Saturday Night Live makes Will Forte seem ordinary, somehow
Three MacGrubers do not betoken an adventurous episode
TV Reviews Saturday Night Live
“You want less? Sorry!”
“I’m not an actor, I’m a [friggin’] star, [you friggin’ turds]!!”
The only sketch that really captured the Will Forte-in-a-bottle magic was his monologue. Running down all the former cast mates who’ve hosted SNL before him, Forte channeled his manic energy into a very funny and Forte-like blank-eyed staredown of barely repressed resentment. Noting how, of the ridiculously stacked in retrospect stars of Forte’s eight seasons, his first call to host came after everyone from Andy Samberg, to Jason Sudeikis, to Fred Armisen, to Kristen Wiig (twice), to Bill Hader (also twice), to Seth Meyers (just an Update guy!), and even John Mulaney (four times—for a writer?!) got their turn, Forte was the portrait of thwarted glory.
That Wiig came out to steal his thunder (and roles from an even more underused cast than usual) was only exacerbated by Lorne showing up in the audience to claim that autocorrect was responsible for Forte being booked in the first place. (“You think I would book someone named Will and then someone named Willem?,” Michaels asked incredulously, next week’s host Willem Dafoe looming ominously beside him.)
Forte is singular in a way a lot of his illustrious former cast standouts are. For Forte, it’s all about desperately tamped-down mania and laser-focused, disquieting excess. But, man, does Saturday Night Live squander what they’ve got here, shoving Forte into a series of awfully generic roles that could have been filled by almost anybody. The threesome sketch is most illustrative, as Forte’s Cialis-chugging professional third is merely mildly grotesque as he preps married couple Mikey Day and Heidi Gardner for their big, very sweaty night. Repeatedly referring to Day’s Tate as “Taint” and unbuttoning his loud swinger’s blouse over his tummy is all comic sleazeball 101, with only the joke of Forte’s Gannon testing out the hotel bed’s durability allowing a glimpse of Forte being Forte.
Will Forte shakes that bed for 20 long seconds, and it was hardest I laughed all sketch (if not all night), even though nothing ever built upon that single-minded, rewardingly indulgent laugh. Forte is one of those comic performers who will go to any length for a joke, committing to a bit long after any other sane performer would have bailed, and then committing some more until we find it funny again, dammit. Forte has proven himself a strong and versatile actor since SNL, but his métier is beamingly unearned self-confidence (with a healthy side of inventive weirdness), and this episode sagged under the weight of missed opportunity.
Still, he’s Will-friggin’-Forte, dammit, and that’s good for some singular laughs.
Best/Worst Sketch Of The Night
The Best: I cannot, in good conscience, make this call.
The Worst: Meh. I suppose the Gaslight edition of Cinema Classics was the most forgettable, even if I chuckled at Kate McKinnon’s increasingly skeptical responses to Forte’s klutzy attempts to drive her batty. (“Dude, I don’t care how crazy I am, this is a pineapple.”) Neither Kate nor Will do especially committed versions of Ingrid Bergman or Charles Boyer, though, which is a personal bummer, since Boyer’s condescending “Paula!” is something I hear in my head whenever I see anybody actually trying to gaslight someone. (The key is replacing the “p” with a soft “b.”)
What’s puzzling about SNL goofing on a 78-year-old film is that, while the term “gaslighting” has only become more relevant (if questionably overused) in our Trump-era GOP nightmare world, this is just an excuse for some obvious jokes and a couple of mediocre impressions. (Chloe Fineman does a creditable Angela Lansbury, I guess, although Kenan’s Reese De’What introducing her as “18-year-old Angela Lansbury” suggests a joke that never comes.) Meh.
The threesome sketch could also go here, but that bed-shaking thing was too emblematically Forte.
The Rest: The Double Dare-esque Kid Klash showed another glimpse of what Will Forte can bring to an otherwise routine sketch—while being a very routine sketch. Expensively constructed giant tub of whipped cream aside, the sketch’s only energy comes from Forte’s host Mark Zazz (lot of flailingly funny names tonight), with Forte suggesting an entire inner life of intense madness to the supposedly kid-friendly figure.
Bless Aidy Bryant for getting sloppy, but even as she gamely paddled around in the goop looking for what turns out to be a tiny, whipped cream-colored flag, its only Forte’s gimlet-eyed dedication to what turns out to be his gauntlet of child humiliation that registers. With the desperate Aidy pulling an inexplicable medallion from the mess, Forte’s Zazz maintains his singsong patter even as he asks the hopeful Bryant, “Amazing! But one question for you, Tatum—is a medallion a friggin’ flag?” “Where do you think you’re goin’,” Zazz growls menacingly as Aidy’s Tatum sheepishly attempts to leave the stage after time runs out, “You’re not goin’ anywhere.” That’s the sort of thing Forte was so great at on SNL, providing an alternative center to a sketch. Zazz creates his own gravitational pull that turns the elaborate TV parody into a one-person Crazy Town, even if this sketch can’t otherwise generate any momentum.
And that’s pretty much all we got of Forte. Look to the recurring sketch report and the ten-to-one section for more Will, although don’t look for things to pep up there either. If there’s one thing a Will Forte project hardly ever is, it’s forgettable, and I’m grading this steadfastly ordinary episode accordingly.
Weekend Update Update
Speaking of ordinary. I really appreciated last week’s Update. It felt like Jost and Che were finally feeling nasty, and I was here for it. This is not a nasty Update. This is a return to “see how naughty we are” Update, with mostly-harmless cheekiness reasserting itself as the duo’s go-to vibe.
