Maya Rudolph still owns Studio 8H, but Saturday Night Live can't rise to meet her
TV Reviews Saturday Night Live
“I feel you. I still can’t tell if this is beneath me.”
“I’m not an actor, I’m a [got-damned award-winning, bubble bath-taking] star!!”
You’re goddamned right, you are, Maya Rudolph. While her second time hosting her old show and launching pad bewilderingly didn’t allow Rudolph to truly bust loose, the evening was a gently funny reminder that the multiple award-winner is an all-timer. The final (and best) piece of the night was an elaborate filmed The Shining parody, where, after a hauntingly funny trip through the memorabilia and ghosts of Studio 8H (scored to “Midnight, The Stars And You”), Maya is seen in a photo among the original seven Not Ready For Prime Time Players. And, apart from the able photoshopping job, she looks right at home there with her arm draped over the slim shoulder of the shockingly young Dan Aykroyd. Sure, Maya was three when the show premiered, and I shudder at the thought of how a Black woman would have fared on 1975 TV (just ask Garrett), but it’s such a fitting tribute to someone whose talent will linger at Saturday Night Live, inspiring the new kids each year until the end of time. (Which is probably how long SNL will run.)
Rudolph (along with “The Maya-ing” guest stars Rachel Dratch and Tina Fey) was part of the most formidable female-fronted ensemble in the show’s often checkered history when it comes to that sort of thing. (“Maybe the women could talk,” was the primary suggestion of Fey’s spectrally coked-up late writer, Gloria Zellwig.) She, Dratch, Fey, Amy Poehler, Kristen Wiig (not to mention comic all-stars who just didn’t work out, Jenny Slate, Casey Wilson, and Michaela Watkins)—that stretch is legendary, for all the right reasons. And Maya Rudolph was front and center, the sort of versatile, perpetually on-point performer who inspired nothing but confidence in viewers. There are some SNL performers whose stardom came from effortful playing to the cheap seats (sorry, tonight’s guest Martin Short), and some who simply were stars on Saturday Night Live. That’s Maya. She has always been here.
Best/Worst Sketch Of The Night
The Best: Since I already played my hand, let’s talk about “The Maya-ing.” Some behind the scenes pieces are—if I may—so up the show’s own ass that they come off as cloyingly cutesy, or exhausting. Or both. This is neither, a serenely inventive, patiently constructed paean to the show’s past (and Maya Rudolph’s place in it) that still manages to be funny and pointed enough to remind us why we should care in the first place. In her monologue, Maya regally talked down to those aforementioned new kids, Andrew Dismukes, Punkie Johnson, and Lauren Holt (sorry, Chirpy, Little Deedee, and Callista Vagina), assuring them that, someday, they, too, might be just as great as Maya Rudolph. Here, Chirpy returns as himself, the conceit being that, in addition to occasionally donning spiky COVID headgear, featured players have to do page duty, with Rudolph blowing off her long-waiting car in favor of checking out the very real, photo-festooned 8H hallways. (Her fond regrets over not having gone for it with hosts Derek Jeter and Jeff Gordon turn to an expertly timed, unspoken hard pass on Kevin Spacey’s picture.)
Once she arrives in the studio proper, there’s a genuinely creepy (you know, in a good way) Alex Moffat as the ghostly in-studio bartender, assuring Rudolph that her money’s no good there. (Her standard beer-garita is on the house.) Fey (sporting a serious case of coke-nose and a hairstyle oddly reminiscent of original writer and Lorne Michaels’ then-wife, Rosie Shuster) welcomes Rudolph as one of the long-suffering woman pioneers of SNL, even as she bemoans the loss of self-destructive workplace affairs (and all that coke). Kenan (himself sure to haunt 8H alongside Fey and Rudolph once/if he ever leaves the show) is Scatman Crothers/Dick Halloran, whose sagacious talk of Rudolph’s former cast member “shine” eventually gets on Maya’s nerves a bit. Dratch is in an ominous bathtub, not in Room 237, but right on the stage. She’s not a ghost, as the trembling hand of Rudolph lands squarely on Dratch’s very alive face with a fleshy slap. (“That was just Dratch,” Maya assures her new ghost pals, offhandedly.) Some pieces like this just capture the show better than others. An elderly John Belushi dancing on his former castmates’ graves. A sad and lonely Gilda trapped in Tom Schiller’s Fellini-esque world of garish fame. Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks’ lovely dream waltz. (Jesus, I just realized as I’m typing this that everyone involved in these is actually dead.) “The Maya-ning” takes its place among those, a lovingly crafted time capsule of one of the people who’s made Saturday Night Live worthwhile.
The Worst: As noted, this episode came off like a wasted opportunity. There weren’t any bad sketches, but there weren’t any that really seemed fully engaged in showing off their gift of a host, either. The choreographers sketch was most emblematic of that, since, how do you have Maya and Kenan squaring off as arch Broadway types and former lovers named Richard Perquest and Tanya Katank and not just whack that thing out of the park? The timing was off and the pace was flat, leaving unforgivable silences around what should have been a showcase for two inveterate showoffs. There are weird enough little ideas nibbling around the corners to suggest what could have been. Kenan keeps misidentifying commonplace things for the pair to conspire around (“The big, black window” = chalkboard), and, apparently, Rudolph’s dance diva was wont to display herself bottomless at every opportunity in the pair’s bucolic past. But, like the indifferently choreographed dance number (in a sketch about choreographers, no less) that ends the piece, this one never finds its footing.
The Rest: The cold open ditched politics almost entirely for the first time in what seems like a damned decade. I mean, the fact that Florida has become the cautionary example of COVID-conspiring Republican lawmakers eager to trade lives for tourist dollars is sort of political, but the sketch itself is more of a pile-on at the expense of the teeming crowds of drunken, horny dipshits currently swarming Florida beaches, their mask-less, shirtless buffoonery even more dangerous and irresponsible than usual in Spring Break 2021. I’m always groaning at the sight of another game show sketch (broken record: ditch game show and talk show sketches for a season and see what sprouts), and putting one right in the cold open got a double groan. But, hey, it had Maya right out front as (I can only assume fictional) MTV host Cece Vuvuzela, riding herd over a selection of said horny idiots as they compete to see if they can help constitute Florida’s “fourth wave.” “We are so close to the end—let’s ruin it!,” is the show’s motto, and if the horny dummies involved weren’t especially memorable, well, yeah, they were not. Making fun of irresponsible dong-dongs flouting all common sense and public good so they can vomit Bud Light Lime on each other might be easy, but it should be a little more effortful.
After last episode’s (thankfully affectionate and appreciated by its subjects) extended Update piece about YouTube’s reaction video stars the Williams brothers, it’s clear that everyone at Saturday Night Live has been in the same boat as the rest of us in numbly watching funny internet videos for a year straight. So this week, Hot Ones’ Sean Eveans gets the big call-up from streaming to TV (or is that a lateral move at this point), as his so-dumb-it’s-perfect YouTube talk show welcomes none other than Rudolph’s returning Beyoncé. The show, for those who’ve spent their lockdown learning new skills or reading books instead, sees famous (sometimes SNL-related) guests attempting to answer the usual chat show array of questions while downing a series of increasingly hot-sauced chicken wings. There are some jokes native to the source (Mikey Day does a passable impression of the leather-tongued, unassuming Evans, while there are sauces with names like “Hitler’s Anus Roasted Reaper Sauce”), but it’s mainly Beyoncé/Rudolph’s show, as it should be. Warily noting that she’s unsure about the whole, Solange-recommended experience, Maya’s imperiously glamorous superstar tries her damnedest to keep her cool under the assault of novelty hot sauces, with Rudolph gamely slathering herself with sweat, water, milk, and, as she demands from Kenan’s worshipful wig wrangler, six ice cubes placed underneath her meticulously groomed mane. Honestly, just listening to Rudolph enunciating “wig” as “whig” is enough for me to be perfectly happy with the whole enterprise.
