Saturday Night Live recap: Nate Bargatze hosts a lo-fi Halloween edition
It's not the most high-energy Halloweekend party, but hey, at least Christopher Walken is here!
TV Reviews Saturday Night Live
“I’m as shocked as you are that I’m here,” Nate Bargatze began this week’s Halloween-themed episode of Saturday Night Live. It’s the Nashville-born comic’s first appearance on the show, and given that the actors’ strike is still going on, the reliance on musicians and stand-up comedians so far this season isn’t a surprise. (It looks like the next episode will break that streak—more on that in a bit.)
But despite the modesty, Bargatze has been having one hell of a year: he released his Prime Video special, Hello World, this January, which became the streamer’s most-viewed original comedy special in its first 28 days. In April, he drew 19,365 attendees to a performance at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena, breaking the venue’s all-time attendance record. And now he’s taking center stage at Studio 8H in promotion of his current “The Be Funny” stand-up tour.
It’s a lot to be excited about, though the episode didn’t quite have the celebratory pep of previous Halloween editions, despite a spirited appearance by an SNL favorite and a returning performance from Foo Fighters.
Cold open: Joe Biden meets Papa Pumpkin
Another season, another presidential cast shakeup: after Jim Carrey played POTUS during the 2020 election season and James Austin Johnson portrayed him last season, Mikey Day is the latest to step into President Joe Biden’s shoes. Day’s exceptionally breathy commander-in-chief runs through a laundry list of Old Joe jokes (“A lot of my closest friends are ghosts!” “When I was a kid, ladders were cutting-edge technology”!) and even with an appearance from newly appointed Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (Michael Longfellow) and his “Adult Black Son” (“I’m only 11 years younger than him and I’m kind of a secret,” quips Devon Walker), this week’s open isn’t exactly a Halloween treat.
That is, until Christopher Walken and his delightfully insane intonations arrive as “Papa Pumpkin” to explain the true spirit of Halloween, i.e. “Meet the neighbors you don’t want to see any other day!” It’s not the sharpest writing but we could listen to Walken add several extra syllables to the word “spooky!” forever.
Monologue: Solid jokes, shaky delivery
Bargatze is known for his “everyman,” anecdotal humor, which he leans into for his opening monologue, discussing everything from the future (“2057, I don’t even believe that’s a real year. My movies didn’t even go that high in fake years”) to his family (“My dad has surgery eight times a year probably. He loves it!”) to fist-fighting orangutans. (Okay, maybe not so everyman, unless that kind of thing is normal in Tennessee?)
There’s good material here, particularly about his self-proclaimed lack of smarts (“Every history movie I watch, I watch on the edge of my seat…I watched the movie Pearl Harbor and I was just as surprised as they were”), but you could tell that the nerves were creeping up on him throughout and bungling his rhythm.
Best sketch of the night:
As the show went on, our host relaxed into the gig, especially during this “Washington’s Dream” sketch. With Bargatze as a deadpan George, the general explains to a group of Revolutionary Way soldiers about the changes they can expect in America, including freedom, liberty, and “our own system of weights and measures.”
The Founding Father guides the military men through such confounding concepts as the metric system (“How many liters are in a gallon, sir?” “Nobody knows!”), temperature scales, and non-English football (“There’s no kicking?” “There’s a little kicking”). Extra points for Washington’s pointed disregard for Kenan Thompson’s slavery-related questions. (“Where all men are free, right? Right?!”)
MVP of the night: Sarah Sherman
Sarah Sherman brightly stood out in two strike-themed bits this week, the first as SAG-AFTRA president-slash-The Nanny star Fran Drescher, who pops up on a neighborhood trick-or-treat route to critique children’s costumes based on the union’s recent guidelines to avoid “dressing up as characters from non-struck content.” (“This makes all of these children a bunch of adorable scabs!”) Sherman’s Fran makes some solidarity-minded suggestions, including opting for daytime and reality TV personalities like Hoda Kotb (“The wig is fake but the wine is real!”) or “minor characters from the Bible who have not appeared in any film adaptation.”
