Bad Bunny/Doja Cat (10.04.2025)

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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.

SNL Nagging Pre Show/Pre Season 51 Thoughts

• Well, Season 51. Here we go.

• First off, I have to say I don't feel confident about the decisions made as to which cast members…didn't make the cut for this season. 

• I think with the loss of Emil, Devon and Mr. Longfellow they're getting rid of the featured players who had the most untapped potential and the best chances of doing something actually interesting on the show and clinging on to certain “vets” who may not have been on the longest or anything but seem the most burnt and tapped out creatively (even if only one of them seems the most honest about it). Emil, Devon and Longfellow are definitely going to be missed more than the show realizes right now.

• Heidi and Ego, I get them wanting to leave on their own. Heidi has been a solid dependable anchor of the female cast who's had a respectable eight season run. It felt like the right time for her to leave on her own and she seems primed for a solid, respectable acting career at this point.

• Egos’ always had such a great presence on the show that I would’ve liked to have seen another year of her in the cast, but she's in the same boat as Heidi in that she's put in enough great work that this would seem like an ideal time for her to leave as well. 

• Seems like she might have decided last minute to leave in solidarity with Heidi for some reason and the fact that Heidi is the only departing cast member to have NOT posted some sort of official Instagram announcement at this point makes it seem like something went on behind the scenes that she didn't quite find to be on the level. Whatever it is, I'm sure we'll find out about it in due time.

• I'm not crazy about the fact that this leaves Chloe Fineman as the most senior female cast member in the show, though. Sarah being a close second isn't much consolation (and she honestly seems to be in the same boat as Emil, Devon and Longfellow except for the fact that she's still on the show) but she's still in the same boat as Ego in that I've always liked the idea of them both being in the cast even if they may not be getting used to their full potential (which is honestly the real problem with Sarah in that the show may be pounding a square Peg into a round hole with her since they obviously can't let her go full on “Squirm” on the show) but I do see an opportunity for Ashley Padilla to make major inroads in stabilizing (and potentially leading) the female cast.

• Most of the new featured players seem like decent enough fits for the show. I can see why Ben Marshall is the only PDD member they saw fit to legitimately add to the cast. I haven't gotten to have seen much of Jeremy Culhane, Tommy Brennan or Veronica Slowikowsas’ pre-SNL work but I've read enough of what their prior credits are to see why they would've been hired.

• Kam Patterson is the new hire that…concerns me the most. I don't even mind that he runs in the same circles as Gillis and Che as much as I'm concerned about the fact that he was plucked straight from “Kill Tony”. Having actually seen pieces of his standup, I don't quite see him fitting in with the show that well or bringing the show such great press for that matter (even though I realize that any attempts to “cancel” him the way they “cancelled” Gillis would be pointless). At best, I see him as another “one and done” type cast member.

• I am intrigued that they hired several new writers (so, I guess they did find SOME new women of color they liked enough to hire, huh?) so that alone gives me a tiny shred of hope that season 51 could be the start of the same transition between eras that season 31 was (that reminds me, I know my friend Jon Schneider is doing a season 31 rewatch podcast for their Patreon but if you want a podcast some full length season 31 reviews that aren't currently behind a pay wall then have I got the podcast for you!)

• Now, on to tonight's episode. I thought Bad Bunny was a rather unambitious choice for host at first but I'm OK with it. His season 49 episode wasn't the best of that season by any stretch, but when that season first premiered I remember being intrigued by the experimental feel of sketches like “Age Of Discovery”, “Telanovela” and the PDD Shrek short. I especially liked how they helped offset the “we're just gonna do some sketches about how hot this host is and just skate by on his charisma” vibe that the monologue and nun sketch gave off.

• I even liked how they bought in Pedro Pascal for a sequel to the “Protective Mom” sketch from his season 48 episode. That was possibly my favorite sketch from that one. I mean, I'm not as crazy about Pedro Pascal as the show seems to be but I hope to see another one of those sketches tonight. Hell, it might be a good breakout role for Veronika!

• I'm not going into this episode expecting much as I've learned not to expect much from modern SNL season premieres in general. They always tend to have that “dull as dishwater/just shaking off the old cobwebs/gotta get settled back into that old weekly grind” feel to them mixed with that irritating compulsion to catch the viewer up on EVERY single thing that happened this summer, but this one has a chance to be different.