There were a pair of further filmed pieces tonight, both music videos. Of the two, I’ll give the lower slot to the musical primer on “NFT”’s, simply because the incomprehensible new blockchain/collectable GIF(?) boondoggle is destined to spawn the usual raft of condescendingly explanatory emails to my inbox. (Honestly, not gonna read ’em.) Still, if you’re going to baffle viewers with an obscure concept that clearly (according to the audience reaction) about 4 percent of people have heard of, then at least you can populate the resulting sketch with Kate McKinnon as a patiently no-nonsense Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, yes-and-ing the rapped pitches of students dressed as Morpheus and Robin, for some reason. (Honestly, I have no idea of the reason.) In the end, it’s musical guest (and apparent star up the upcoming “white boy summer,”) Jack Harlow’s singing janitor who finally gets it concerning the “non-fungible token” industry. Which, again, no emails necessary. “Okay, that was just a list of complete nonsense,” Yellen notes in response at one point, and I’m gonna go with that. Please feel free to lord it over us old farts when your, um, super-valuable internet mini-movies(?) buy you that Viper, dog.
Better was the Boomer-bashing vaccination video, if only because I had the slightest idea what it was talking about. (Plus, I’m old, but GenX-old, not Baby Boomer-old, so eat it, Boomers. USA! USA!) Anyway, almost everybody in the cast got to dress up like their grandparents and boast about how they’re hogging all the first doses of the COVID vaccines, even though they voted for Trump (but just for the tax breaks), “crashed the economy three whole times,” and love to scold these young kids today about student debt when they went to school for free, essentially. SNL is so good at these sorts of mini-movies (which, as I understand it, are not NFTs), and this one’s a great chance for everybody involved to do their thing. Kenan gets the break and steals the piece, his OG boasting “It is what it is” about his lifetime of line-hopping, before dozing contentedly in his luxury La-Z-Boy.
The Barfly Awards continued the generational warfare, albeit this time shifting the focus to the hardest-drinking members of the elder community. (Kate McKinnon’s white-haired Peaches is revealed to only be 41, but it’s a very lived-in 41.) It’s basically a chance for everyone to show off their drunk acting, and everybody does fine at that questionable but long-standing comic art form. Maya—winning all the awards as the nightdress-wearing Sally O’Flappy—is the standout, her grandmotherly ramblings inevitably trailing off to end each acceptance speech. And the “Biggest Bummer” category gave Heidi Gardner (with marking pens jammed all through her unruly hair) the opportunity to essay “your favorite high school teacher” turned pitiably chatty and blearily praiseful drunk at the end of the bar. As with the Covid-iots cold open, there’s nothing wrong with building a comic premise around something deeply sad and pitiful, but, while filled with performers giving it their all, this one just felt inadequate to the admittedly low-ambition task.
Weekend Update Update
Jost may have been name-checked in the NFT bit for his “punchable face” (rhymed with a reference to the ever-delightful Ron Funches, who should host sometime), but sometimes his smirk can be used for good. Taking on the ongoing, gun-based bloodbath taking place thanks to the recently out of hibernation mass shooters of America, Jost guaranteed his own week of hate mail by going hard after those lawmakers still obstructing the overwhelmingly favored, fucking least-we-can-do step of universal background checks for people who want to purchase automatic orphan-makers. It’s all just people parroting talking points into each others’ red faces at this point in this charade of a gun debate, so here’s to Jost for actually managing to turn one of those points into an actual joke. “If you actually cared about the Second Amendment, you’d also care about the ‘well-regulated militias’ part,” he adresses Republican lawmakers, “And I don’t know if you noticed when they almost hung you two months ago, but our militias aren’t super well-regulated.” Good, hard turn on that joke. Enjoy your week, Jost.
Che did his thing, playing contrarian in response, talking about having bought a gun himself once “all those white kids started talking about getting rid of the police.” (Enjoy your week, Che.) And, apart from anyone’s (hidebound, red-faced) position on the issue of guns, it’s energizing to have two engaged and funny comic minds working through a comic premise alongside each other. They’re a weird team, are Che and Jost, but their push and pull sensibilities aren’t often dull.
Bowen Yang did his thing, too, hijacking his supposed heartfelt plea on behalf of his fellow AAPI citizens in the wake of the Trump-incited pandemic of anti-Asian violence in this country in favor of steering white guilt toward his own pet causes. (Apparently, North Brooklyn needs more Paneras.) Yang, while playing, wasn’t playing, though. Setting a guilt-trap for Jost right up front (“Yeah, I set your ass up,” he taunts Jost about his self-mandated “Asian Cast Member” chyron), Yang finally expressed his up-to-here helplessness when trying to speak out against bigotry. Throwing his hands up, Yang summed it up succinctly: “If someone’s personality is ‘punch an Asian grandma,’ it’s not a dialogue. I have an Asian grandma. You wanna punch her—there ain’t no common ground, mama.” Pulling out the Chinese expression meaning “fuel up,” Yang, after first chiding Jost for having cut the “gay Passover bunny” Update piece he really wanted to do (it was 20 minutes long), told (white) viewers to “do more” than sign online petitions and tip their manicurists well. (“You should do that, specifically,” he told Jost.) Pointing to the outpouring of money to hate crime victim and actual Asian grandma Xiao Zhen Xie at the hands of some whiteboy asshole (all million bucks or so of which the woman is giving away to fight racism), Yang cited this being the year of the metal ox to suggest that non-asshole white people strap in and actually confront bigotry. Update pieces take lots of forms, and no doubt Yang is still steaming about that gay Passover bunny idea, but this is one of the most compelling.
Cecily Strong had a big night playing Trump-era goblins (her Marjorie Taylor Green makes an appearance sedition-breaking into Kamala Harris’ house at one point), here bringing out noted Trump fabulist, abortive Kraken-releaser, and so, so screwed litigant, attorney Sidney Powell. Strong can screw her mobile face up into just the right degree of caricature, and her cockeyed Powell exhibits the appropriate combination of cocksure condescension and glassy-eyed desperation. Noting that her defense in the $1.6 billion Dominion voting machine libel suit relies on her lawyers’ assertion that nobody with a single functioning brain cell could take her months-long, Trump-sanctioned campaign to overturn an American seriously (call it the Tucker Carlson defense), Strong’s Powell also seeded the ground for an insanity plea, occasionally slipping a few turkey gobbles into her carefully practiced spiel. Man, Cecily is amazing at constructing a character out of minutely observed, escalating silliness. And, as a reminder, all that Kraken stuff that so enraptured your Fox News-loving extended family was, by Powell’s own scrambling admission, “too ridiculous to be believed.” Great work, MAGA nation! Turkey noise!
“What do you call that act?” “The Roxbury Guys!”—Recurring Sketch Report
Maya brought back Beyoncé, but that was less a recurring sketch than a returning visitation from the goddess(es).
“It was my understanding there would be no math”—Political comedy report
Hey, Joe Biden (sorry, “JaBiden”) is back! It’s been a suspiciously long time for Alex Moffat to get back into the fake choppers and so-so impression, so good on him, although the presidential facsimile’s extended absences suggest that there’s not a lot of confidence, either in the performance or the show’s handle on how to lampoon a non-Trump head of state. (Jost did a “Biden falls down” joke on Update, which was about as pointed as things got.) The real attraction here was—wait for it—Maya Rudolph, as her Kamala Harris hosted a Passover gathering in an attempt to reach out to Republicans like Aidy Bryant’s Ted Cruz and Cecily’s Taylor Green. And, as Second Gentleman, Doug Emhoff, (deep sigh) Martin Short. Look, I love Martin Short as much as Maya obviously does. (As evidenced by her goodnights shout of, “I love Martin Short!”) But this sketch had the right idea at one point by simply hurling a stuffed version of Biden’s apparently snippy dig Major at Short and letting him flail around on the floor while everybody else got on with things for a while. Martin Short is a lot, especially when you get him in front of a live audience, and I’m not sure that his appearance alongside onetime sketch show co-star Maya did the sketch proper many favors.
Perhaps sensing that this wasn’t tight enough for a cold open (and just think about that), the sketch settled in for some lukewarm political jabs and an unfocused take on just what Emhoff’s deal is (slow-jamming lover-man? petrified shrinking violet? guy who keeps uncomfortably caressing close to Maya Rudolph’s breasts?). Cruz confesses, “My only crime is loving too much—and sedition,” and Kenan’s newly elected Senator Raphael Warnock sums up the racially biased GOP voter suppression efforts in Georgia as “You saw Roots? That’s, like, how it’s going.” And Maya’s Maya, although, once more, the show hasn’t picked a characterization lane. From all appearances, the Vice President is a competent and committed public servant without any obvious handles to latch onto, so the show has settled for hinting that Harris is merely waiting for Biden to retire (or, you know), so she can take her rightful place in the Oval. Which is fine, if you do something with it.