A little peek at my process for live Update nite-taking. Since Update is more rapid-fire than the rest of the show, I tend to suss out the premise of a joke, make a note of it, then, after a colon, jot down the punchline. Tonight my notes look like this:
M&Ms:
Hamsters:
COVID infertility:
Youngkin:
Women drivers joke: ??
Not a lot of meat here, is what I’m saying. Jost’s biggest audience response was in introducing a joke about Fox News’ favorite mass killer of the moment as “Gen Z icon, Kyle Rittenhouse,” but then we got an O.J. joke and I left another blank spot where a quotable punchline should have been. Che kept up the heat under Democratic Senator and secret GOP asset Kyrsten Sinema, referencing the parade of congrats from Republicans after Sinema joined with fellow lobbyist cash drop Joe Manchin (D-WV) to help them scuttle a voting rights bill. “Ah, the Senate, keeping Black folks down with a handshake since 1787,” is a solid jab that, on a better Update, would have been the third or so best joke.
With much of the cast only seen during the goodnights tonight, Sarah Sherman got another crack at the Update desk, once more gleefully twisting Colin Jost’s innocuous confusion over her provocations into tabloid-ready, “cancel Jost” headlines. It’s a fun bit, and god knows we could use more Sarah Sherman on out TV, even if the premise is already running out of gas.
Alex Moffat is really funny as The Guy Who Just Bought A Boat, really, even if this bit ran aground a long time ago. Moffat’s trust fund bro here riffs on Jost and fellow Staten Islander Pete Davidson’s recent purchase of a retired Staten Island Ferry. (The two are planning to turn the venerable hulk into a performance venue, alongside a New York-based co-investor named Paulie Italia, a guy Davidson assured everyone was real and not, “a Mafia-themed wrestler.”) With Moffat’s aquatic douche providing his usual barrage of salaciously slippery sex puns (“No shame in paying for a tug,” etc.), the original gag that his boastful bro can’t help but let slip his own inadequacies is all but forgotten. “I have a small penis,” he repeats unashamedly to Jost, asking, “Are you new here?”
Chen Biao also returned, too, with Bowen Yang returning to his first breakout character in the run-up to the even more controversial than usual Winter Olympics, taking place as they are in Biao’s home country of China. Trade Daddy is still a funny concept, the world’s leading economic power once more leaving its U.S. outreach to a catty media addict. With Che noting how NBC is not sending correspondents to the games this time (with COVID and human rights abuses vying to be the stated reason), Yang’s Biao rolls his eyes and notes, “It’s our party and we’ll spy if we want to.” Trade Daddy keeps making me smile, even if Yang’s gone on to bigger things.
“What do you call that act?” “Dick Clark’s Receptionist!”—Recurring Sketch Report
Oh, hi, MacGruber. With Peacock co-stars Wiig and Ryan Phillippe pre-taping a trio of interspersed segments as MacGruber’s ever-imperiled sidekicks, MacGruber was first out of the gate right after Forte’s monologue. So, that was ominous. Look, I like MacGruber (although more in his longer feature film and spinoff series incarnations, weirdly enough), but of all the speculated Forte recurring bits, and as inevitable as some NBC/Peacock corporate synergy made it, the sight of MacGruber’s mullet had me rightfully assuming that this was not going to be the most adventurous episode ever.
Graduating from a simple (if enjoyably loopy) MacGyver parody to an extended referendum on alpha male pigheadedness and emotional fragility, MacGruber sketches turn on Forte’s conception of his gizmocrat hero’s inability to let anything go, at least when it comes to reinforcing his own self-identity as the smartest (and toughest, sexiest, and most all-around badass) person in the room. That that room is invariably packed with explosives strapped to a ticking timer is merely secondary to MacGruber’s desperate need for self-validation and praise, allowing Forte to take his take action movie clichés into the weird, wild wonderland that is his comedy-brain.
Of course MacGruber, for all his vaunted scientific acumen, would be a conspiracy-minded anti-vaxxer nutcase—macho heroism is yoked irretrievably to pig-headed, solipsistic exceptionalism. Toss in a handful of gross-out humor (and the spaghetti MacGruber had down his pants to prank his sidekicks about his use of Joe Rogan-touted horse de-wormer instead of that egghead vaccine), and you’ve got the idea for this trio of MacGrubers. (Oh, MacGruber also has horse worms.) Again, I’ve really enjoyed watching Forte spin this one-joke character into an entire, decades-spanning vehicle for his febrile comic imagination, but in these short canned segments the one joke felt more one-dimensional. Maybe I just was pining for Greg Stink.
“It was my understanding there would be no math”—Political comedy report
I mean, there’s nothing in the rule book that mandates the cold open be about politics. It’s like SNL feels like it has to get the political satire out of the way so everyone can really get into the game show sketches and whatnot. And while the Laura Ingraham opener tonight gave Kate another chance to take on one of Fox News’ whitest white supremacist bad-faith talking heads (and this was at least marginally more relevant than last week’s bafflingly irrelevant Joe Biden Opener last week), it wasn’t anything special.
SNL doing politics has traditionally been more about recognition applause than insightful comedy, with viewers looking for that long-overrated SNL edgy rebel cred having to settle for the show at least putting a few damningly relevant facts out there for mockery. That Fox’s advertising is drying up on these nightly manufactured outrage-fests thanks to its hosts’ penchant for saying hateful nonsense (not that Fox itself gives a damn), the parade of jokes about Ingraham’s sponsors winnowing down to a fraudulent, all-negative COVID-testing company (“Covid Negs: I’m Going To Your Wedding”) is still a funny idea. And anytime SNL gets to dress Aidy up as a perpetually groveling Ted Cruz at least keeps Aidy happy. (“Hit me, choke me, spit in my face—I just want to stay in the mix,” Bryant’s Cruz proclaims, happily.)