• Specifically, a lot of what happened in pop culture over THIS summer revolved around late night comedy shows being taken off the air or chastised by government officials on social media for even the mildest criticisms of the current administration. As this is a subject that we all know affects THIS show dearly, I'm hoping that the cold open and Weekend Update can address it in a worthwhile manner (but I have a feeling this week's cold open with probably just focus on JAJs’ Trump rambling on to no one in particular about the current government shutdown. In fact, we might get a worse version of the season 47 premieres’ cold open).

• While I'll be going into this episode fully expecting it to be mediocre, I may be more generous to it than a lot of you as I'm using it as a distraction from everything else going on in my life right now (let's just say I'm writing this from my dad's hospital room and leave it at that) and I'm not even sure when my full length review of this episode will be finished enough for me to publish it by Sunday night at this point, but I just wanted to share this with you guys.

Scarlett Johansson/Arcade Fire (05.17.2025)

Trump/MBS Meeting

• Well, one more Trump cold open to end the season.

• Apparently “he found…love” with Mohammad Bin Salman. Not crazy about the “season 42 Beck as Putin sketch” vibes I am getting right out of the gate.

• I do like that JAJ has worked Trumps’ real life jerky back-and-forth power move handshake into his repertoire. It brings back fond memories of seeing Athony Atamanuik do that same thing on Comedy Centrals’ “The President Show” in 2017…oh, wait. Never mind. Forget I brought that up. Parallel thinking, I guess.

• I like that they're finally using Emil after a while…but I'm not crazy about the way they're using Emil in this sketch.

• I mean, I liked “oil/money/end of list”, “the late great Fred Flintstone” and the “they Dubai a lot of weapons” and “Utah” jokes but…the rest of this was just white noise.

• Thankfully, the fourth wall break was interesting. I especially liked the “season 50 Worst one yet” jab. (Hey, at least they're being semi-honest here, amirite?)

• God help me I even got into him ranking the attractiveness of the female audience members sitting around him as they…at least pretended to be? I mean, I appreciated it more on rewatch after learning from Jon Schneider that SNL actually does arrange audience seating by placing all the younger, more “camera friendly” people on the floor and everyone else up in the bleachers.

• Yeah, while I do like JAJ himself as a performer and a comedian…I'm really about as ambivalent about seeing his Trump as I am about seeing the real one l…anywhere, so no big loss there. 

• Also, I'm starting to agree with whoever first put forth the take that Trump doesn't deserve an impression that makes him appear likable or relatable like JAJs. He does actually deserve an impression more like Baldwins’ that makes you as sick of seeing both the impressions as much as you are of the real person. JAJ just does Trumps’ actual voice better and he seems like a nice, friendly family man in real life which he can't help himself from letting through in his impression. Baldwin captures Trumps’ other real life behaviors better and probably got even more sick of doing the impression as we got of seeing him do it. C+

Monologue 

• Hey, a sincere “Piano Man” monologue where the cast gently pokes fun at themselves. This is…pleasant.

• Honestly, this feels like it SHOULD have been the cold open (and probably would've been around this time three seasons ago).

• I…thought we all agreed that Bowen pretty much stopped playing “likable” characters about two seasons before he was given the role of J.D. Vance?

• I did like the jabs at Sarah's pants. She's one of the last people I would expect to be leaving unless she sees herself as, like, the Janeane Garafalo of season 50 or something which part of me suspects may be the case with both her and Bowen (and if she really is I would have some…pretty mixed feelings about that but I would wish her all the best).

• Kenan as an audience member was fun. I also liked Longfellow, Jane, Emil and Ashley poking fun at their own lack of screen time. Heck, I even liked how they worked Devon, JAJ, Andrew, Longfellow and Marcello in here 

• Huh…I'm a bit surprised we didn't see…oh, nevermind. B-

Channel 4 NYC News

• Hey, a wildly off key Pink Pony Club parody from Emil. Now, THIS is how I like seeing them use Emil on the show.

• Hey, Ashley has a big upfront role!

• Ok, so…apparently this is a reworked and slightly inverted version of the coffee shop sketch from Timothee Chalamets’ episode…except Scarlett is taking Ashley's role which is made the main focus along with the dark, upsetting nature of the various puns.

• Well, I have to say that leaning into the darker aspects of this sketch (especially on Scarlett, Devin and Heidi's parts) really elevated this for me. B-

PDD: First Class Flight….to Newark?!?!?

• Hey, these guys are back! I was wondering where they've been.