I Am Hip To The Musics Of Today
But I kid 23-year-old white rapper Jack Harlow for being on Chet Haze/Hanks’ approved, all-white cultural appropriator summer listening list, as the guy has addressed his own uneasy position in the Black-rooted genre with some eloquence during his short career. Bringing out Adam Levine to back himself up in his second number didn’t help, though. I dunno—not for me? I did find myself, as I listened to Harlow’s tongue-trippingly low-fi and conversational flow, thinking that it’d be cool to listen to some Lonely Island again. Where are those CDs?
Most/Least Valuable Not Ready For Prime Time Player
Cecily grounded a number of pieces tonight (her sozzled host of the Barfly Awards was some fine work), so she gets the top spot. That even though the new kids all got to share the monologue stage with Rudolph. And even if Chirpy got booted for only being five when Maya first started on SNL, here’s to Andrew, Punkie, and Lauren for the nice spotlight turn.
Melissa’s continued underuse continues to baffle.
“What the hell is that thing?”—Dispatches From Ten-To-Oneland
That’s “The Maya-ing,” and if I steadfastly (some would say grumpily) maintain that this is the spot for live stuff, the short film was such a perfect way to close out the show that even I can’t find anything to complain about.
Stray observations
- As Maya notes in her monologue, we have all indeed been through a year that’s been “a real kick in the clam.”
- Maya’s four kids were all in attendance, with Rudolph assuring them that, with all the wigs and funny voices, the evening will be just like home except, “Mommy’s gonna be wearing a bra.”
- “Oh, Callista, I hope you’re funny because you’re very, very stupid,” Rudolph tells Lauren Holt upon Holt questioning Maya’s Breakfast Club mis-remembering of the good old days.
- “Dude, it’s takin’ all my concentration to keep from blowing out my pants on your janky-ass show.”
- “Sum 41,” muses Maya, looking over the musical guest photos, “That’s when music was music.”
- Next week: Daniel Kaluuya is in the house, another of this season’s genuinely impressive and intriguing bookings. Musical guest, St. Vincent, who’s very nice.
171 Comments
Episode was crap, except for Bowen, so I shut it off after WU, never expected something as magical as The Mayaing to slightly make up for the rest of it.
That and the barfly sketch were the best pieces of the night.
As i’m largely straight am I just missing something from Bowen’s over the top personality? He feels like a painful throwback to gay stereotypes in the 1990s. His whole schtick could be added to Men on Film from In Living Color and feel right at home. The oddly specific requests in his WU bit were funny but his whole fierce schtick just grows tired. I want him to be better but I feel like he’s just rolling harder and harder into the stereotype any time it seems his tiring bit is challenged.
I feel like there was a last minute switch (maybe Martin Short got stuck in traffic?) between the Kamala Harris sketch and the Florida gameshow one – the JaBiden one just fizzled out when it felt like it should’ve ended on a “Live From New York!” call.
‘Scoose me, where can I lodge my complaint against Martin Short for Seshual Harrisment?
A pretty interesting choice to give him this kind of role so soon after he essentially played Harvey Weinstein in The Morning Show.
“There weren’t any bad sketches…”In the words of former Update hosts Seth and Amy, Really? I saw mostly bad sketches. Three weeks off and we got perhaps the worst episode of the season. Update got some great jokes and we got another fine Cecily Strong desk piece. And there was the amusing Beyonce. And Bowen’s Update piece had a nice message but the jokes didn’t really land.But we also got the Maya-Marty reunion that NOBODY asked for, a douchechill-inducing monologue, another game show bit that went nowhere, two forgettable filmed musical bits, another What the Hell Was That? musical guest, and the painful dance rehearsal and barfly bits. The Maya-ing was a nice way to end it though I could live the rest of my life happily without ever seeing Gilly again. So there were plenty of bad sketches.SNL really should just cut back to an hour and cull the cast. Almost everything after Update usually lands in the forgettable-to-excrutiating range. Most of the men are interchangeable and bland. What even is the point of Kyle Mooney? Mikey Day basically plays Mikey Day in different costumes.. I dare say Kenan is the only guy with any range at all. Melissa, Heidi, and Chloe have all proven to be funny but were given nothing to do. I think the new bland guy Andrew got more screen time this week than those three combined.Where was the Dueling Dionne sketch we could have gotten with Maya and Ego?
I’ll just say as an example: the premise of the cold open had loads of potential, but everyone’s delivery was kind of stilted, Maya’s decision to do a heavy accent rendered her almost unintelligible, which was unfortunate because her character needed to establish the premise. And the jokes didn’t quite land; it seemed to be a wordy sketch where the performers didn’t quite understand what they were saying. So it was a bad sketch, but had the makings of a good one–the execution was bad. I’m guessing that COVID restrictions have kept them from being at peak performance–everything this season’s seemed kind of under-written and under-rehearsed. (And two musical filmed bits both based on 20+ year old hip-hop points to a serious shortage of ideas.) But it is time for a cast reboot–even Keenan’s slipping into ‘phone it in’ mode, he was reading cue cards like they were a novel last night. Cecily’s great but starting to turn every character into a take on ‘girl you met at a party’. And it’s not a good sign that this is the first show after a long layoff; it felt like the fifth in a five-episode run.
“I’m guessing that COVID restrictions have kept them from being at peak performance–everything this season’s seemed kind of under-written and under-rehearsed. (And two musical filmed bits both based on 20+ year old hip-hop points to a serious shortage of ideas.)“ I agree that COVID has had an impact – Jost has talked about how demoralizing it now feels to do the show without any celebration or real conversation backstage after the goodnights. However, I also feel like the writing problems are much more longstanding in terms of how politics and pop culture are dealt with and moving away from slice-of-life material that the show needs to feel less like a machine – so far back (20, 25 years) I have given up on expecting great improvement. But if we are just specifically talking of how unfocused and confusing many sketches feel, I put that on Jost and Che (and I guess Kent Sublette, who is a very uneven writer at best of times). I think that the writing has improved from last season, which hit a ton of rough patches for longer stretches than this season has, but nothing seems likely to really get better on that front until they leave.As above, I think the performances have improved since last season, especially early on when Kate/Aidy/Cecily could not get through an episode without cracking up, I think the increased focus on newer cast members has helped in that regard. It won’t ever seriously get back to best unless they get a stronger director.“But it is time for a cast reboot–even Keenan’s slipping into ‘phone it in’ mode, he was reading cue cards like they were a novel last night. Cecily’s great but starting to turn every character into a take on ‘girl you met at a party’.”I think we’re definitely getting a cast reboot – there’s a strong chance of Kate, Cecily, Aidy, Beck, Kyle, and possibly Jost and Che all leaving. It’s just we’ve had to go through two seasons of goodbye due to the pandemic delay, so everything feels harder to go through until we get to the exits. In John Krasinski’s episode I was disappointed with Kenan’s performances, as they seemed to veer into “Kenan reacts!” even though the roles did not need that level of response. I guess that was when he was still filming his sitcom. I didn’t mind his performances in Maya’s episode as they didn’t feel obtrusive, but the problem is he was playing character types he generally doesn’t play anymore. Delusional choreographers or sassy hairstylists are closer to what he was doing 10-15 years ago, not today, and it showed.Cecily has said when she decides to leave she will be pulling back. I think that’s what she has been doing this season – she doesn’t have as much of a presence in sketches (in past years she probably would have had a big cabaret number with Maya). Part of the downside of her having less of a voice is if what we do see isn’t very entertaining, then it’s more depressing, because we know what we are missing. She seems to mostly focus on playing these right wing ghouls who babble incoherently. I know some viewers eat this up, but I just don’t get anything out of it – the best I can say is she did seem to try to do a little more with Sidney Powell. To be honest it’s starting to remind me of Phil Hartman’s last season, which also makes me sad, because he seemed checked out and with a few exceptions, wasn’t given roles that best-suited him. “ (And two musical filmed bits both based on 20+ year old hip-hop points to a serious shortage of ideas.)“I think in this case it’s more about Chris Redd and Pete Davidson being into that type of music. Redd hasn’t been as involved in the last few months due to filming for Kenan’s sitcom. Having both bunched together reminded me of that weird fluke episode which had James McAvoy rapping in two different pre-tapes. The ideas of these felt very “how do you do fellow kids” in framing, but then that seems to be a general shift in SNL’s writing this season.“And it’s not a good sign that this is the first show after a long layoff; it felt like the fifth in a five-episode run.”I don’t think that’s anything unusual for SNL. Much of the time the first episodes back tend to feel “off” or tired (which is why so many season premieres have fallen flat). They usually take an episode or two to get back in.
yeah, this also tracks with other episodes. with this current cast, the vibe just goes weird when a previous cast member hosts.