Then it’s Trump time. James Austin Johnson’s Trump remains the best iteration of the [stomach tries to eat itself] former president in SNL history. (Not that most recent Trump Alec Baldwin gives Johnson much competition.) And the framework of Trump popping by Fox News like he’s their resident cooking segment guy gives Johnson’s uncannily topic-flipping Trump a driving comic force. Here, SNL can’t resist jumping on that Wordle trend (that’s going to age well), but Johnson is a major talent, and his babbling, groove-skipping Trump is tight and loose at the same time, SNL once again showing that a political impression is more about finding the core of a subject rather than simply rattling off verbatim topicality.
Ego Nwodim’s Candace Owens and Pete Davidson’s Novak Djokovic also drop in as Ingraham’s “one Black friend” and public figure Fox-hyped for ignorant bullshit, respectively. Both are fine—Kate’s Ingraham laments that Djokovic’s anti-vaxxer expulsion from Australia makes her use the word “deported” in a bad way. Here I’ll just reiterate that, if Saturday Night Live is going to do political, then it’s going to get evaluated not just on the comedy, but the politics as well. And, sure, my own political leanings (in favor: truth, justice, human decency; against: bigotry, fascism, hypocrisy) come into play here.
SNL skews to the left, I guess, if looking at the world as it is and refusing to be blatantly gaslit is left. And mocking people like Ingraham for the sneering propagandists they are at least puts Fox’s alternate universe of white fragility and scare tactics out there for all to see. (I’m guessing that the Fox News/SNL crossover viewership is comprised entirely of hate-watchers and people who want to see Morgan Wallen perform.) But, with the exception of Johnson’s inhabited and stand-alone-funny Trump here, that’s more public service than searing satire. It’s fine.
I Am Hip To The Musics Of Today
I admit to never jumping on the Eurovision Song Contest ironic appreciation bandwagon, so this was my first exposure to 2021 winners Måneskin. And I gotta say—these jokes.
It’s nice that Aristotle Athari got such a high-profile musical follow-up to Angelo.
Are we sure this isn’t a Mighty Boosh sketch?
The Italian band’s lyrics sounded like Sparks was Google translated from English to Italian and back again about three times.
Are we sure this isn’t one of those BBC-mandated musical interludes from The Young Ones?
Man, alternate universe Perry Farrell went in a whole other direction.
Nice to see that the incongruous rap breakdown has made it overseas.
And I’m done. I loved this.
Most/Least Valuable Not Ready For Prime Time Player
With Wiig in the house, this was a bloodbath for the second-tier cast. People I did not see except for the goodnights: Melissa, Punkie, Chris Redd, Aristotle Athari (I think?), Dismukes. People completely absent: Cecily, for the second show in a row. Forte shouted out, “This amazing cast back here,” during the goodnights, inadvertently summing up the role of this underused and overpopulated group with a wave of his hand.
Kate got the most airtime, so Kate gets the top spot, although nothing tonight is going on anybody’s best-of reel.
“What the hell is that thing?”—Dispatches From Ten-To-Oneland
Ideally, when a former cast member comes in to host, the show should highlight what made them special enough to warrant it. Too often, a returning cast member is chucked into a few recurring sketches and flanked by a few more returning stars to edge out the cast proper. Guess which example tonight was? Nobody’s dissing Kristen Wiig, but the final sketch tonight could have been filled out by a present cast member just fine, instead of seeing Wiig join Forte in what was a pretty funny and Forte-like sketch. (Kenan got into the spirit as exuberant emcee Jevner Keeblerelv. Lots of “funny name” jokes tonight.)
As a pair of very specifically insane country singers (their matching lyrical obsessions are toddlers, Model Ts, aliens, and beer in jars), Wiig and Forte croon out a series of tunes where their pet topics trump all considerations of rhyme or coherent song-storytelling. As in Forte’s bed-banging, this sketch had the virtue of Forte’s penchant for taking things into the too-much for too-long arena. I especially liked the duo’s new NFL anthem, another screed about aliens and toddlers accosting players “while you hunt your little leather ball,” crescendoing to a screeching chorus of, “Oh, football sport—here is your official new football song!”
Points off that this ten-to-one shoo-in was followed by some back-from-break band vamping at 12:56. Either there was another, even weirder sketch cut for time, or the show’s timing was thrown off somewhere along the line. Honestly, with Will Forte in the house, I expected ten-to-oneland to seep into the show more than it did, and not ten-to-oneland being annexed for a late musical number and some time-filling.
Stray observations
- A 47-year old show’s memorial title cards keep coming, with Emmy-winning former SNL writer John Bowman having died earlier this month.
- Ingraham claims she likes tennis “because, in tennis, love is bad.”
- After Wiig complains that she flew in only for Forte to shoo her off the monologue stage, Forte snaps, “Oh, great, so you know where the airport is.”
- Chen Biao on reporters’ plans to circumvent Chinese censorship: “Burner phones? What is this, The Wire? Must be season 2 because you’re white an no one cares.”
- Mikey Day will have a job until Saturday Night Live decides it no longer needs someone to explain the premise of sketches in a slightly confused and outraged manner. That’s what you call job security.
- The one cut-for-time sketch the show posted is… fine. Kenan and Redd are outstanding as sports shouters Michael Irvin and Stephen A. Smith, but you can’t flash that ESPN logo on a Will Forte episode and not give me that Greg Stink.