• So, it's a rap that keeps getting interrupted by ScarJo and the boys’ anxiety over realizing they're flying to Newark? Well, at least this is the rare topical short from Please Don't Destroy.

• Mikey as the pilot was…something that turned into a very Mikey-type role.

• I did also like the “who will make the article?/prayer hands/LOST pilot/Avengers money” jokes.

• I appreciate their slight subversion of the audience's collective expectations of when Bad Bunny was gonna show up in this…and how long it would be taking him to start singing. He does work surprisingly well as a dumbfounded, out of his depth, first day air traffic controller and this had a charming ending with the plane landing semi-safely…as Ben Marshall reveals he has urinated on himself. C+

Couples At The Bar

• Four people fighting over the same specific thing? What is this, a season 28 sketch?

• I guess this was the requisite “hey, Bad Bunnys’ in the building this week so naturally that means we HAVE to do a sketch where he and Marcello talk to each other almost exclusively in Spanish for 99% of the total runtime” sketch?

• Still, I do like how multilayered this sketch was where the men are just as much the butt of the joke for how they view the women in their relationships as the women are for how badly they misunderstand (or how they merely very selectively understand as the case may be) Hispanic language and culture.

• I also liked how JAJ and Dismukes characters accidentally display a better, more educated understanding of Marcello/Ego and Benito/Scarjos’ relationships from a complete outsider's perspective than they do. Even though their parts could've been cut without really affecting the sketch either way, I liked that they were there to add that extra wrinkle to it.

• I especially liked Marcellos’ intense, bug eyed stare down of Bad Bunnys’ character as he tells Scarlett what a great couple he and Ego make. C+

Bowens’ Still Straight

• So, they're just gonna do “Bowens’ Straight” again? Goddammit.

• Yeah, I just wasn't crazy about this the first time he did it with Sydney Sweeney over a year ago (no pun intended) but I guess…some people still liked it and that episode much more than I did?

• I wasn't too crazy about this one either (and that's not coming from a place of sheer jealousy over the mere implication that Bowen got to hook up with both Ego and Heidi in the same sketch) so I'll just stick to mentioning which elements of this I actually DID like.

• I do like how they're establishing some continuity from the last one with Gina Gershon making another cameo and not totally ignoring the elephant in the room anymore at this point in the episode any more re: Colin's relationship status with this week's host.

• I did like Bowens’ lines to Scarlett about how he just found out who she was this morning and “thanks for inventing A.I., by the way”. I don't like how this pretty much had the exact same ending as last time, though. 

• Was it ever established who wrote both of these? I'm guessing Bowen himself may have had a large hand in it but I'm just curious how it was determined which specific women Bowen would be “straight” for. Heidi and Ego must've come from him having bonded with them as a platonic friend and coworker over the years but Sydney and Emily must've just come from a specific preference of his or just him having the basic idea of “lol str8 guys just like big boobs, big lips and blonde hair”. Scarlett must've come from a place of all three of these things together. C-

Elevator

• Hey, Mike Myers is back! He's not playing Elon. He's playing himself…and Scarlett isn't. In fact, she is barely in the scene at all. This should be interesting.

• …and hey, look. Kenan is playing…Ye (neé Kanye West)? Ok, not too crazy about Kenan's impression, but…he can make it work well enough. I have faith in him. Still, I would’ve at least liked to see Devons’ attempt at a Kanye instead of just a walk on between him and Ego where she has lines and he doesn't.

• I genuinely wonder who had the idea of “let's imagine what it would be like if Mike Myers had a chance encounter with the stunningly bigoted and fully broken brained Kanye West of 2025 because there's no way that wouldn't be a million times more awkward and uncomfortable for him, right”?

• I definitely think that news of Kanye having released a new single that could be described as “slightly incestuous” at best would be the only thing to make someone come up with this because I haven't heard of this having been cut from any previous dress rehearsals but if this was ultimately scrapped from the 50th I can see why. I mean, that one aired in primetime on a Sunday night so I would see why they would want lighter fare than this to the point where they would've chosen Debbie Downer and In Memoriam over this.

• I mean, upon rewatch, I can see what Kenan is going for with Yes’ speech patterns but he doesn't quite have that nasal Chicagoan semi-angry whine down they way Pharoah and Redd did so it's coming out more Steve Harvey than Ye.

• I did like Mike's sudden line “my kids are safe” and Kenan's line revealing his next song is called “Squeezin’ On My Grandpas’ Booty” which gave me a legitimate laugh, but what was with that weird voice modulated line of Kenan's at the very end? Were the writers confusing Nitrous Oxide with helium or does Nitrous actually lower your voice?