Sherman also made an appearance at the “Weekend Update” desk as Colin Jost’s agent, serving up a majorly receding hairline and loads of bad career advice. Among the proposed projects for her actor client? Not All Heroes Are Sandwiches: The Jared Fogel Story, a porn version of Jurassic Park (“They’re looking for a mofo with short arms to play a horny T-Rex”), and a live-action Pocahontas reboot called John Smith’s Revenge, “the story of the man who hit it, quit it, and then remembered what team he was on.”
The saddest pronunciation of Foo Fighters:
In keeping with this season’s trend of having a guest other than the host announce the musical act (see Pedro Pascal and Lady Gaga last week, and Taylor Swift the week before), Christopher Walken returned to do what he does better than anyone on the planet: introducing the Foo Fighters. Or the Foo FIGHT-ers, as he famously proclaimed 20 years ago in his 2003 SNL episode, delighting the world with his offbeat choice of emphasis on the band’s name.
Crushingly, it seems some accent coach got ahold of the legendary actor before he took to the stage to welcome Dave Grohl and Co. for their ninth musical appearance on the show because this week’s introduction was entirely devoid of that signature Walkenian flair. We’ve got a fever, and the only prescription is more Foo FIGHT-ers!
Stray observations
- Bargatze oddly failed to introduce H.E.R., who joined Foo Fighters for a rousing rendition of “The Glass,” but she made her presence known with a searing guitar solo and some adorable closing-credits fangirling over Padma Lakshmi, who had dropped in earlier in the ep during a cooking show-related bit.
- With no new episode next week (NBC will air a re-run of the Pete Davidson/Ice Spice premiere), the show will return on November 11 with Timothée Chalamet as host and boygenius as musical guest. And yes, that noise you hear is the sound of chronically online women losing their goddamn minds.
- The show movingly honored the memory of Friends icon Matthew Perry with a special tribute card, mere hours after news broke of the actor’s tragic death. He was 54. Perry hosted Saturday Night Live on October 4, 1997, with Oasis as the musical guest.
111 Comments
I like Nate. Maybe the only good thing to come out of the strike so far is getting to see him live out one of his dreams on SNL.
PS How do you EVER get un-grayed on this site?
How long have you been commenting? Actually, I don’t even know if that matters. I’d suggest you just keep commenting and hope that other people light you up.
I go back pretty far. I used to actually comment here as far back as PARKS AND RECREATION and MAD MEN. But couldn’t get made a Real Boy when they went to the new system.
I don’t even know if there is a system. Maybe I shouldn’t assume, but I don’t think the current mood here inspires writers to feel like they should make an effort. They were not treated kindly or fairly in ‘22. But when I see comments that aren’t abusive or just horrible I star them and I’d hope that others would too. Commenters here aren’t as generous as they are on some of the other sites. You have nothing to lose but your time so I’d say just keep on ‘greywriting’. I always read all of the comments. I’m sure I’m not the only one 🙂
A writer has to follow your account. A verified user can ungrey you by starring your comment, but that’s temporary and only for that thread. It used to be a lot easier when they engaged with the community, but now most are submitting as much content as quickly as possible and not taking a second look at any of it.I’ve been around for a decade, though much of that was lurking. Still, over 3 years of commenting and I’ve only been “verified” on Jezebel.
I’ve been trying to be a constructive commenter here as well, for years. The “don’t pay attention to the commenters” unofficial policy does remove some engagement with the site.
I can imagine (given the crowd of commentors very clearly only here to troll the site) that it’s better for their collective sanity that way. Kotaku alone would likely be driving people off the deep end if they had to engage with the average set of comments. “How dare you write about the most popular game on the market? THIS IS WHY YOU SUCK AND ARE KILLING THE SITE!” level BS.
I honestly wonder if at this point they only ungrey people that will drive engagement. Noticed in the last few months that several known trolls seemed to have gotten ungreyed(or someone not greyed has been liking their comments).
Wow that’s disheartening that it’s taken so long. Here’s hoping 🙂
I will forever be greyed on Kotaku and it’s annoying.But here at least, I’m SOMEONE, baby!