- Next week: It’s Willem Dafoe for real, which is the sort of booking that has me tingly with curiosity and not a little anxiety. (Musical guest, Katy Perry.)
130 Comments
When can we have a new reviewer?
Soon! The dude’s leaving the site by early March. Personally I think that sucks, but you’re gonna get your wish.
Late April, apparently
Thank God.
This might have been the weakest episode of the season for me. I mean the monologue was the only part of the show where I was genuinely chuckling, which in turn made the rest of the show worse as then I had decent expectations for it. Although I guess the sport show sketch was alright, but even it never got the insanity that is truly those segments.
The issue, I think, is that Forte has this oddball energy to him, but the show couldn’t find a way to make it work when it was the focus. So everything just kind of was trying for a joke that never really made sense. The Gaslight sketch was a core example as for some reason they chose a real movie to parody there, even if an incredibly obscure one, but then the actual joke itself was so weak. Like the movie itself feels funnier than that when watched in the current day.
By the way, for some reason they apparently geolocked the Måneskin performance videos from Europe? Never seen this happen before which is really weird.As for the band, was a bit surprised they didn’t do Zitti E Buoni, the song they won the Eurovision with, but then I realized those are the two English speaking singles they are currently running on radio. Also in a way smart as there is no way they could have done anything close to the glory that was that Eurovision performance.
As an European myself, I think the Maneskin phenomenon is just extremely overhyped. They’re the store-brand version of Arctic Monkeys, yet Europe treats them like the second coming of The Beatles. Also while I totally understand why they would perform Beggin’ – it’s their most popular song in the US, but it is also their absolute worst.
Good Lorde!They did butcher that song. I would rather listen to rap cover by Madcon over a decade ago, rather than listen one more time to Maneskin singer “RATATATATATAT!” the song out of nowhere. What was that scream even mean?
I have absolutely no idea how they haven’t been severely cancelled for releasing a song called “I Want to Be Your Slave.”
What a stupid comment.
I’ve said before these SNL reviews are one of the first things I read on Sunday mornings, often before I’ve watched the episode. I’ve been worried they weren’t long for this world since word came out last December of what G / O was pulling…so this week’s news was expected but no less disappointing. I’m glad at least it was Dennis’s own, very understandable choice to exit. I hope they’ll continue somewhere else (maybe on a new site, the type a…defector would do?).Always a good and interesting read, even when the opinions differed from mine, which is the point of a review. Even if they’ll continue with some pale substitute, I’ll miss them.
I missed “this week’s news” — could you provide a link? Dennis’ reviews are an essential part of watching SNL for me, too. Say it isn’t so!
Wait… Is Sam Barsanti making the move to LA and not quitting in solidarity with his colleagues? Because that would be so fucking typical.
Oh you can bet Scab Barsanti and Scabiana Tenreyro have no sense of loyalty or honour
Sam knows to stick with the people paying him, why he’s being paid I don’t know.
Holy crap. So that’s it. AV Club is finally actually dead. Dang.
I’ve been reading for over 20 years, back when I’d read The Onion front to back. I stuck with it after the Kinjapocalypse even though it’s been a shadow of its former glory. At least GO Media made it easy, slowly dropping actual AV-content and replacing it with half-baked hot takes.
Well, I guess I’ll be going now.
Yeah, I’m a bit numb to it all after Gawker, Splinter, Deadspin etc., but this is still really sad. I’ve also been coming to the AV Club since I became web literate and before that I used to read the local Twin Cities AV Club reporting back when physical copies of the Onion were just… laying around everywhere.Sigh. Things change, life moves on, I get sad. We all saw this coming miles away. Doesn’t make it less shitty. Ugh
I grew up in Madison, WI – original home of The Onion and AV Club, so it’s a bit of a bummer to see it all end in such a crappy way. I guess I’m surprised it’s hung on since 2018 as well as it has (which hasn’t been great).
was twin cities AV club the one that gave a bad review to NKOTBSB and got inundated with 40 year old fans?
Hahaha, sounds kinda familiar?
15+ for me. I assume the content choices are all about the clicks rather than an actual editorial decision, but even by that metric running off your readers would seem counter-productive.
For sure, I’ve noticed attracting traffic and clicks has changed the way articles are written. You can pretty much skip the first paragraph of any article here because its just a collection of hyperlinks to previous articles.
same here, started reading the paper version in the late 90’s and for quite a while this was the best damn website on the internet. The group of writers that was around in the early to mid aughts was insanely good, and the commenter community was pretty excellent as well. The writers that came after the Rabin-led glory days were pretty damn good as well. Post G/O… I think the writers have been fine and they’ve been doing the best they can, but the site has been a shadow of it’s former self.
If you’re feeling nostalgic for Nathan Rabin, he’s got his own site now – Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place at https://www.nathanrabin.com/, and he would love for you to read his site and support his Patreon…and buy his books.No, I’m not him nor his PR Department — just a fan who’s like him not to always write depressing columns every time his Patreon numbers go down….
Thank God, his takes are tiresome.
Well, fuck. I knew he wasn’t in the Chicagoland group so I didn’t think this column was in danger. Enjoyed it for many years, herbs can eat shit.
Most (all?) of the freelancers quit out of solidarity. Respect to Perkins.
It makes me really sad knowing that the AV Club is becoming the new Deadspin- a once great thing rendered irrelevant
In fairness it’s really been mostly irrelevant since Kinja, but this will be the final nail in the coffin. It really is a shame.