• Also, why are all his front teeth gone…oooooh riiight, he blamed/tried to sue a dentist for getting him hooked on Nitrous. Was that what that was supposed to be a reference to?

• So, basically this is a slightly inferior remake of a sketch that Mike Myers had previously done with (unfortunately) the real Kanye West almost 20 years on the season 31 premiere? Hey, me and Deej actually covered that previous sketch in the first ever episode of our own podcast which you can listen to here. C+ 

Weekend Update w/Jost & Che

• Out of Colins’ “regular” jokes, I liked “McJournalist”, “Qatar-a-lago”, “favors” and “Dick's/Foot Locker”.

• Out of Michaels’ “regular” jokes his “uphold the constitution” seemed surprisingly out of character but I liked “South Africa/Mandella Effect”

• Boy, that RFK Jr./parasites joke was a real throwback to Seth & Amy's era of Update, huh?

• Hey! Miss Eggys’ back! All right!

• I'd say the highlights from this one were “piss a biscoff”, “compote” “Miss Eggy stay strapped” and “hollandaise/benedict”

• Hey! Another joke swap to close out the season!

• For what Colin was given, I got a bigger kick out of the “Lorne, retire bitch/topping off priests/ bonobos halftime show” stuff than the “black CBS soap opera” and “Nick Kerr lover” jokes.

• Yep, I can definitely tell Che's part of this once Scarlett came out was crafted by her, Colin and her (presumably female) friends to humiliate him. I got a slightly bigger kick out of the “unattended drink”,“farm” “thousands of jokes/dozens of laughs” and “selling crack” stuff though.

• Yeah, this one was just as fun as the Christmas one. I know it might feel like a slight let down, but how else could they have possibly even TRIED to follow that roast beef joke anyway?

• I will say that the joke swaps we got this season were both much better than the ones we got last season but I've noticed both sets of joke swaps have followed the same pattern of “stronger one for the Christmas show, weaker and more uneven one for the season finale.

• I wouldn't say this was the best we could hope for for this season's final Update since, y'know…we were all at least hoping for some solid confirmation of who would be LEAVING the show tonight and the closest thing we even got to that was…Colin begrudgingly smearing on lipstick.

• Ok, I've also heard some people theorize that Colin may stay on to take Lornes’ position rather than leave the show at some point. I highly doubt Lorne is planning on retiring this soon anymore (if at all) but if that truly turns out to be the case with Colin some time down the road, then I have a theory of my own there.

• My theory is that Lorne is going to eventually talk Colin into stepping down from the Update desk if he wants to move into the executive producer position. He'll only do it by telling Colin the story of how he was originally planning to host Update himself in the very early stages of development for “NBCs’ Saturday Night” but decided to give that gig to Chevy because he realized he can't be the person who ultimately decides what sketches get cut and what gets taken from the rest of the casts’ airtime while also having secured his own guaranteed spot for himself on the show that he (for all intents and purposes) created each week.

• Of course, Lorne will put this forth to Colin in such a vague way that it may takes Colin days to figure out what Lorne was trying to tell him, but only time will tell if this truly turns out to be the case. B-

Penelopes’ Secret

• So, Kenan and Scarlett are intimacy coordinators, Mikey is a try hard male feminist type without the predatory vibes, Sarah is the assistant director just there to be the butt of a single “they/them” joke, Ashley and Jane are about to shoot a lesbian love scene and everyone is just trying to gently guide Kenan in the vague direction of “finally figuring out what ‘scissoring’ is for the first time in his life?

• Thank God this ended at the EXACT moment it wore out its welcome and thank God Kenan still has a likable enough personality to put this over.

• I did get a kick out of Kenan sweetly smiling as he tried to picture two women scissoring and then running through the wall (although the timing of Kenan's exit after “what's the wifi?” seemed visually botched a bit). C+

TV Takes

• Ok, so they're literally just doing a slightly more dumbed down version of the same “cast interview” sketch from the season 46 finale except with Marcello in Pete's role, Bowen and Scarlett in Aidy and Anya Taylor-Joy's roles and…Sarah and Jane being placed into Punkie and Bowens’ old roles?

• I did like some of Sarah, Jane, Ego and Heidi's roles in this (although I didn't like the return of the “hey, let's make Sarah the butt of a few ‘lol she's least attractive girl in this sketch’ when in reality nothing could be further from the truth” trope).