You’re most likely not ever gonna get ungreyed. As others have pointed
out, a staffer has to do it to permanently lift you out. But staff
members across all the Kinjaverse have basically stopped interacting
with the comment section. There’s been good commenters stuck in the
greys for years and years now. I typically try to lift them out if I see
them on column I read, but its only temporary for that specific column.
It’s especially bad that “Show Pending” makes comments in long threads disappear, so the only way to see all(?) the comments is to read through them all, then go back after clicking “Shoe Pending” for greyed comments.
My bigger question is how you can be ungrayed on AV Club and the Takeout but not on Gizmodo or Jalopnik or the other sites. Seems completely arbitrary.
I’ve been wondering about that since the Kinjacopolypse.
Thanks to whoever ungreyed me (for now). Sending you all the karma.
“I’m as shocked as you are that I’m here,…” Damn, Me too. He actually played in our city during the summer and we generally just get sh*t here. I wonder how far back they asked him to appear? I doubt we’ll ever see him again now.
It was last minute. He cancelled the three shows he had scheduled in St. louis this week to do the show.
Thanks for the info. My shit-kicking town can never afford him now, lol. But his presence here will now forever be legend.
“I’m pre-internet.”
Is he pre-internet because of his age or because he’s from Tennessee?
Yes.
This is the correct answer.
He was born in the 80s. That’s what he meant. I liked the stuff in the monologue about showers not having doors and the lip of the shower floor is like an inch or two higher than the floor of the bathroom. What the hell people? Why are we all giving up on bathtubs? And don’t start with that “you’re sitting in your own filth”. Filth? Are you coal miners? My sister said she wants a tub with the door and I told her, nope. Next thing you’re eating dinner at 3 pm and watching all the FBI shows on CBS. There’s no coming back from that.
I’ve never seen a shower like that so I couldn’t even picture it. I know what a flooded bathroom floor looks like, though. Wtf?
I have since I travel for work all the time and I have to say, I’m as flustered as he is at the concept.
Oh! Ok, is he talking about the kind of “stall” showers you’d see at a YMCA? A floor, a drain with no “step up?” I can picture that. Can’t quite picture the “door.” I’ll just Google.
Sorry you have to deal with that. When I do motels I always ask for a big pile of towels, lol.
Well he was born in 1979, but yes, it was obviously referring to being born pre-internet, facile and way overdone jokes about the South notwithstanding…(not that you made the joke, of course).I have only ever seen a shower like that once in my life and it was in Cape Town, South Africa, of all places. I was sharing a room with a friend and not only did the shower have only a half-door, but it was basically just open to the room? The toilet was behind a closed door but the shower was right there by the beds… So anyway it was weird.
While the show was low energy, I liked how they leaned on that aspect of Nate’s performance instead of trying to force the tone to be something different. This was another great example of how to mold the show around the host.While I did like the Soul Food sketch far more than I expected, that Washington’s Dream sketch ended up being such a gem. To me, Kenan’s questions about the slave liberation and the way Nate breezed past them just made the sketch click so much better with its absurdity.
It was a bit lower energy and there wasn’t a crazy strange sketch, but I thought it was pretty even-keeled and consistently… humorous. Not a lot of swings for the fences with a couple home runs and a lot of strikeouts, just getting on base.This was actually the first one I watched live in a long time. I usually piece together internet clips or watch on DVR where I forward through commercials. I was surprised how long before they got to the first non-opening sketch, and how late Weekend Update was… has it evolved to that or just a one-off?
While the delivery was shaky, his monologue was a masterclass in stand-up writing. Hardly a word of filler to be found.The Washington sketchy was terrific, Soul Food had a good hook that they had the restraint not to fully beat to death, and most of the sketches tonight got at least one laugh-out-loud from me tonight. That hasn’t been the case for me in quite a while. I wish a better actor was available for Hallmark Horror, because the concept was solid and should come back next year when they have a host that could chew up that material.Also, Nate did thank H.E.R. during the goodnights, it was just buried in the applause and barely came through.
He’s reading those introductions off a cue card anyway so it’s not like he forgot to mention H.E.R – he wasn’t written to intro her.