I fully agree here. Mya is an SNL legend but this was a bust of a show.
That wasn’t just a bad episode in terms of it being not funny but a bad episode in wondering what the hell they were thinking. I have no idea what was up with the Kamala Harris Passover Seder skit or the opening monologue or the NFT skit or half of it. The only skit that worked in any sort of way was the Barfly skit and possibly the choreagrapher skit.
There has always been bad sketches on this show. That’s what you get when you have to fill up 90 minutes of new content. Sketch comedy is best when a show is a half hour or you just stream the better sketches online.
That problem has been with SNL since its inception, Verybored. They used to be better at giving us really high highs to counter the lows — which makes me wonder if maybe it’s true that performers do best when they’re high as kites….
Gotta agree. Leave ‘em wanting more, rather than have ‘em begging for you to stop.
What do you expect from a reviewer, who in reviewing a SNL episode, includes a line like “COVID-conspiring Republican lawmakers eager to trade lives for tourist dollars” with a straight face?
Ideally, the whole episode should have featured Maya as Time Traveling Scott Joplin.
“Three weeks off and we got perhaps the worst episode of the season.”I thought it was a pretty typical episode for this season – a lot of poorly focused pieces, a decent Update, 2 clunkers, and 2-3 strong pieces. For me the worst would be Chris Rock’s episode.“SNL really should just cut back to an hour and cull the cast. Almost everything after Update usually lands in the forgettable-to-excrutiating range.”For me post-Update is usually the place for memorable or creative content (or it should be, anyway). That’s not as true in recent years, but even this season, some of the better sketches have been post-Update (the best two sketches last night were post-Update; the praise-off sketch that is one of my favorites this season from Rege Jean Page’s episode was post-Update too). When you cut to an hour you are more likely to just get generic “greatest hits” material.“Most of the men are interchangeable and bland. What even is the point of Kyle Mooney?”Kyle’s had a ton of wonderful pre-tapes over the years – I’d say his partnership with Beck was one of the consistent bright spots when we got to see it. It feels like he’s reached his creative end, but that’s natural after 8 seasons. I think the male cast tends to seem worse on paper than it ever is onscreen. Beck Bennett and Pete Davidson have both had strong seasons. Alex Moffat, when given a rare chance, is very good. Kenan is very reliable. Bowen Yang has had a good season and never lets himself become a trope. Chris Redd is also very creative and energetic and pretty much the main one who keeps their musical pre-tapes going at this point. Andrew Dismukes doesn’t really do a lot besides look cute, but he has a lot of charisma and can likely do more when older cast members leave. Kyle has had a run-of-the-mill season, outside of some fun stuff like his Scorsese, but I think he and Beck are leaving anyway. I’d say it’s mostly Mikey who feels tired of guys who are not going yet – I don’t even dislike him, but he just seems burnt out. “Where was the Dueling Dionne sketch we could have gotten with Maya and Ego?”I would have enjoyed that if we hadn’t already had Dionne twice, but since we had, having Maya just play Beyonce again was probably a better idea.
Yours is a fair/balanced recap, rather than the blanket dismissal (Why do people watch and complain they don’t enjoy it, when there is so much else out there to see?). I agree about the Rock show, maybe because my expectations were high? It is a live show and not everything will hit, and I do appreciate they take some swings—maybe whiff a few but keep trying. Damned if they do something different and damned on doing recurrent sketches. I see fresh choices in guest hosts and musical acts and honestly enjoy seeing the veterans show up like old friends and blend with a different cast. Every member has something to offer, and they work as an ensemble really well. Each cast has a few standouts, some more experienced cast, and a percentage of up-and-coming who need time to work out a spot. Love Aidy in anything and am keeping my eye on Bowen, I enjoy his energy. Anyway, thought you summed up the current cast very well.
Yeah I can’t get behind anyone who hates Kyle Mooney. To me he’s one of the most reliable and most likable cast members.
Agree with most of this. I was curious to see which reviewers would be fooled by Bowen Yang’s “and if I say this earnest thing, then that earnest thing, then slowly raise my voice while looking into the camera, THEN THE AUDIENCE WILL FEEL LIKE THEY HAVE TO APPLAUD EVEN THOUGH WHAT I’M SAYING DOESN’T REALLY MAKE SENSE!” act.At this point, it’s almost comical how little impression any of the three new cast members have made.
I give SNL more slack than most, but after that opening sketch, all I thought was “They had three weeks off and THAT was the best thing they could come up with?” Every pre-update sketch felt absolutely lifeless. It picked up a big with the choreographer sketch, which was basically Kenan just carrying it through with absurdity. The boomer recorded one was legitimately good, the MFT one was just not great but fine.
Hey the boomers getting the shot bit was painfully funny although I do agree that SNL should go to an hour but with a few more shows in the season, especially during long breaks.
“Mikey Day basically plays Mikey Day in different costumes”.He’s too much of a straight man. Almost every single sketch he’s in is him being out of the loop, saying things like “What is happening right now?” or “I literally don’t know what is going on”. His sole job to explicitly break the fourth wall and call into question any given scenario, but the writing is so one note that he may as well be playing the same character in every sketch.
I think Mikey has tried to break away from that persona a little more lately (he had some fun character roles in the last few episodes before the break), but it will be hard to shake as he did this so much for years.
Maybe it’s the smaller live audience, but this season has only reinforced something I’ve felt for a while now. The writers don’t know how to write for what the show is. The pre-recorded bits are clearly meant to be viral fodder, but the live stuff – yikes.
I think the writers and cast are game. Some of the flops must have been great on paper or at table read, and could probably be great if rehearsed, filmed and edited, but if the humour depends on flawless timing, memorized lines and an intuitive camera, it’s not for SNL. And yet they keep trying. Even the old stand-by game show and talk formats are off — the lines are too written for twitter than for actual delivery and quick responses get missed or held up by the camera.They’re trying and I see it, but it’s just not working.
“Maybe it’s the smaller live audience, but this season has only reinforced something I’ve felt for a while now. The writers don’t know how to write for what the show is. The pre-recorded bits are clearly meant to be viral fodder, but the live stuff – yikes.”I’ve actually enjoyed the live sketches more this season than last season (and part of the season before). The problems you mention are still there, and have been for a while with SNL not really knowing what audience to appeal to, but I feel like they’ve been more willing to try new styles without caring as much whether it gets a quick audience hit. Sketches like the one from the Nick Jonas episode which focused on teens at an amusement park weren’t trying for Twitter buzz or for the usual SNL laughs – they just had their own voice. I always want to see more of that.“Even the old stand-by game show and talk formats are off — the lines are too written for twitter than for actual delivery and quick responses get missed or held up by the camera.”I think the talk show format has worked – the Dionne Warwick talk show, the “white ally” show in Dan Levy’s episode, the black political show in Issa Rae’s episode, etc. I agree with you about the game shows. Those do tend to feel more written for Twitter and feel very rushed through.
I dare say Kenan is the only guy with any range at all. Kenan has two, maybe three, voices that he cycles through with little regard to the material. It’s made all the more worse since he’s been on for 20 years.
I don’t really watch the show but if i did, it would be for Kyle Mooney.
Yeah that seder sketch was VERY bad and cringey. It was clearly their “pull out all the politician impressions we’ve got” sketch but it felt so pointless and unfunny like what even is the reason for this? They could have found some other way to bring out Maya’s Kamala. Like any other way. I like Kyle Mooney, though he usually plays the same character with different names. I have no thoughts on Melissa since she hasn’t actually done anything and they are severely underusing Chloe and Heidi. The barfly sketch ended oddly for me, like they didn’t know how to end it so they just ended it. Same with the choreography sketch. I thought it was funny until the end, which was sloppy and anticlimactic. SN: It seems this season they remembered Pete works there. He seems to be getting a lot more screen time. I’m curious as to what happened behind the scenes there.