• Ok, so maybe this version of this sketch wasn't THAT bad. Upon rewatch the highs may have been a bit higher this time. In fact, it was probably smart of them to borrow a sketch from a much stronger season finale than this one. 

• Hell, it’s not even the fact that they're still so frequently bringing back old sketch premises from several seasons ago that bothers me so much here.

• I guess the fact that they borrowed a sketch from a previous season finale where absolutely none of the cast members people were expecting/secretly hoping would leave…actually left…is perhaps the most troubling thing to me here. C+

Victorian Ladies At Lunch

• A strange Victorian sketch featuring Scarlett Johansson? Could we finally be about to meet the mysterious Mr. Willoughby?

• So, I guess the whole point of this was to try and create a “THIS IS LIVE TELEVISION!!!” forced breaking type moment by making the women of the cast eat real blood pudding, jellied eels, candied clams and pickled cows’ feet on camera? Hey, they could've done worse.

• At first, this felt more like it belonged on Jimmy Fallons’ Tonight Show than SNL but then I noticed how the snappy live pacing of it and the over the top writing and dialogue delivery saved it.

• Kudos to them for executing this as a live sketch rather than a pretape. That was a very unusual and uncharacteristically daring move on the show's part. 

• I liked a lot of Dismukes' dialogue (probably because his was easiest to understand due to his mouth being the least full). It seemed like this sketch was structured dialogue wise to just have the women set him up to describe the ridiculously offensive way these endangered animal dishes were prepared.

• Perhaps the thing I got the biggest kick out of was seeing Chloes’ very real reactions to what she was eating. Yeah, she was clearly struggling the most here. She was even too disgusted to break like a normal person here.

• Meanwhile, the gross out queen herself Sarah Squirm seemed the absolute least phased by this out of anyone. Heidi and Scarjo are tied for a close second here since Heidi's one if the shows’ more fearless performers in the cast right now (which means something different today, I'm sure) and Scarletts’ just a friend of the show who's always willing to support her fellow women and who must've been in a prankish mood this week between this and the joke swap. 

• My guess is that some combination of Sarah, Heidi, Dismukes and possibly Scarlett were involved with the writing on this one and I have another (slightly less educated) theory that this sketch was designed by the other women solely as one big humiliation ritual for Chloe for missing so much airtime for doomed vanity projects lately. I mean, she must've been absent at least on Monday and Tuesday of this week because I believe this and the monologue were the only things she was even in this week.

• Damn, that is the longest title card I have ever seen on this show. They must've taken great care timing-wise not to overload the show because they knew they absolutely HAD to get this in along with the joke swap on Update. There wasn't even a band shot anywhere near this episode.

• Yeah, the Pepto Bismol button at the end was a bit of a bummer and something I too really wish the show would cease doing already but I had enough fun watching the rest of this sketch that I'm honestly not gonna let it bug me that much. B-

Goodnights

• So, we see Scarlett being handed flowers by Colin who kisses her on the mouth so that Emil can react with the most committed disgust out of a small group in the left hand corner of the stage that includes him and everyone else besides Sarah who joined the cast after season 46? I wonder how that was set up? I'm sure they were always planning to have the Victorian lunch sketch at the end of the rundown.

• We do see Sarah over in the opposite corner tightly hugging Bowen (who appears the most emotional out of everyone on stage at this moment) with Ego a distant third behind him and Sarah. Miss Eggy doesn't appear on the verge of tears or anything. She just appears most ready to hug everyone.

• Based on this alone, I'd say the safest bet to make would be the announcement of Bowens’ departure some time by August or September. I'd say Sarah and Ego are the next most likely candidates in that order. I don't base that on what I'm now seeing could be their “meta moments” in the monologue and TV Takes respectively (because reading into that may be a bit much). I just get the sense that Bowen and Sarah may have developed such a strong emotional bond that they may not want to do the show without one another and this may leave together. Plus, Ego getting to reprise Miss Eggy so soon reminds me of when Vanessa Bayer did the same thing with her Dawn Lazarus character back in season 42, so…these might just be gut feelings on my part.