“Also, Nate did thank H.E.R. during the goodnights”H.E.R.?
Yes, the singer who joined the Foo Fighters for one of their songs, as mentioned in the article. Unless this is just one of those “I think not knowing about pop culture makes me look cool” things
Pretty sure it’s an Arrested Development thing.
I mean they clearly know who they are, it’s as Ann as a nose on plain’s face.
I think you’re the one missing the pop culture reference.
‘Unless this is just one of those “I think not knowing about pop culture makes me look cool” things’Turns out…
No, more of a “my pop culture references are out of date and stale” thing.
Is she funny or something?
Soul Food was great.
I didn’t see the episode, but reading that Christopher Walken was there, I have to assume that they did a Continental sketch, right? Right? RIGHT!!!!?
It is a godsdamn travesty if the had Walken on the show and didn’t. THAT OPPORTUNITY DOESN’T JUST COME ALONG EVERY DAY, SNL.
Watch it, he is still wonderful Walken but better in short bursts now, rather than entire sketches. Yet just seeing him back there even for a few, is worth every moment. His little smile getting the laughs last night was the best.
Walken coming thisclose to breaking was the highlight of the show.
That Mona Lisa Smile of his, is akin to everyone else full-on breaking up . He still has those classic actor chops—never give it up in an obvious way!
Not even
I was waiting for Papa Pumpkin to meet his “Son” David for a Halloween episode, but that didn’t happen either.
What, no love for “Lake Beach”?
Oh man, this past summer I rediscovered a swimming hole/fishing hole from my childhood that I hadn’t been to in forty years. It was magical. It was also 109% Lake Beach.
That was the one bit I was eagerly waiting to hit YouTube to watch again.
Seemed more like a swamp, no?
That sketch was dangerously accurate
I find regular, coastal beaches to be vastly overrated, but man, lake beaches are SO much worse. Nothing like warm, still water with a murky bottom!
Where in the US are these lake beaches? I’m willing to wager that the lake beaches in the Pacific Northwest and Northern Rockies are nicer than those in the Southeast. Also, regardless of where they’re located, the “beaches” for man-made lakes or reservoirs are more likely to be nasty than nice.
There are nice ones all over, see Chicago and Lake Michigan. The one in the SNL video seemed more like a swamp in Florida.
I’ve traveled all over this great country of ours, and I can tell you that no matter where you go, lake beaches are trash. The southeast are definitely the worst because of the heat and the shit that grows in lakes due to the heat, but I’ve been in higher altitude lakes and while there are no bugs, the water is usually freezing. Hard pass on lake beaches.
Shit, I went to Germany once and a friend took us out to a lake there, and it also sucked.
I think the problem with Lake Beach is that it’s very much a thing that you have to have lived to get. As a coastie it flew over my head. That being said Bargatze seemed to be having a lot of fun with it.
Sarah Sherman is the MVP and had the sketch of the night as Fran.A C- rating from me as I did not find the show that funny.
Monologue was a win—lots of pressure, live, few minutes to make an impression (for those who are unfamiliar), tight set and did well, and the crowd enjoyed him. No mention of “Lake Beach”? Grohl was his usual hilarious self. No mention of DND at the end either? C’mon! Sarah Sherman I really like her but she punches everything up, with dial to “11″; maybe her style but I think she is capable of more subtlety than she showed last night, though I do appreciate her energy, lack of inhibition, and clear ability to costume change at lightning speed. Walken was the best surprise, though clearly older and somewhat less spry, still has the talent (as with his entire career) to be front and center of a scene/sketch..You can’t take your eyes off him plus the audience adores him for good reason.
It’s the new way of writing the reviews for the shows – I’m guessing someone got sick of the “oh why are you just recapping the entire show” comments after every single review, so now we get a mention of a few skits, a recap-ish of one or two, and general feeling off the show.Can’t have it both ways. I preferred the more complete recap, but I apparently needed to sit here every week whining loudly enough for that to happen.