Other than the first or second sketch, they have never known what to do with Kamala, likely because they are still haunted by the idea that their take on Hillary helped her lose (and many of the takes on Kamala are similar to those on Hillary), and because Maya clearly admires her. This sketch was actually co-written by Emily Spivey, who hasn’t written for SNL in a decade (she most recently has written for Bless the Harts, which stars Maya and Kristen Wiig). I had hoped this would improve the political writing, but instead it was just bad in a different way. Pete struggled with his mental health during season 44 (not helped by the show exploiting the Ariana/Pete relationship for ratings…). He just seemed checked out of the show last season, even giving an interview complaining about how he was treated by some people backstage and how he resented them making fun of his many absences that season in a sketch. There was even a very awkward promo with John Mulaney about the whole thing. The pandemic seemed to put him in a more positive place with the show, for whatever reason.
To be honest I doubt SNL had any significant impact on Hillary not being elected so I hope that isn’t really the reason. Even so, political satire is something that you either gotta commit to or not do it loll. So if they’re too scared to actually go for it they’re better off leaving it alone all together. Yeah Pete was for surree checked out. And there were whispers that his mental health struggles and the return of his addictions made him a tad unreliable, so it probably made more sense to reduce the number of sketches he was in. It felt like he was mostly absent for more than one season, though I could be misremembering.
I do think that SNL’s 25 years of digs at her (which in the ‘90s were often very hard-edged, especially on Update) were part of a widespread cultural view of her that worked against her, but I don’t think they bear the brunt, and by the time of 2015-2016 their take on her was mild at worst. I feel like her loss, possibly along with the backlash from Trump hosting, has made the writers more reluctant to go after female figures in the Democratic Party. Cecily Strong is the only cast member at this point who even has much to say about female figures in the Republican party. Given how much of this type of writing would often veer toward lazy misogyny, I would say they’re better off taking a more cautious path, but the end result is pretty much unwatchable. I would also rather they just avoid political satire, unlikely as that is. The current writing choices are mostly being shrugged at rather than more firmly rejected because much of the political material is fronted by long-running, popular cast members (Cecily, Kate, Aidy). As this is likely their last season, the good will is not going to last much longer. I think Pete’s heavier absences started in season 44, but yes, even in his earlier seasons he would tend to sometimes just be on Update and not do a lot else.
Agreed. And I think part of the problem with the male cast is that they lacks a solid impressionist. Cecily Strong, Chloe Fineman and Kate McKinnon (when she can be bothered) all fill this role phenomenally on the female side. But there’s no male counterpart, like a Bill Hader, Dana Carvey or Jay Pharaoh. And as such, no one who can turn their caricature into an actual character.
Jay is very talented, but I don’t think he ever really managed to turn a caricature into a character in his impressions. His best work on the show for me was Principal Frye. I would say Chloe is the best in a while at managing to create a character through her impressions. I think Alex and Beck are both good impressionists. The main problem is the show rarely knows how to write impressions in the last 10-15 years, male or female. That’s why they kept doing those awful, slog impression parades in one format or another, from the lousy stuff at the start of the ‘10s like the teen helpline with Dana Carvey as Mickey Rooney, finally dying a death in the Family Feud sketches that have mostly been phased out.
This was the episode where I realized that I’ve just aged out of SNL’s audience. I love Maya but nothing on this ep landed for me.
Same. Pete Davidson is just a bridge too far for me.
I’d say Pete’s actually grown up quite a bit over his 7 seasons. When he first started he was there to talk about being the resident young person and smoking weed. Even his rap pre-tapes feel older than he is. I sort of hope this is his last season though.
Agreed. He does nothing for me. Not funny or cute.
He’s always Pete Davidson. That’s about all. It’s not enough to carry a sketch and then they give him too many things to say or do. Equal time on screen is not equal entertainment. One the sketch makes a point and then rubs it on bait, it’s time to move on. That must be very difficult.
yeh, who exactly is SNL’s demographic these days?
A good question! I can’t explain why but still kinda feels like it’s fundamentally pitched at the Gen X-Millenial crowd that were fans during its [near-]peak years in the 90s and 2000s. It makes gestures at a younger audience but more often than not comes off as a 50-year-old trying to understand kids today…
So, you’re arguing against the thread-OP’s notion of “aging out,” then?
I mean, I can’t speak for them personally. Just sayin that I don’t think SNL has a clear idea about what demographic(s) they’re aiming for.
Bits like this and the Driver’s License sketch feel like an attempt to appeal to younger views who generally would only see the show in a viral clip. The baby boomer song was co-written by two of the more safe, corporate-like writers (Mikey Day and Streeter Seidell, who even write some Disney+ stuff), which explains why it had such a “down with the kids” feel. The show is in a bind because they mostly appeal to older viewers, which can’t sustain them, but any more toward a new audience is more likely to alienate those viewers (and they also have a more liberal viewing audience, especially since Trump, which means even the mildest criticisms of Biden also alienate some viewers).
Based on my research, their target audience is drunk people on a Sunday night who half-watch YouTube clips while falling asleep.
Youtube. There was a time when the cast would come together to create a comic voice that carried over all the sketches for good or ill. Often times it took about a year to jell but they were given a little space to do so. Now it seems they want to create buzz among different demographics to fuel Youtube views leading to a more disconnected overall feel.
Ha! I turned to my husband last night and said, “I think I’ve officially aged-out of SNL.”
I aged out of SNL in the sense that until my early 20s I thought SNL was as good as comedy got (because there wasn’t competition for it on TV, since I only grew up with network TV and basic cable), and then I got older and I saw even better comedy (like Mr. Show) that showed SNL up. At some point SNL started to feel stale in comparison, and it became a chore to endure a lot of “meh” sketches to get to one or two sketches I liked.I’m sure they’d LIKE to have a young (under 30) fanbase, but that demographic doesn’t need SNL, unless the show has a huge following of young people of which I am unaware. If I, a 36-year-old, started to feel in the early 2000s that SNL was pretty milquetoast, I would be shocked if today’s kids and teenagers, who grow up with the internet, streaming services, TikTok, etc. didn’t feel the same way.
The “Shining” concept is extremely cool; I can’t believe they haven’t done it before. And it was far too short.
“Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, yes-and-ing the rapped pitches of students dressed as Morpheus and Robin, for some reason. (Honestly, I have no idea of the reason.)“ Ok, either Dennis (a Gen X pop-culture/humor critic) is seriously fucking around here as a joke for himself, or someone not in the gray needs to slap him right up his 8 Mile Rd.
He can’t be serious about this, can he?
Always hilarious to see a show from New York, the place with the country’s absolute worst record in dealing with Covid, lecture Florida. New York’s pandemic model model is the world’s worst. Accept it, and move on.
kenan lives in florida he gets a florida jokes pass.
I’m tired of people using the word “lecture” as a cheap way of portraying someone as smug just for giving an opinion.
Even the local officials have had to deal with the mess thrown on them by lax state laws letting so many spring breakers crash. I didn’t really take it as a huge anti-Florida piece.
HAHA. Florida’s handling of COVID has been much worse.
Florida said “You can all die, and we’ll help that along”New York said: We’re doing everything we can! (while holding a plastic bag over a nursing home resident’s head behind the podium)It’s a fine distinction, I guess.
Just look at the actual infection and death rates from July 1, 2020 forward.
(while holding a plastic bag over a nursing home resident’s head behind the podium)
Now, now — Andrew Cuomo swears the CDC told him that’s how to prevent spreading COVID-19 among Teh Olds! Also, that if you do that with your dick, it’s not rape….
And given he’s such an imporant Clinton Democrat, he’d have no reason to lie, right?
Next, you’ll “educate” us all about how the only reason “Florida man” is a thing is because of Florida’s enlightened police reporting laws! (Psst: nobody cares.)
Florida’s pandemic model is so good that if it was a country it would be ranked #18 for highest number of deaths in the world. Strong job, Florida!
Fellow Florida guy fed up with liberal Bs here…shut up.
Are you under the impression that Lorne Michaels is the Governor of New York or something?
Boomer Vax is pretty hilarious if you can put your ire aside. Anyway, Millennials, go ahead and get pressed because your humble-brag game is just as annoying, lol.
I dunno, at this point the Boomer hate is tired, especially in regards to all the hate they get from millennials, that it felt like an easy and cheap target (says Gen X-er who wishes that people remembered that we hated them first and also realizes Millenials sometimes lump us with boomers too)
Plus, the occasional reminder that the whole “generations have universal characteristics shared by all their members” modern myth is kind of a stupid one is worth saying every now and then.
