to realize that my previous history of working in call center/customer service jobs kinda ruin these sketches as a whole for me, so...I shall recuse myself from reviewing this sketch due to my established bias. C+

Message From NYPD - I agree with the basic message of "Stop Punching Character Actors" and I liked some of the references and details planted in here (Stephen Roots' name got a chuckle out of me, for one) and kudos to them for getting Jon Hamm for the cameo this was all obviously building up to. My only real complaint about this was the pacing. It felt like it took a minute to figure out its own approach as it went along and it felt like it was heavily edited down on air but overall not bad. It was a nice spiritual sequel to the Law & Order acting class sketch from Jake's first episode. B-

Snake Eyes - This might have been the best sketch of the night for me. They finally put JAJs' "sweet southern guy" voice to good character use. I also did like the near blackout length of this. Most of all, I liked how Jake quickly bought into the cartoon logic of this sketch where looks can literally kill (but not without some cartoony ricochet sound effects). Plus, of all the "normal" looks they've given to Sarah this was definitely my personal favorite. B+

Now, for my final and ultimately most up to date ranking of season 49...

1. Nate Bargatze/Foo Fighters (10.28.2023)

2. Adam Driver/Olivia Rodrigo (12.09.2023)

3. Kristen Wiig/Raye (04.06.2024)

4. Ryan Gosling/Chris Stapleton (04.13.2024)

5. Ayo Edeberi/Jennifer Lopez (02.03.2024)

6. Jake Gyllenhaal/Sabrina Carpenter (05.18.2024)

7. Maya Rudolph/Vampire Weekend (05.11.2024)

8. Dua Lipa (05.04.2024)

9. Kate McKinnon/Billie Eilish (12.16.2023)

10. Timothee Chalamet/Boygenius (11.11.2023)

11. Emma Stone/Noah Kahan (12.02.2023)

12. Bad Bunny (10.21.2023)

13. Pete Davidson/Ice Spice (10.14.2023)

14. Ramy Youssef/Travis Scott (03.30.2024)

15. Josh Brolin/Ariana Grande (03.09.2024)

16. Sydney Sweeney/Kacey Musgraves (03.02.2024)

17. Shane Gillis/21 Savage (02.24.2024)

18. Dakota Johnson/Justin Timberlake (01.27.2024)

19. Jacob Elordi/Renée Rapp (01.20.2024)

20. Jason Momoa/Tate McRae (11.18.2023)

Now, I'm going to rank all of Jake's episodes...

1. Jake Gyllenhaal/The Shins (01.13.2007)

2. Jake Gyllenhaal/Sabrina Carpenter (05.18.2024)

3. Jake Gyllenhaal/Camilla Cabello (04.09.2022)

Well, we made it to the finish line. Let's just hope the show can do more than just limp to the barn... where the 50th anniversary...square dance is being held? Boy, that phrasing got away from me, but yeah...let's hope they can pull it together enough to make their biggest anniversary season this fall one to remember. See you in September! Have a truly great summer everyone!

Jake Gyllenhaal/Camilla Cabello (4.9.2022)

Okay, here's my review. This was an episode that was shockingly far more uneven than last week. However, this is mostly due to the fact that the show was frontloaded with it's weaker material leaving it's truly great sketches at the bottom of the show. To me, this show started out with the strange feeling that something somewhere was a bit "off" but that may just be due to my own personal reservations about Mr. Gyllenhaal. Putting those aside just for a moment, I'll admit he was just as fine a host as he was 15 years ago. He seemed to be used more in this episode than his previous one but he still blended into the background a little too easily when he wasn't meant to be the main focus of a sketch. In fact, I heard that Jake was one of Jimmy Kimmels' guests (in L.A. of course) on Monday this week where even Kimmel questioned why he wasn't in New York as we speak. Since the last host I know of to have missed the Monday pitch meeting was Justin Beiber, I had a feeling Jake might have been just as difficult backstage, but thankfully there seemed to be no evidence of that onscreen. He still seems to have gotten along with everyone. Plus, Camilla Cabello turned in some fine musical performances. On the plus side, a lot of the newer, underused female cast members (and Alex Moffat) made major comebacks in terms of airtime this week! Still, Aristotle continues to be shut out and Pete continues to be skipping the show entirely. Other than that, the cast balance seems to makeup for the imbalance caused by this episodes runnning order. Let's just get right into it, shall we?

Kentanji In The Oval Office - Well, I liked where this WAS headed until Kate showed up but thankfully the queen of Gins-burns wasn't the sole focus of this. Kenan got it back on track. Punkie and Chris got the roles of a lifetime. Thankfully, this was more concise, focused and thoughtful than most of the political cold opens we've gotten this season. B-

Monologue - Well, I did like the mini-deep dive into his 2007 episode but I'm still not crazy about his singing (which doesn’t seem to have changed all that much in 15 years) but it's still preferable than another "personal" monologue where he goes on about method acting (which...honestly would've still been preferable to a monologue where he addresses the "All Too Well" drama at all). Oh, well. At least this was concise for a singing monologue that (thankfully) features Cecily, Ego and Chloe as backup singers. D+