It’s been irrelevant since Disqus
It’s been going slowly downhill since Disqus, but I don’t think that switch ended up being that big a deal. I think the bigger issue was the Great Schism–the AVC’s best writers moving to The Dissolve–which IIRC happened around the same time
And riddled with blatant typos as always
On to bigger and better things!
Beggin’ was a hit for Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, making it very appropriate for an Italian band’s first big American performance.
But their cover is terrible though. “RATATATATA” what the hell was that?
maybe they’re really into Pokemon?
Their song “Jigglypuff” ended up being 20 minutes long when the band fell asleep while recording it.
I loved her in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and I’m sure she’s pleasant as all hell as a person but man, am I ever tired of Kristen Wiig.
Weirdly I like Wiig fine in non-SNL settings but she’s always been overbearing on the show.
People always compare Kate to her but Wiig always comes off as self-satisfied, like the most important thing about her being in a skit is to is show off how talented she is. Kate feels more like an old fashioned entertainer, more concerned with putting on a good show than showing off how great she is. Kate does tend overdo it a lot but I’ve always felt she was more trying to get the audience laugh then show off
For me this episode was the opposite – while Wiig did give those vibes in earlier cameos, she felt very natural most of the night, whereas I thought Kate was just completely closed off and muggy, unable to give anything to that Cinema Classics. It felt like she was on her own show.
To be fair, that was a really bad skit- sometimes you game to mug your way through a skit
I agree, but I thought she was the same in the monologue last week. Some cast, when they are there for such an extended period and are often the focal point, just seem to struggle with more mutual interactions.
I lot of people said that during her tenure on SNL and there was truth to that, but over time she’s become one of her characters and I don’t think that holds any longer
I think there are 2 reasons for that. First, on movie sets there’s a director who is less likely to indulge her the way Lorne Michaels does. Second, I think Wiig only likes to share focus with people she considers her equal, which is why her SNL recurring characters were mostly look-at-me characters. But with people like Maya or Melissa in a movie, she’s willing to be part of a group dynamic.
Whenever I think of her, I think of her and Fred laughing their way through that weekend update but where they make up songs on the sky. They thought they were so funny when the skit rarely was
I felt the same about Molly Shannon at one point then White Lotus and The Other Two made me adore her again. I may have even felt the same about Jason Sudekis pre-Ted Lasso. Wiig seems overdue for a good role.
The more I see her on SNL the less funny she is. She only ever does weird middle America hicks. That’s what her movie was and that’s what this sketch was. I know it’s a retread of something she and Forte did when they were both cast members but it’s a stupid premise. It feels like an icebreaker skit at summer camp. Ok, cabin 14 has to make a skit with… and then everyone screams out words that are hilarious to a nine year old. Babies! Aliens!
I’ve accepted over the years that I really find MacGruber unfunny, but that some people do.It never seems to utilize Forte’s strengths, though.
I was pleasantly surprised by the vampire musical guests.
They didn’t include Lazlo, so I was disappointed.
Horny for blood, horny for love…
The lack of Tim Calhoun on Update or a Falconer sketch was a letdown.
Tim Calhoun freaks me the fuck out, but that bit is probably exhibit A for the “dragged out until it becomes funny” concept.
I cannot countenance the aspect ratio shenanigans of the Gaslight homage/parody. It’s 1.37:1 or nothing.Bring back Ariana DeBose!
Måneskin left me nearly as unimpressed as you were but then, I’m really not in their target audience. They struck me as some kind of imitation of a relic from the ‘80s. Obviously, Europeans dig them and are buying millions of their records, so there’s that.I think the frontman is weird, and not in any entertaining rock and roll sort of way. The main vibe I got from him was hoping he’d registered his status with the local authorities and his hotel wasn’t within 300 feet of a school.The rest of the band seemed OK musically. The guitarist was adequate and the rhythm section was actually pretty good.
That glossy mediocrity sounded like Maroon 5 replacing their singer with a guy who has friends who swear he sounds like Kurt Cobain.
Nailed it.
He sounds like the guy from Bush.
They’re like an Electroclash nostalgia act, a genre that itself was super-campy retro-80s synthpop. I think there’s just always going to be bands around doing this stuff because it’s not difficult to make catchy music in this vein, the costumes are fun and flashy and late 70s/early 80s new wave is an evergreen style that never seems to completely go away. And it’s purely music for the young, because it only works if you haven’t seen ten thousand acts do variations on this theme already.
I agree. I’d have probably been more impressed if I hadn’t already seen a few dozen acts like them barhopping in the Philippines* back in the ‘90s. *Really, the Philippines had a lot of really great bar bands back in the day.
I have kids and this band absolutely pops up streaming alongside Harry Styles and the like. They’re fine but definitely not anything original.
There was a point early on in this episode where you could feel the wheels coming off and I knew early on it was going to be a dire episode. Something just felt off… Like how the Nickelodeon type show was a pretty idea but something about it just didn’t meet the potential. Or how the threesome skit felt like a very Will Forte type character but the character never felt fully formed. Just everything was off….Also-It seems like Pete Davidson’s main role these days is to just show up and does a quick impression that everybody thinks it’s funny just because everybody knows he’s bad at impressions and that’s the joke. -And what was he doing during his bit on Weekend Upate? What was he drinking? It felt like he was already drunk and still drinking when they brought him out for the bit-Bowen’s Trade Representative Character was funny when it was a character but the bit seemed more like Bowen being himself and not a character-Sarah Sherman is going to be VERY divisive. I’ve never seen a cast member be such a Try Hard
Uh, he was intentionally dressed like a dock worker, as he was a guy who just bought a ferry. Were you really that baffled?