I blame lead in gasoline.
Right? Gen X had to grow up listening to Boomers tell us how great the 60s were and how we were all just too selfish nowadays (in the 80s – a laugh, given the “Me Generation” culture of the 70s!).
Although the movie is flawed in many ways, I think every non-GenXer from the remaining Silent Generation (who often get forgotten these days — people in their 80s and 90s are not Boomers), to the Boomers, to the Millennials, to the GenZers, should be made to watch “Reality Bites”.
In the most Gen X thing possible, I have actually never seen the movie as I thought it was too mainstream and a Hollywood cash in
Please tell me you’re a whiny Gen-X’er who’s complaining that you didn’t get to own a house until you were 32….Seriously, I get that a bigger chunk of the AVC following is Gen-X but sometimes just maybe, step back and ask ‘why am I posting this?’ and then maybe don’t?
Yes, but did the Boomer Vax sketch cover all those Boomers who refuse to get vaccinated? As a late-stage Boomer (I guess that’s what I am, anyway) who had to wait until last week to be eligible for the jabs in my state, I don’t feel all that privileged, if I’m honest.
OTOH, I’m neither a frontline nor otherwise essential worker (thankfully, I recently started a new job I can 100% do from home), I could wait my turn, and I live in a state which actually cares about battling COVID-19 — unless you live in an old folks’ home….::callback to Andrew Cuomo smothering old people with plastic bags::
The “N.F.T.” skit didn’t feature “Robin, for some reason.” That was actually an extended parody of Eminem’s “Without Me” video with Pete as Eminem, peroxide hair and all. As to the reason, you got me.
And while a 20-year-old music video seems a bizarre object to parody, you’re “Gen X old,” Perkins. If ANY demographic should get this reference, it’s yours.
[Disclaimer: I too am Gen X old, and it took me 10 seconds to realize the last rapping dude was musical-guest-I’ve-never-heard-of Jack Harlow, and not some new cast member I didn’t recognize. And I’m OK with that.]
I assume it’s because they did another Eminem parody video a few weeks ago—the “Stan” riff with Santa—that was well received and actually kinda funny, so they couldn’t resist going back to the well again, to immediately diminished returns.
I for real thought they brought out Chet Haze. I’ve never seen this Harlow fellow before and there’s a bit of a resemblance. I was seriously wondering where they were going with that until I realized my mistake.
I am maybe just a shade under Gen X old, but even I knew the reference to the video and I’ve never once played an Eminem song on purpose. And I too had no idea who the rapping janitor was. I assumed it was one of the barely-used cast members as well.I will admit i have NO idea who Morpheus was there. Because he… kinda looked like Dr. Dre in the original video?
I think he was just supposed to be Chris Redd dude.
“I will admit i have NO idea who Morpheus was there. Because he… kinda looked like Dr. Dre in the original video?”It’s because Dr. Dre dressed like Morpheus in the “Without Me” video. But Janet Yellin wouldn’t have known that, as she was probably not an Eminem fan. That’s why she only made the connection to Morpheus.
Yeah, it was pretty obvious and I’m surprised Dennis didn’t recognize the reference.
Yeah, I’m on the old end of GenX, not any kind of big Eminem fan (though I think the only truly bad thing he’s responsible for is “stan” for “fan”), and I recognized the Robin thing just from being a regular TV watcher with an attention span and a memory. Screw this “only people super-into something ever notice or remember things about them” nonsense.
(though I think the only truly bad thing he’s responsible for is “stan” for “fan”)
And his in-your-face! misogyny and homophobia, EdKed — which, however many woman and out performers he duets with, I don’t think he’s honestly changed his mind on….
I’m on the ancient end of Gen X, and didn’t recognize the reference, but then I’ve always found Eminem irritating and tend(ed) to avoid him.
I know tons of shit about things that annoy me and I try to avoid. Please see my previous post, especially the last sentence.
I mean, great for you. But there’s no need to come at someone for operating differently.
I didn’t “come at you” so much for “operating differently” in terms of noticing and remembering bits of pop culture, but for posting a reply that gave the impression of not having read what you were replying to, which, yeah, will always get a hostile response from me.
K, be well.
I seriously said out loud “are you that dumb?” when the reviewer thought that Robin and Morpheus was random then later said he’s a Gen-Xer. I’m an old Millenial while my boyfriend is mid-millenial and we obviously knew it was a take on “Without Me.” There wasn’t a day for weeks that you ended a day without hearing that song or saw the video.It also took me a bit to realize that was the musical guest too.
The NFT sketch was a missed opportunity for a topic that deserves mocking. Instead, they created a bland PSA that tries to be cool with its pop culture references.
I thought the whole video read as mocking NFTs.
Bring on the condescension, but — WTF are NFTs? They’re staged GIFs people actually pay for?Shoot! I got a whole online folder full of those! My wife just calls them “Internet porn”….
The reality is even dumber than your guess.NFTs
can be associated with anything digital (images, video clips, sound
bites, etc.). They are just unique tokens that are part of
cryptocurrency blockchains. When you buy an NFT, you are just buying a
digital signature that is associated with something.
Let
me make an analogy. Suppose a painting comes with a certificate of
authenticity. An NFT is just the certificate of authenticity. You don’t
actually own or have any rights to the source material with an NFT.
The Robin and Morpheus outfits (and most of the video) was a direct reference to the Eminem music video for “Without Me”
How in the world does somebody mention Jenny Slate’s one year on SNL and forget Ana Gasteyer?
I think Dennis was only mentioning women who arrived after Amy/Rachel/Tina/Maya. For me the strongest ensemble was Jan/Nora/Victoria, anyway.
Or just Jan/Nora.
Yeah, I had blissfully forgotten Victoria’s “here’s 101 variations on dumb blonde jokes” career, until just this minute…
Also her mid-2000’s veer into hard right conservatism, writing for Breitbart, now anti-vaxx, pro-Trump, still believes the election was stolen… But her two or three spots on Update singing while standing on her head were kinda funny.
Only to realize later, with a thrill of horror, she wasn’t joking….
To be fair, I was wanting some late 80s/early 90s SNL recently and I was kinda surprised that Jackson had a lot more range than ‘dumb blonde’. I think her hard-right turn has actually kind of eclipsed her SNL work, which on the whole was pretty good.
Yeah, it wasn’t until Cheri&Molly&Ana that we had a three-for-three team that good to follow Jane&Laraine&Gilda. And fortunately, it’s been Murderers’ Rows ever since.
Amy, Rachel, Tina, Maya, and Ana were all in the same cast for 2-4 years.
You’re right, so I can see what you mean now, but I can see why she wasn’t mentioned. Ana’s presence feels diminished and out of place (to me anyway) during that period. When I think of Ana I don’t think of Gemini’s Twin. She was more known for her work in the years with Molly and Cheri.
i’m still confused at how there was an entire sketch explaining NFTs without mentioning their creation consumes about as much electricity as the average person uses in 50 years.
so we’re just going with the biden has dementia thing, no matter how many times he proves it wrong? okay, sure.
Did anyone else think Maya looked really uncomfortable during the embraces in the Kamala Harris sketch? Like, I get they were supposed to be weird and awkward and cringey back hugs, but she seemed pretty creeped out by the way Short was hugging her.
i read that as a joke about how Kamala is an awkard person who seems to be doing an impression of a human being in most public interactions
I just watched The Morning Show, literally a couple days ago, so I couldn’t stop thinking Martin Short was still the mostly-Woody-Allen rapey character from that show, as his hands around Maya’s waist crept up dangerously close to her boobs.
Yes I noticed that, I kept watching where his hands were going :/
We’re still pretending that Maya Rudolph is funny and talented?
one of the biggest misses in a while. i’ve been an advocate for the show over the last year but this was a real stinker.
Cold Open Kamala first sketch after the monologue Beyonce told me all I needed to know about where this show was going.
What a poor episode. I enjoyed the filmed bit at the end, and maybe one joke in Weekend Update, but everything felt off and was timed badly and there were a bunch of little production issues.SNL can’t figure out its audience. Either they are too loud and whooping and laughing at everything like the episode before the break, which is awful because it ruins any kind of good comedy momentum/buildup, or they are quiet like they were in this episode, which led to so much dead air with characters walking. I guess it’s still COVID restrictions to blame, but I wish they at least tried to write snappier/faster humor to make up for a more muffled audience.