Ranking All Of ScarJos’ Episodes From Best To Worst

1. Scarlett Johansson/Death Cab For Cutie (01.14.2006)
2. Scarlet Johansson/Niall Horan (12.14.2019)
3. Scarlett Johansson/Bjork (04.21.2007)
4. Scarlett Johansson/Lorde (03.11.2017)
5. Scarlett Johansson/Bad Bunny (05.17.2025)
6. Scarlett Johansson/Wiz Khalifa (05.02.2015)
7. Scarlett Johansson/Arcade Fire (11.14.2010)

Ranking The 50th Season Best To Worst

1. SNL50: The Anniversary Special (02.16.2025)
2. Jack Black/Elton John & Brandi Carlile (04.05.2025)
3. Nate Bargatze/Coldplay (10.05.2024)
4. Bill Burr/Mk.Gee (11.09.2024)
5. John Mulaney/Chapell Roan (11.02.2024)
6. Quinta Brunson/Benson Boone (05.03.2025)
7. Chris Rock/Gracie Abrams (12.14.2024)
8. Paul Mescal/Shaboozey (12.07.2024)
9. Lady Gaga (03.08.2025)
10. Scarlett Johansson/Bad Bunny (05.17.2025)
11. Jon Hamm/Lizzo (04.12.2025)
12. Walton Goggins/Arcade Fire (05.11.2025)
13. Timothee Chalamet (01.25.2025)
14. Mikey Madison/Morgan Wallen (03.29.2025)
15. Dave Chappelle/GloRilla (01.18.2025)
16. Martin Short/Hozier (12.21.2024)
17. Ariana Grande/Stevie Nicks (10.12.2024)
18. Charli XCX (11.16.2024)
19. Shane Gillis/Tate McRae (03.01.2025)
20. Jean Smart/Jelly Roll (09.28.2024)
21. Michael Keaton/Billie Eilish (10.19.2024)

Overall Thoughts

• Well, that was season 50…and that was another typical “let's run out the clock” finale to end it. 

• Just think, this is the exact same episode that a few years ago some people were led to believe would be the last SNL episode ever. Makes you think, huh?

• Overall, I feel this episode represents this season as a whole (outside of the anniversary special itself) in that we might have proven ourselves to be fools for buying into any amount of hype and expecting anything bigger or better from the show than just…what it actually is now. Oh, well. Just standard operating procedure, I guess.

• At least after last week, it was nice to have another established host who has the proven ability to elevate material and boost morale around the show…even if there was still this gassed out feeling.

• I'm not gonna let myself get bothered by the fact that they're still digging out as many old, reused sketch premises from years ago as they've been these past two weeks. I'm not saying that because there was a fair enough level of buzz and hype surrounding it to distract even me from that but also because a few moments felt original enough to stand out and balance out this episode a bit.

• Still, there was fun to be had if you can see the forest for the trees tonight…and although Mikey seems to have had a light night, it looks like everyone in the cast got some airtime and no one was shut out of the finale (no matter how many times they may tell you it's happened to them previously on the show).

• Honestly, the thing that bums me out the most is that we're finding ourselves back in the same place we were four years earlier when season 46 ended and we were left with no clue as to who (if anyone) would be leaving the show.

• Of course, Covid isn't dictating those decisions as much anymore and back then we did find out that new people would be joining an already overstuffed cast after a couple of people did leave slightly unexpectedly, and the people we were expecting to have left dipped in and out quite a bit and ended up leaving at the end of season 47 instead (and in the middle of season 48 in one person's case who we just saw last week).

• This led to a promising new season that quickly lost steam leading us right back to where we are now and where we have been for the past two damn years at this point and I don't know if I can go through that whole cycle with this show again.

• Still, I guess we have the whole summer ahead of us to wait and speculate until we find out who's definitely leaving and who may be joining the show and if there's hope for things to take off in any more new directions creatively at this point.

• Maybe a complete season 21 style reboot is too much to hope let alone ask for at this point…but I agree with whoever been putting forth the take recently that this would be the biggest thing the show could do to keep them genuinely interested at this point (and you know who you are…even though I kinda doubt you're reading this right now).

Closing Thoughts 

• Well, that sure was season 50, wasn't it?

• Fear not though, because for a change of pace…this blog will actually continue on semi-regularly throughout the summer…by taking things back to season 32…for now.

• I can confirm that the next post on this blog is going to be posted this coming Thursday, May 22nd and it will be another full length SNL retro review of the Hugh Laurie/Beck episode from season 32 as Deej and I will be covering it on the next episode of the We Heart Hader Podcast.

• After that, we'll do a couple more episodes with season 32 specific topics that I will not reveal here yet. I'll wait until Deej and I nail down a few more things before doing so.

• See you in a few days and have a great summer!