How disappointing—Did I miss something? I never got the “memo” and it doesn’t follow elsewhere on this site as other shows are fully recapped. Minus the monologue, Colin/Che and music segments, there aren’t an enormous amount of sketches and filmed bits to be reviewed. Even a quick one line in the afterthought section for each would be better than neglecting 1/8 of the content.
The Matthew Perry card was great to include last minute. I had just read about his death like 10 mins earlier. “He was 54. Perry hosted Saturday Night Live on October 4, 1997, with Oasis as the musical guest.”Chandler and Oasis….Peak 90’s
Sarah Sherman…yeah, man, I like her when she’s toned down a bit, but neither of her sketches this episode allowed her to do that. Fran Drescher always has to be played at 11, and so does, apparently, Colin Jost’s agent? I know that’s her schtick but when she chills out a bit she’s really funny. I even like loud Sarah but in smaller doses.
You are right, I’ll back off as I do not want to be one of those who starts capping on cast members as they are working their way up the ranks, trying to find footing in the group dynamic and I do admire her big personality and clear enjoyment of character work. Maybe as she develops her own style she will gather a bit of shading and subtlety in her presentation—right now she uses a sledge hammer to mold every character. But they need a few to bring energy and noise. Longfellow may have some hidden talents but he seems so nervous and inhibited I haven’t seen any break-out abilities.
And to be clear I was agreeing with you! I don’t think you were being too hard on her. I don’t feel like she’s in danger of losing her spot. She seems really popular and gets a lot of airtime, and the writers seem to like her, so she can withstand a little criticism from some AVClub commenters who actually do think she’s talented. lol I think she’ll be one of the longer lasting cast members.I like Longfellow. He’s the anti-Sherman. I think he does great in his “stand-up” bits on Update, and I feel like he brings a welcome calmness to some of the crazier sketches, but it’s true he hasn’t really played a character who wasn’t “Michael Longfellow” in a costume.
This would have been a much better episode if Dave Grohl hosted. He was literally RIGHT THERE
…in a Doctor’s costume and everything!
Timothée Chalamet as host and boygeniusthe fangirling on A.V. Club is getting out of control.
INSANE that last weeks was a b and this was a b-. Not the greatest SNL ever, but a solid B+ by modern SNL standards IMO. Last week was borderline unwatchable
Also, why have last weeks SNL comments been completely invisible all week? This site makes no sense sometimes
Last Week’s B was about everyone being happy and having a good time while the Trap Artist hosted. This week was about Sarah Sherman mentioning it as subtly as she can as Jost’s Agent.
“Timothée Chalamet as host and boygenius as musical guest. And yes, that
noise you hear is the sound of chronically online women losing their
goddamn minds”You really just erased gay men…
That was a funny eposide, you have no clue what you are talking about.And the beach sketch
Best episode of the season so far. Strong B+. Nothing hit a home run, but to keep up the baseball metaphor, everything made contact and they drove in runs. Lake Beach would be my pick for best of the night, but Washington and Soul Food are good contenders as well (Nate Bargatze in a chef’s coat looks like he could be a Voltaggio brother).On the downside, I could do without Mikey Day as Joe Biden. I guess they made the move so it frees up JAJ to play (ugh) Trump in the upcoming election, but the less Mikey Day, the better. I use to not mind him his first couple of years, but his schtick has really worn me down
So true about Mikey Day. JAJ is excellent Biden or tRump. Sarah Sherman has been a star since her first appearance. Dave Grohl would be a great Host/Music Guest.
No matter how much Mikey Day seems to improve, I can never not see David Blaine Street Magic whenever I see him anywhere in media.
Aslo best musical guest performance in quite awhile. Last several performances including last season have been pretty underwhelming and boring.
who the fuck is nate bargatze & why is he not funny? what’s so funny about pushing donkeys off high platforms?
What’s NOT funny about that?
Nate who? His stand up specials are mildly boring at best…
carrot top or gallagher more your speed?
Maybe it would help if I knew who Nate was but I thought it mostly felt like some random guy rambling most of the time.
Thats basically his general vibe. Just an affable dummy
he is kind of a newer comedian, just starting to get more famous. but i find him to be hilarious. and not that i care about this, but his comedy is extremely clean, but you don’t even tend to notice it until someone mentions it.