Did Martin Short drop an s-bomb at the end of the Kamala sketch?
Weekend Update is getting really good in having one or two biting lines that that are almost too biting. Last night’s two jokes were the one about any questions about Biden running for reelection is a question about the possibility of him dying on the job and Che’s joke about being able to whistle at white women in VirginiaI’d also like to add that Biden being difficult to make fun of is the whole point of Biden. We all want somebody who’s so boring and so totally okay with not being the focus of attention that Joe Biden won the election. Not having us constantly be aware of what the President is doing is seems to be his entire political strategy as both a candidate and President
I read the whistling comment as a direct reference to Emmitt Till’s lynching and the overrepresentation of black men in death row populations.
How long have they been showing a new SNL at 8:30 pacific time. Was watching figure skating and this show was on afterwards. Off topic but they really need to lay off the ads. They went to break every five minutes. And they wonder why network and cable tv has been struggling with viewers.
For several episodes this season and at least on occasion last season. I still wait for it to come on Hulu the next morning so I don’t have to watch commercials. I do like the idea of live coast to coast though. A replay for us west-coasters usually have to deal with an edited version that does not show the rawness of being live.(I say this as being aware of kind of contradicting myself by watching an editing Hulu replay but I don’t want commercials!)
I rarely watch network tv anymore. I just watched it last night because I’m a fan of figure skating. I also just got rid of cable. I don’t want to waste money with Peacock. I think I’m going to stick to YouTube for my skating and gymnastics. The quality may not be great especially the ones uploaded from old VHS but there’s hardly any ads.
I have Hulu, I watch SNL! (Sunday Night Live!)
It’s been about 2 or 3 seasons that live shows come on live at 8:30 Pacific. It only took them 40 years to figure it out, so nice to watch Weekend Update live before dozing off.
They have always had a lot of commercial breaks on SNL. They have to move sets around, get costumes changed, set up cameras, etc.
There was funny stuff in there, but the audience wasn’t reacting. At . All. Didn’t help that the direction kept missing cues and the pace was just slack. Like a dress rehearsal. One of the few times, “Do it again, funnier and faster” would have worked. Maybe the sets are too big, and it took too long for Maya and Keenan to walk over to their various marks? I dunno. Cecily was great as her Sidney Powell gradually turned into a turkey. A lot of her characters eventually veer into general incoherence, and I love it. I understand NFT just fine, but I don’t understand why people are trying to use them as money.
Most anti-Asian hate crimes are committed by blacks, rather than ‘whiteboy assholes’, Dennis.
kill yourself
Episode 904 of Saturday Night Live reminds us why the AV CLUB doesn’t cover SNL any more.
That NFT piece was really weird in that it came out of nowhere (hardly anyone knows what they are), included spoofs of pop culture from over 20 years, and was somehow oddly informative yet not that funny either. I think people use the “Wtf was that” reaction too much but that was a genuine “Wtf was that” moment when that piece ended. Someone had to have been really high when they came up with that one.
IDK – I thought it was spot on. The NFT thing is ridiculous in concept, and I thought it was a great satire, but maybe a bit too inside for most. The “nerds” at the end pretty much defined the audience for it.
Agreed completely. I resent Dennis’ implication that everyone younger than him knows what they are but please don’t email him because in my experience… No one knows. And no one really cares–they’re not really a thing for most people, which is why it seemed way too early to do a sketch about them (ideally there will never be a right time to do a sketch about them). And yet, this was the first time I kinda understood what they are, so… thanks?
Dennis, I usually find myself disagreeing with you on grades. For the most part, though, they’re slight quibbles. This one? This one was a turdfest, and I’m really surprised you can’t see that. This was a C- episode, at best. I wouldn’t have been shocked to see a D. Seriously, after what felt like a bajillion weeks off, THIS is what they came up with?
It’s OK to love Maya Rudolph and appreciate everything she’s achieved both on this show and in other projects, AND still admit that this episode of SNL sucked . . . hard. It does’t diminish all the funny things she’s done to this point. It couldn’t. But this episode had a ton of things wrong with it.
From her puzzling vocal delivery in the cold open to the awkwardly patronizing monologue that left the newbies to just sit and grin like a bunch of idiots to the mind-boggling poor ideation, casting (Martin Short, really????), and writing in the Passover sketch to the horrible timing between her and Kenan in the choreography sketch, the whole show played like one gigantic misstep after another.
I think Maya is hilarious. I love it when she goes big and bold and brings a character to life. Like Kenan, she can elevate a character with her phrasing and force of will. But, whatever magic she usually brings to those characters was left somewhere in storage backstage and only trotted out for her Beyoncé sketch the Shining homage at the end. Both, admittedly, were pretty fun and the Shining homage was inventive enough on its own to keep the episode from being a total disaster. But, outside of Cecily stepping up her game as the Barfly emcee, nobody rose to the challenge of going big or, heck, even interesting. I would have been thrilled with something being interesting or ambitious in its weirdness. Instead, everyone (including Maya) seemed to just be happy to go home.
I’m gonna go wash my brain out with a bunch of booze and hope for something better next week. I’d like to say it couldn’t get worse, but who am I kidding? During these days of Wine and COVID, it can always get worse.
I believe this was the worst episode of the season. Good Weekend Update though.
Is… Maya Rudolph a star? I kind of just took it for granted since everyone goes gaga when she hosts or even does a guest spot on the show (or any other show, really), but… why? She’s funny, yes, but has she done a single project that would put her in the “star” level? Not that there haven’t been a ton of SNL hosts that you’d look back on years later and think WTF, but… she doesn’t even work that much, does she?
She was the bride in bridesmaids. A few key scenes, she was the glue that held that picture together.
Sure, but the bridesmaids were the stars, not the bride. And really, besides the pooping in the street scene, she didn’t really have to do much except be distant for most of the movie. She’s like the fourth or fifth lead in the movie.
She works just enough to stay in the public eye and have people think she’s fabulous, apparently.I’m in the minority on this site but I’ve never been much of a Rudolph fan, personally. She comes across to me as that person at a party who has to have all the attention on them lest someone forget they exist for five seconds. It’s possible I may think this way about her due to the roles she keeps playing, since whatever character she plays is always on a pedestal of virtuousness. Unlike her contemporaries like Tina Fey or Amy Poehler, her characters don’t seem to have any glaring flaws or weaknesses, and they’re never EVER made to look unflattering or out of their depth (specifically “Up All Night,” where she basically played Oprah and was portrayed as so perfect and flawless that I had to stop watching). Despite my bias I tried to keep an open mind for this episode but I was disappointed as well, as once again the most foolish she looks is when Beyonce ate some hot wings and chugged some milk.On a positive note I commend them for not bringing Amy back for yet another suprise “Bronx Beat” sketch, because that’s been done to death so I was fully expecting it.
Fey has a crippling sense of imposter syndrome and Poehler has no problem with being an objectionable person in the room. Rudolph is very much the ‘pretty and fun woman at the party’ type. She’s just naturally affable. I don’t really get the point of trying to shove uncomfortable ‘bitch’ roles onto somebody who obviously doesn’t feed into that stereotype or suffer from it in their writing style.
I’m not talking about “bitch” roles, but if you’re in comedy— particularly the broad slapsticky kind– your character should be able to show some moments of self-deprecation and made to look foolish once in a while. Aidy Bryant also comes across as pretty affable but she has no problem being the butt of a joke. Rudolph comes across as above all that. Consider the infamous food poisoning scene in “Bridesmaids,” where the entire cast is suffering insignaties like sweating profusely, vomiting on each other and shitting in a sink. Maya’s character meanwhile just goes outside and squats in the middle of the road– not dignified, certainly, but not nearly the level of her co-stars. Again I don’t know if this is a clause in her contract or if every writer treats her with such reverence so I don’t know who to blame.
She’s an example of somebody who’s just genuinely that enjoyable off camera that she can just do what she wants on. She knows her lines, hits her mark, and is just generally charismatic. She doesn’t need to play unlikable or have obvious foibles. Also, she’s been married to Paul Thomas Anderson for 20 years, she didn’t have a reason to chase down roles after becoming four kids with him. So yeah, she’s pretty much able to stop by SNL, hang out, do some light TV work and supporting roles while also largely being able to raise her children in a relatively stable household. I imagine if she didn’t have that she would have been a much bigger breakout star.
after becoming four kids with him
Wow — those are impressive impression skillz!