It’s hard to tell, though since he can’t do sketch comedy and giggled the whole time
He was drinking a Fosters.
I still think Pete Davidson must have a video of Lorne Michaels fucking a donkey somewhere, because he didn’t become culturally popular long enough ago to justify how he’s stayed on the show so long. For a while he figured out how to at least not break in a sketch, even if he never got the whole, you know, acting thing down, but good lord does he suck.
He’s on the show because of 9/11
well if they fire him the terrorists will have won, and we can’t have that, right?
I can name a number of cast members who were bigger try hards (Fallon might be top of the list), but the problem is her main comic persona is not going to get on SNL. So she had to do the loud voice, has to bring back the roasting Colin bit, in order to not get shut out. The audience there seems to enjoy her, so I am hoping she will be able to move away from this and more into her own voice. I see your points about Pete, but I enjoy this type of material much more than his endless music videos. I have never really gotten anything out of this Bowen character, but I do think the first or second time he tried to be more in character. This was just strung together camp memes.
There was a point early on in this episode where you could feel the wheels coming off honestly I felt this way before the show LOL; Forte is a bit of an acquired taste in comedy, he reminds me of a less-accessible Dan Aykroyd, so it was hard to say how things would go in the show. I agree with C+.re: Pete Davidson, you are spot-on, his impressions are weak, he was much better doing his awkwardly personal monologues on Weekend Update, and now all I can help thinking (more out of envy) whenever I see him is “within the last 3-4 days, he had sex with (insert disproportionately hot actress name here).” but yes, I could totally see him drinking during the show and telling Lorne to go fuck himself if he cared.re: Bowen Yang does play some a version of himself in every character, and I’m fine with that because he’s hilarious, although I imagine the “bitchy gay man” character will eventually overstay its welcome, so it’s nice when he does other stuff, because he’s usually funny no matter what.re: Sarah Sherman is SUCH a try-hard, what a perfect description, but for now I am on the “pro” side of the fence. That could change next week because he’s right, this bit is already getting stale.
I read a cast interview some years ago (can’t remember who it was, possibly Wiig) where she made the comment that just having Forte in the room was exciting and unpredictable because he’s pretty much insane. I guarantee having Sudekis spit the chewed-up potato chip back into his hand was his idea.
C+ seemed generous for this.
I liked this one a tad bit more (like a B-) but I’m also a fan of Forte and MacGruber that probably leads me to grading a little more generously. I liked the Kid Klash sketch the best and it was right into Forte’s wheelhouse, but I wish they would have went a little more dark with it. They turned down the street with but never really fully explored the neighborhood of dark humor there.Really disappointed with that Cinema Classics sketch though. Those typically deliver, but this one was just lacking.
I thought it was slightly above average but I’m fairly sure Carol Burnett did a better Gaslight parody 50 years ago. In fact, considering how Lorne Michaels used to take great effort to make sure the early SNL didn’t become like The Carol Burnett Show, I wonder if somebody didn’t tell him this is almost identical to a sketch that did appear on Carol Burnett.
“Nobody’s dissing Kristen Wiig, but the final sketch tonight could have been filled out by a present cast member just fine“There’s a very good reason, Dennis.It’s literally a recurring sketch and Wiig has played that character before.
Yep, and I probably would’ve found the new iteration funnier if it weren’t such a pale imitation of the earlier segments. Though I’m not sure anything can top Wiig and Forte’s final bit of shriek-singing in that Easter segment:Oh Easter Bunny
Oh Easter Bunny!
Oh Easter Bunny!!
Oh EasTER BUNNY!!
THE HOPPER
HAS BECOME THE HOPPED-UPON!!!
I love it when Forte sings so hard he becomes a Klingon.
I was so happy to see this again. One of my favorites for Wiig or Forte. One of the reasons I didn’t care as much about Kristen having a big cameo this week is I think her early work with Forte and with Jason was her best at SNL and aside from Macgruber, which I’m not a huge fan of, she hasn’t done much with Will in a long time. Seeing Clancy and Jackie or seeing the office workers who want to have threesomes – I would have been pleased with either one.
I don’t feel like this reviewer knows/remembers that era of SNL very well. They also say three MacGrubers isn’t a good sign, but when MacGruber was a regular sketch, it was always formatted like that.
Feels like it was supposed to be some sort of comfort episode, with the three recurring WU bits, a game show,three MacGrubers, and Kristen Wiig stealing the spotlight for an interminable recurring musical number. Like, after the uncertainty of the audience-less Paul Rudd episode, and having to switch out the musical guest last time, Lorne wanted something familiar, so he tamped down every opportunity to lean into Forte’s weird side. I for once really missed Tim Calhoun. Also, why make us sit through all twenty names of the cast if half of them don’t appear in any sketches? How about you only announce who’s actually in the episode? And sorry James Austin Johnson, but I really, really never want to see that bloated cheeto rambling again.The free association schtick isn’t funny enough for me to have to remember that hateful lunatic was in a position of power. I turned it off for five minutes and came back for the monologue, which was the only truly funny part of the night.
JAJ is talented. He looks and sounds a lot like Trump. Unfortunately for him, I don’t want to see anything resembling Trump on TV anymore. (Good thing Baldwin’s role didn’t actually resemble him!)Honestly the JAJ Trump feels even less satirical than Baldwin. It doesn’t say anything new or interesting and just feels like an excuse for JAJ to do… I’m assuming improv but I could be wrong. I know the impression is why JAJ is on the show but at least give me a good reason why I should still even look at Trump.