Why'd You Like It? - Hmm, this felt like it could've been cut from literally any dress rehearsal since season 40 (which incidentally featured a sketch with Kevin Hart called "Why'd You Post That?" which was cut from Chris Rocks' episode earlier that season that this seemed to be a watered down version of). Still, Chris and Ego pretty much owned this with some assists from Kenan and Chloe (and helped offset the creepy "too on the nose" nature of Jake's presence in this) for me. C-

Dream Home Cousins - Hmm, I was hoping this would be more in line with the "House Hunters" and "Chopped" sketches Leslie Jones did with Melissa Villaseñor and Liev Schreiber in season 44. Unfortunately, this seemed to solely focus on Kate's unpleasant character (who had some decent line, I'll admit). Nice to see JAJ in another non-impression role but his intentionally weak character didn't do much for me. Overall, this sketch didn’t land. D+

The Cabaret Singers Four - Hmm, this seemed to be another "camp" sketch written solely for Cecily and Bowen to "vamp" in the vein of the one they did with Jonathan Majors (but with Jake and Kate sharing his role) but at least this had enough scattershot silliness to just barely work for me. C+

Flower Sprinkles - Hmm, Jake and Sarah in a sketch together was something I was hoping to see. Kenan, Cecily and Chris were solid here, too. Bowen performed well in spite of how badly he was greenscreened. Unfortunately, this seemed WAY to unfocused for its' own good and needed some serious edits to at least not feel like four rewritten versions of one sketch all jammed together. D+

Chucky - Now, THIS was a much better use of Sarah (and Chloe, Ego and DEFINITELY Melissa!) I love the insane amount if thought and visual work that went into this and the twist of Chuckys' reveal followed by the further twist of Aidy/Janet being openly badmouthed in the meeting and everyone simply being OK with that. B+

Update was more fun to watch for Che and Josts' chemistry than the jokes. However, I did like Josts' Tom Cotton/MTG Rabid Fox bite/Dosney hugs/injury attorney jokes and the meta turn in his "Will Smith should host next years Oscars as punishment" jokes. I also liked Che's Trump Capitol Steps/Obama/Miami/Tom Brady Gator/Lucky Charms jokes. I don't think we really needed to see Aidy and Bowens' trend forecasters again but I did like the "no more jogging to Kelly Clarkson" tirade and the "sounds" forecast (as well as Che being "out" as telegraphed as that was). As much as I don't like to think about who might have gotten cut, it was nice to see a short Update with only one commentary again. C+

Lights Camera Achoo - This was a very specific premise based sketch that was well acted by all involved (even if Mikey Day just had to Mikey Day the hell out of it and Cecily made a questionable choice). Plus, there was a neat little live TV verité moment with the fluid flinging stagehand crouching next to Kenan behind the bar and it was nice to see Alex and Andrew pop up. Still, it didn’t really go anywhere and the ending was kinda weak but it has to be my third favorite segment of the night. B-

Couple's Therapy - Well, Punkie is the lead in this sketch and it's the type of insane thing that ONLY Punkie could do. Plus, Melissa and Ego are her scene partners. Even Jake was put to good use here. So, automatically this is my second favorite sketch of the whole show. B+

Truck Drivin' Songs - Ooh, looks like somebody on the SNL writing staff must've been watching both John Oliver on HBO and old YouTube clips of Mason Ramsey on Sunday night and just ran with the first thing that popped into their head on Monday. This was an all right five-to-one sketch. Not all of the songs landed with me but everyone was great in it (especially Melissa and Andrew). I wasn't crazy about Aidys' performance here but I did like the idea of her doing an impromptu Wayne Porter vs Kim Plunkett/Jennifer Aniston for Privolin style fake ad for no one. C+

Now, for my updated rankings of the season so far...

1. Jason Sudeikis/Brandi Carlile (10.23.2021)
2. Keiran Culkin/Ed Sheeran (11.6.2021)
3. Simu Liu/Saweetie (11.20.2021)
4. Billie Eillish (12.11.2021)
5. John Mulaney/LCD Soundsystem (2.26.2022)
6. Oscar Issac/Charli XCX (3.5.2022)
7. Jerrod Carmichael/Gunna (4.2.2022)
8. Jake Gyllenhaal/Camilla Cabello (4.9.2022)
9. Zoë Kravitz/Rosalía (3.12.2022)
10. Paul Rudd/Charli XCX (12.18.2021)
11. Jonathan Majors/Taylor Swift (11.13.2021)
12. Rami Malek/Young Thug (10.17.2021)
13. Willem Dafoe/Katy Perry (1.29.2022)
14. Will Forte/Måneskin (1.22.2022)
15. Ariana DeBose/Roddy RichBleachers (1.15.2022)
16. Owen Wilson/Kacey Musgraves (10.2.2021)
17. Kim Kardashian-West/Halsey (10.9.2021)

Well, that was that. It was the kind of show that made you really question what your owj expectations as a viewer were setting you up for. Next week, Lizzo returns to the show as not just mudical guest, but host as well! She may not have had much acting experience, but like most double duty pop star hosts the shoe tends to book she seems to have a big enough personality to do well with sketch comedy. See you then!