Ugh, I rewrote that line then didn’t correct it. I originally wrote ‘becoming a mom four times over’ then didn’t like that phrasing…BLAH. 🙁
Watch Away We Go (2009) with Maya and John Kraskinski. She’s fantastic in that movie, which is more of a dramedy.
I feel the cold open was switched to try to be different. I bet everyone was expecting a Kamala cold open with Rudolph hosting. I don’t think there was an executive decision to switch skits at the last minute. It’s not like that opening was remarkable and the Kamala skit was par for the course, not better or worse than other political cold openings pre-Biden that they had.
Mmmmmmm….is JonBenét Ramsey really a casual joke?
I don’t get it. You gave the show a B but then say it “can’t rise.”What am I suppose to believe here?
The cold open, unusual in that the guest host appeared as a main character, foretold what was coming. It was an unfunny game show about an unfunny subject, thin on gags and further damped by Maya Rudolph’s character’s nearly incomprehensibly garbled way of speaking making it hard to understand her lines. This off-the-mark opening act started the show off deep in the lame zone where it stayed until the end credits.This was definitely the weakest episode of the season, and maybe of the last few years. Sketch after sketch failed to wring a solid laugh out of the studio audience. There wasn’t one solid bit to be seen this week. Even Weekend Update leaned to the weak side. Quite a dud. And the show has been doing so well lately. What just happened? Are all the good writers on vacation?
Somewhat uneven, I agree. I am always in for a Shining parody (Crawl Space is still my favorite Bob’s Burgers episode largely because of that), especially on so well done. Jost is not wrong – all a lot of the Q-GOP politicians need is video of Oath Keepers using monkey bars and those campaign ads are full on bin Laden. But the sketches seemed to all fall just a bit short, with moments of brilliance. I liked the NFT bit, because it skewered that fad perfectly. I would like to see more of Chloe’s Ella (had to google her – wow, she checks all of the hipster gentrification stereotype boxes irl). The Beyonce piece was funny. But the best part of the barfly sketch was the random boatmobile Maya pulled up in at the end. Maybe I had too high of expectations.
How can you mention recurring characters and not bring up Edith Puthie? Ego Nwodim’s now got two recurring characters, surely that’s got to count for something.
My personal favourite line of the night: “Those Muppets are white?!” from Colin Jost in WU. A solid joke made even better by the delivery of the punchline.
I’m surprised that you’ve never heard of Eminem before.
Rudolph’s dance diva was wont to display herself bottomless at every opportunity in the pair’s bucolic past. I’ll also note the correct usage of unusual words. Thanks.
Maya Rudolph was funny when she was in the presence of all of the other SNL greats that were on the same time as her. When she’s on her own, every time since she’s hosted, she has bombed. It’s not the rest of the staff, as they try to play off of the host. She just isn’t really funny on her own, not as a headliner, but she’s great as a supporting cast.
I am a huge fan of Kristen Wiig. But the current cast has a legitimate claim to being the top female-led cast, as Cecily Strong and especially Kate McKinnon rank amongst the best-ever cast members, alongside Dan Aykroyd and Phil Hartman.
I disagree – this episode was a lot of clunkers dotted with some decent bits. I liked the three pre-recorded bits, even if the music videos referenced outdated pieces of pop culture (Bad Boy Records rap videos and 2000s Eminem) and thought the barfly sketch was okay-but-could-have-been-better. Other than that… yikes. And I say that as someone who watches SNL consistently. The opening was bland. The monologue was weird – all of Maya’s talents and history and the best they could do was… misremembering it like it was The Breakfast Club? Agreed that the Kamala sketch was all over the place and confusing, and I felt uncomfortable watching Martin Short borderline fondle Maya. Bowen Yang’s bit on WU just did not work – he kept switching between joking and seriousness in a way that really diminished the impact of what he was trying to say. The dueling choreographers sketch was on 8 seconds before I started looking at my phone. This was easily one of the weakest ones in awhile, which is a shame because Maya Rudolph is great.
remember when there were just a few cast members & they were in everything all the time? i wish lorne did.
Even the early years of the show rarely used a number of cast members.
I’m not going to go on a huge rant about how SNL was “good back in my day” or any such nonsense. I’m just going to say that SNL works at its best when it serves as a vehicle to showcase the talent of its performers and it is at its worse when it puts those performers in skits that simply don’t click with their style or abilities. As dated as some of the jokes may seem, I think SNL should look to the more experimental early days for inspiration.
Early on, SNL tended to have the performers try various comedy styles and performances instead of putting them into a shtick. I wish they would go back to that, but it’s been many many many years.
I see a lot of dislikes for this ep, but honestly, I thought it was pretty good. As Dennis said, Maya elevates things, but it seemed to me that the whole thing was above average. And that final skit was really great./shrug. I like to hate on SNL like everyone else, but this one worked for me.
I get the complaints (well, some of them – I never really get “dump everything after Update” or “get rid of all the men who aren’t Kenan), but I was surprised this episode is the one that got such a vehement reaction. Admittedly my expectations were low because I was dreading more Kamala, more overcooked campery, etc. but other than Kamala and the choreographer sketch I didn’t think there was anything bad, and there were at least three pieces I thought were pretty worthwhile (Hot Ones, Barfly Awards, Maya-ing). I also liked that the episode had something of a theme of connecting Maya and the newest cast members, but without them punching down toward the new people, as some returning hosts have done. There were certainly things I wish they would stop doing (like the pandering pre-tapes or stuff to get quick headlines – not that crazy about either of the rap pre-tapes this week for that reason), but I thought it was at worst a flawed episode, with some good moments.
Cecily continually staggering straight toward the hard cam got me.
It was the perfect subtle joke that elevated the sketch past cutting to cast members doing a silly drunk one-liner.
Garrett Morris was treated badly on SNL because he’s Black. And that’s a genuine shame. But people tend to forget he was also absolutely godawful as a performer. You’d sit there and root for him to get his lines out of his mouth without stumbling over anything. That didn’t help the situation very much.
FYI, I’m a Dem Boomer, just got my first shot March 19. Because of how the state got an influx of vaccines after I signed up, people younger than me got vaccinated much earlier than I did. So suck it Gen X USA USA!! And I know a couple Gen X Trump voters who won’t get the vaccine. And one I had to explain why there is a Black History month. So again, suck it. JK, let’s try to get along and not bash each other. Just because SNL tries to make it look cool, and fails miserably.
So this week, Hot Ones’ Sean Eveans It’s Evans. It literally shows the correct spelling in the SNL video.
Is it heretical to say that I thought Rudolph was pretty much the weakest link? In the open sketch in particular, she seemed to suck the energy out of it.
You guys REALLY don’t know how to grade an SNL episode. Outside of the news and Barfly Awards, this was one of the worst episodes I had ever seen. My wife and I were embarrassed for them as we watched.
Martin Short is a lot, especially when you get him in front of a live audience, and I’m not sure that his appearance alongside onetime sketch show co-star Maya did the sketch proper many favors. Show some respect — Martin Short is a comedy god who cut his teeth on SCTV. And Maya’s Maya, although, once more, the show hasn’t picked a characterization lane. I can think of a lane — Hillary’s Mini-Me who throws single mothers of truant children in prison, fought to stop release of prisoners of CA’s racist (and now-thankfully gone) anti-marijuana laws despite admitting she smoked pot herself in college, and most unforgivably, gaslight both Bernie Sanders and Tara Reade!
Having recently read the Indiewire piece where Scarlett Johansson defensively tried to walk back her appallingly tone-deaf career choices of late, all I can say is Gods Save America from Smug NeoLiberals like her husband Colin Jost.
She sucks.
Any comments on the rumor that the Kamala’s unity Seder and Snatched, Waxed or Vaxxed were switched because Martin Short was stuck in traffic?General opinion of the former on /r/LFNY was that the best part of the former was Chloe’s Ella Emhoff, complete with entrance theme music.
We enjoyed this episode. I don’t get people picking apart SNL like they had a year to prepare for every episode, dayumn! It was fun to watch over a few beers on a Saturday night.
“The timing was off and the pace was flat, leaving unforgivable silences around what should have been a showcase for two inveterate showoffs.”A good fix for bad timing and pacing is learning lines and not relying on cue cards. It’s tiresome seeing SNL cast members reading their performances instead of fleshing them out.
Meh.