Honestly the JAJ Trump feels even less satirical than Baldwin.
It just feels like a straight impression without any underlying joke.
It’s not even meant to be satirical. It’s jut a very good impression of his voice and verbal ticks and a reference to one small facet of his personality, which is his penchant for going on random rants about pop culture etc. If you’d rather not ever see a portrayal of Trump again or if you think every portrayal has to take him down a peg in one way or another then you’re not going to like this impression or this approach to the character. I hate Trump but I think at this point SNL portrayals of Trump have little power to help or hurt him
Weirdly he makes him seem more competent than he ever really was. Like, when he successfully completes the sequence of words and derails the topic, it’s alllmost like he’s capable of planning and executing a thought. While funny from a comedy construction standpoint, it builds up the character too much. A warm handshake instead of the slap to the face the actual person deserves.
People are beyond over any Trump impression. It’s all we got from every late night host and SNL for four-plus years. They were tiresome after about three weeks. By the end they were excruciating. I stopped watching Colbert because I couldn’t take his nightly “dot dot, dot dot dot” impression. It’s just no longer funny in the least, and hasn’t been for ages.
The opening credits are becoming a parody, like the Taco Town commercial.
Too Many Cooks featuring Andreeeeeewwwww Dismuuuukkes
I don’t know if they were trying to be comfort food or if they are just torn on what they think people want to see, especially with Kate back. I feel like they have been trying hard to shoehorn in Kate material while she is there, even though it jars with the rest of the episode. You make a good point about Update, but then I think the only reason they brought back Guy Who Just Bought a Boat was because Pete and Colin bought the ferry. I did think – in the cold open and Update – that they would bring in Tim Calhoun, but I wonder if he is now too normal compared to the GOP.
Right, when they first brought out Guy Who I was like “Why is this still a thing?” but then I realized they had a topical reason. And hey, both Sarah Sherman and Bowen Yang can get as much airtime as they want, they’re always funny. It just seemed like a lot of easy choices.
Tim Calhoun would now be a respected voice of reason in the GOP.
I got exposed to a new word
febrile
Not going to say I learned it, but hopefully it will stick.Thanks!
Cecily Strong is performing a one woman show off Broadway, so I expect her absence will last a few more weeks. https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2022/01/11/snl-star-cecily-strong-makes-her-off-broadway-debut#:~:text=She’s%20making%20her%20New%20York,still%20ring%20true%20in%202022.
People still watch this show? Seems like a chore. *adjusts my shades*
I admit I don’t watch a lot of SNL these days, I tune in when I like the host (or even more rare, the musical guest) usually and even then, not that often. I’m sure I’ll just get labeled a “hater” but I don’t believe I’ve ever seen Bowen Yang do Anything funny. I honestly can’t help but think someone just yelled “hey we need an Asian guy here!” and someone ran out and hired Yang. Just to give him some credit maybe the writing / SNL in general are keeping him down, maybe he will excel doing work post SNL? I honestly don’t know, but seriously do people think he’s funny on there? I guess I’ll just stick with comedy podcasts when I actually wanna laugh. Still love Forte (and Wiig) though, for just his voiceover work if nothing else.
MacGruber resides along Ladies Man as the most thin and unnecessary SNL character ever to revive.
The 2010 movie was surprisingly hilarious if you really like Forte and his weirdness
I loved The Ladies Man but how in the world did anyone think there was enough there for a movie??
It was bad enough when Reese Witherspoon neglected to mention her then-husband Ryan Phillippe in her Oscar acceptance speech, but Will Forte left him out of his end of show thank yous. Dude just gets no respect.
I’m guessing that’s probably because he wasn’t actually there for the show, but he still rated an acknowledgement.
When Aidy Bryant was getting out of the pie and Will Forte said “Where do you think you’re going? You’re getting that flag” I laughed out loud.
I never heard of Maneskin until this SNL episode. First song they play starts and I think, this sounds familiar. WTF? Yeah it’s a cover…
I’m partial to the Madcon version, More my gen…
I misheard the name, and was like, hey, I write in Moleskines…
Regarding the show’s timing being off: I will never understand why this seems to surprise some people, least of all the show’s crew themselves. Considering how they not only let the studio audience go wild with applause, but actually encourage it, multiple times every show: at the top of the cold open (when did that start, incidentally? I swear even ten years ago the audience was not celebrating the show starting), with every celebrity cameo (Dafoe got a good thirty seconds, leaving Forte just standing there waiting for it to die down), even with the first appearance of certain cast members, particularly Kate, Aidy, Pete and Colin (why are they so surprised to see someone who’s there nearly every week?). I’m sure it seems like a self-satisfaction thing and Lorne is patting himself on the back every time, but it eats up time.
I was watching some older episodes and the applause for the show starting began in the early ‘00s. I do wish it could end, and that applause for cast and cameos could stop. However, I think the main problem with timing is that so many of the sketches feel so needlessly padded – this was especially bad last night.
We needed an SNL skit with Tucker Carlson in bed with a female M&M mascot but M&M wouldn’t wanna be associated with something sexualized. They’re a family candy lol. But it would have been great advertising lol.
The important issues of our time brought to you by Trump Cult News…
Måneskin was fun and I give them a lot of credit for staying in character during all those ridiculous promos.
Being baked might have had something to do with it, but I haven’t laughed this much at an SNL episode in years. It felt like the writers woke up after a long, long sleep for Will Forte.
“A Futile and Stupid Gesture” was pretty great. That wasn’t too long ago. I’m not sure if the movie was all that good but I greatly appreciated someone finally telling the Doug Kenney story which is probably the most overlooked story in all of U.S. pop culture. Forte was good.