I wish they’d bring back more of the Elders who’ve hosted the show multiple times in the past and are still professionally doing great, memorable work – Walken, John Lithgow, John Goodman, even Elliott Gould. I wouldn’t even mind if they all hosted at once.
He’s back to Elliott Levinson now
You’re talking about people in their 70s and 80s, I’m not sure if they are up for the week long grind it takes to host SNL anymore. Maybe a guest spot here and there like Walken did this past Saturday.
Heck, even Payton Manning – the best athlete host, imho.
Best episode of SNL I have seen in years. The monologue was solid. Lake Beach is very true to life, the Washington sketch was hilarious. I wondered how much he contributed to it because it sounds like it’s right out of one of his stand up routines. If you haven’t seen the Hello World special, or any of the others on Netflix, do yourself a favor and watch all of them. I discovered him on Dumb People Town podcast a few years ago and have been a fan ever since.
As a metric system geek, the “George Washington” sketch spoke to my soul! For a very unknown host, Nate did a very good job.
“(Okay, maybe not so everyman, unless that kind of thing is normal in Tennessee?)“IT IS NOT. I’m one year younger than him and born and raised in Nashville and to that particular bit I was like wtf? I have never in my life heard of such a thing.“Bargatze oddly failed to introduce H.E.R”He didn’t “fail” to do anything. It was obvious the whole show that he was faithfully reading cue cards. Whoever wrote his cue card oddly failed to include her in the introduction.Also, no mention of Lake Beach or Soul Food? I sure wish we had a reviewer who watched the whole show.
Never seen fist-fighting orangutans, but I’ve seen diving mules.
That I hadn’t seen, but I believed it as a thing that would happen. Also there was that movie with Gretchen Mol, I think, about diving horses? And mules are half horse so why not.(Edit to say I’m not suggesting Bargatze was lying! I thought his set was great, but just noting that this is not a common Tennessee thing. lol)
True Hearts Can’t Be Broken, starring Gabrielle Anwar. No Mol for you!
That’s it, Gabrielle Anwar! I can picture her up on the diving board with the horse.
Gretchen Mol is in Boardwalk Empire, also set in Atlantic City. So Susan Sarandon could have also been a guess.
I loved Soul Food. Especially Bargatze’s continual, “I’m sorry.” Kenan. being Kenan, stole the skit – by the time he flung the plate off of the table, I was dying.
So was Heidi. lol She barely made the next line.
I go into pretty much every episode pulling for the host and grading on a curve. I thought Nate did a great job. He carried the Washington sketch. I didn’t notice any nerves- his delivery was consistent with how he does stand up. Which I really love. How cool for him to be in an episode with literal rock stars and Christopher Freaking Walken. So happy for Nate.
There’s a good chance Nate may or may not know who Christopher Walken is. That’s just who he is. I mean a running bit on his podcast is that he’s never seen Shawshank Redemption.
I sat front row centre when Nate Bargatze played Mark Ridley’s Comedy Castle in Royal Oak, MI (400 capacity) in 2017. One of my favorite live standup sets ever, partially because that nervous “I’m not supposed to be here” vibe is part of his persona and charm.I love how the skits played to that persona. 6 years is an unbelievably short time to progress (to Detroit’s Fox Theatre (5000 capacity), breaking the attendance record at Bridgestone Arena and then SNL), especially considering 2-3 were locked down. Amazing and he deserves it.
Nice to see low-key getting some love. His best bit in the monologue has to be about reading and I’m surprised you didn’t mention that in more detail.
Everyone here is like, “This was a B+ episode at least!” Meanwhile I’m over here like, “Meh.”Never heard of Nate before this episode, but I admit, I dug his monologue and delivery. Love the Foo Fighters. But everything else, Jesus Christ, they need to shake up their writers.
Wow I thought Mikey Day should probably call it a wrap on the show last year…but his terrible Biden impression coupled with what the AARP should call “hate speech” was a new low. Interesting they didn’t mention Mike Johnson and his adult black son monitoring each other’s porn intake.