Season 2 is the best series of The Wire.
I felt this would be a rough episode. Will Forte works well if used for a sketch or two. He’s not somebody who wears well appearing in every sketch.
This was a weird episode and in a bad way. First of all, and I never would’ve expected this, there was so little Will Forte. Some of the weirdest host underutilization I’ve ever seen, especially considering the host was a former cast member.
He is ordinary.
Well, I laughed several times during this episode. I can’t say that about many in the last two years.
Where else will Dennis shoehorn Trump into various reviews?
I really liked this episode. The country singers had me in tears by the end because these 2 performers were trying to outdo each other, committed and drove that shit into the ground. I always admired that about Forte. He was weird but he never let up. I’m an old but I LOVED Maneskin. The lead singer was working the camera like you usually do not see on this show and I was here. For. It. I loved their clothes, their makeup and their moxie. Loved it loved it loved it.
I loved them too and I’m 49. They also seemed to have solved the perennial SNL sound problems. Maybe those Marshall stacks behind them were real and not just a prop?
Anyone else irrationally annoyed by the fact that the P in Trump’s second-to-last Wordle guess wasn’t lit up yellow? I feel like I want to pull a Leo from the West Wing pilot.
I thought the episode was pretty funny. So, yeah. You’re wrong.
(1) I am anxious for Willem Dafoe because I think (hope) he could become the next Christopher Walken for SNL. I miss “The Continental” and “Colonel Angus”.(2) describe them however you want but nothing will ever top the description I read on this site of Maneskin: “1970’s Italian vampires” LOL
I agree with those mentioning the under-utilization of Will Forte’s weirdness and darker sort of humor. The “Kids Klash” game show sketch was just getting good as Forte’s host character was getting increasingly menacing, but then it sort of fizzled by the end. If they had to revive any other old Forte characters from his SNL days, I was hoping to at least see “Hamilton Whiteman” brought back. You know, the low-talking, Ric Flair-style blond haired, sunglasses wearing alt-right weirdo. Maybe people don’t wanna see that in this post-Trump world but I think it could have worked better than the “MacGruber has gone QAnon” thing.
so I assume Jost and Che will not be reading each other’s jokes on WU? Because that was my favorite thing of the season hands down and I’ll be very unhappy if they don’t do it now.
It’s done annually for the holiday episode, which was the canceled week with Paul Rudd last year. I keep hoping they’ll break it out because I’m sure the jokes were already written prior to the show being scratched.
They did it at the season finale last May.
Remember when Trump was elected and all of us on the left said everyone on the right was in a Q-Anon-like cult of some sort? Well, it appears that the solution to that sad reality is that everyone on the left has decided to form their own Blue-Anon cult in response. It’s equally as ridiculous. Equally free from facts of any kind. And poor and working-class Americans—especially minority voters—are fleeing the Democratic Party in droves as you idiots do nothing for them, and instead insist on dunking on people for being skeptical of big pharma (try googling “big pharma lawsuits” for why, if you had a single brain-cell in your “team blue” heads, that should actually be the default stance of rational members of society); insist on calling a human medicine—Ivermectin—which won the Nobel Prize for HUMAN medicine in 2015, a horse deworming medicine (weasel words at best, but in context, pretty much an outright lie), not unlike this rightfully soon-to-be unemployed author of this review; and cheer on a government, the CDC, and it’s liar-in-chief, Anthony Fauci, whom have destroyed people’s lives, businesses, put people out of their homes, destroyed families, caused massive spikes in mental health issues and addiction, only to see an upward transfer of wealth of ~3-5 trillion dollars to a small fraction of the top 1%. You people are shameless virtue-signaling empty vessels, which is why you’ve completely lost the working-class in America. You do remember the working-class, right? Those are the people you pretend to care about as you’re doing the hard and difficult work of proving it, which to you, means putting a “Hate Has No Home Here” and/or “Black Lives Matter” sign in your yard, while cheerleading Democratic politicians that screw us at every turn. You guys are so noble!AV CLUB, if you’re looking for writers to replace these ignorant hacks, drop me a message. Anything’s got to be better than this useful tool Dennis Perkins.Here’s a challenge for all my detractors that will attempt to smear me as an anti-vaxxer (despite being vaxxed) or “not following the science” (despite ACTUAL scientists being smeared and depatformed for daring to question any part of the government’s response): While you’re cheerleading the complete and utter destruction of those that used to vote with you, and are now ashamed of you, please share the many stories you have of completely healthy individuals, without co-morbidities (who should absolutely get vaxxed), that have died, thus making necessary ALL the negative consequences for all those mentioned previously, which does not even mention children who have lost immeasurable schooling and meaningful in-person socialization and activites. Perhaps you could even add an anecdote of a completely healthy school-aged child that you know personally who has also died (along with all those healthy adults from the challenge above). Should be either quite the cricket-fest or quite the collection of lies without links or medical background of the made-up stories. You people are truly despicable.
Sir, this is a Wendy’s.
Remember that time when you thought this was a clever response? That flickering moment—sadly—was probably about as good as it gets for you. You know what to do to make everyone happy, right? It’s a real opportunity for you to show us what’s up. A gesture in support of your seriousness. I’ve got thoughts if you’re looking for notes.
Are we sure this isn’t a Mighty Boosh sketch?
No, we’re not — or at least, we’re not sure that Damiano David isn’t, in fact, Will Farrell wearing a lot of eye shadow.
Unfortunately Greg Stink is only funny bc Jason Sudeikis
That was Ryan Phillipe?!