Saturday Night Live recap: Adam Driver remains a deranged delight
The Ferrari star revs up yet another strongly unhinged showing for his fourth hosting gig
TV Reviews Saturday Night Live
We’re two for two, folks: coming off of a solid episode last week, hosted by newly minted Five Timers Club member Emma Stone, Adam Driver pulled into Saturday Night Live last night for his fourth time as host, in promotion for his upcoming role as ex-racer turned auto emperor Enzo Ferrari in Michael Mann’s Ferrari.
With Gen Z pop icon Olivia Rodrigo as musical guest, the unlikely pairing already had TikTok-breaking potential, but the episode also solidified Driver as a VIP SNL host, a gifted dramatic actor who also just happens to have killer comedic instincts and a wholehearted gameness to immerse himself in any idea, no matter how ludicrous. (Yes, that includes dick-shaped chocolate Santas and babies with giant man heads, but more on all that in a bit.) We very much see one of those famed Five Timers Club jackets in Driver’s future.
Opening monologue: A serenade for Santa
To celebrate his favorite holiday (“largely because I have a very deep and personal relationship with Santa”), Driver took to the baby grand for a musical rendition of his Christmas list, in lieu of a traditional opening monologue. (And in case you were wondering if that was really the star tickling the ivories, he prompted a close-up of his “very big hands.” Somewhere, the entirety of Wattpad is exploding.) “It’s me, Adam Driver, from the Nice List and also Girls,” the actor reminded Jolly Old Saint Nick before asking for five pairs of Chinos, a Tesla Cybertruck to pair perfectly with his “teeny, tiny micro penis” and for all of the people from those “TikToks where the couples do pranks on each other” to die.
The most relatable sketch of the night:
Finally, SNL has tackled one of the grossest realties of adulthood: having to hear that your friends are raw-dogging it on the regular, a.k.a. “trying” for a baby. (Nobody needs to know your semen status, Deborah.) This sketch bitingly poked fun at the TMI phenomenon, having three couples gathered at a wintry log cabin discuss their own fertility plans. The rub? One twosome is a same-sex duo (played by Driver and Bowen Yang) who refuse to let biology hinder their baby-making aims. (“Are you going to adopt?” “No, we’re just gonna try!”) Along with excellent details including Yang’s “pregnancy” cravings (ham and cocaine) and how many holes they’ve “tried” it in so far (3 out of 7), Driver’s poker-faced interjections (“And that’s on period”) made this one a snarky standout.
The second most relatable sketch of the night:
Going home for the holidays often means running into characters from your past. Such is the case for this digital short, which finds Jake (Mikey Day) making plans to reconnect with his childhood best friend Keith (Driver). That is, until Keith’s texts become more illuminating about what he’s been up to all these years and therefore increasingly more alarming. (“Is it more than 1,000 feet from a school?” he asks when Jake suggests a bar for their reunion.) Eventually, we find out that Keith was the subject of a Netflix documentary called The Man With 600 Kids, about a sperm-bank janitor who secretly switched hundreds of donor samples with his own. The moral of the story? Delete your Facebook app, ASAP.
The “gift to every millennial woman watching” sketch:
Okay, sure, the Save the Last Dance renaissance happened on social media well over a month ago, so Chloe Fineman popping up during “Weekend Update” to do a spot-on hop-and-point impersonation of Julia Stiles’ iconic Julliard audition scene from that 2001 teen dance flick might’ve felt a bit behind schedule. That is, until Stiles herself joined the comedian, ballet leotard and all, for that big, dorky chair-dance finale. A holiday gift, indeed.
The best sketch of the night:
Imagine Look Who’s Talking as a horror film: Adam Driver plays an “overcooked” baby experiencing his first ever flight with his mother (Sarah Sherman). (“You mean, 11 months and 15,000 days?” Kenan quips upon seeing the large-headed “baby monster.”) Again, Driver sucking down a baby’s bottle will no doubt awaken a very specific subset of the Internet, but it’s his hysterically accurate depictions of an infant’s inner dialogue—he dubs an iPad “the Peppa Pig device!” and the disappearance of his favorite teddy bear during peek-a-boo earns his mom a “Christ, he’s gone! You killed him, you bitch!”—that certifies this super-silly bit as one of the season’s best.
MVP of the night: Adam Driver
Honestly, nobody was as ferociously game or as genuinely funny as Driver himself was this week, whether playing an infomercial chocolatier whose Willy Wonka-esque creations lean a little too heavy on the willy end of things, or a heavily mustached suburban dad who becomes embroiled in an escalating feud over the buffet placement of a Christmas casserole. Next week’s host, returning SNL great Kate McKinnon, has some serious competition.
Stray observations
- And it wasn’t just the comedy that was high-quality this week: Olivia Rodrigo’s musical performances were a pop-rocking good time, featuring a piano-and-vocals rendition of the singer’s GUTS lead single “Vampire,” followed by a punky, pissed-off production of “All-American Bitch” that saw Rodrigo gleefully destroying a tea party.
- The December 16th episode, hosted by Kate McKinnon with musical guest Billie Eilish, marks the last one of 2023, so we’ve got to ask: who’s had your favorite episode so far this season? Sound off!
111 Comments
I thought tiny-ass bag (not on Youtube, but available as a clip on the NBC site) was surprisingly quite funny… And Dat’s Iiit !
That sketch made me laugh, but it was definitely the most “Please make us and our new catchphrase a recurring skit” thing.
Yes! It was so silly but they committee so totally to it that it was hysterical!
Interesting. I saw it on YouTube. Search SNL Cold Open and at the end of the clip a little box pops up saying “watch all.”
Yeah, it was posted on YouTube some 12h after my comment. Not sure why it took longer to edit if it was already available on the NBC site when I made the comment.
LMAO Thank you for posting this!
This sketch has the similar vibe of last gen recurring sketch “Not pornstars anymore”. The chocolate Christmas sketch also shared similar vibe with “Schrewdy Balls” sketch from eons ago. It got potential.
The chocolate Santa was a callback to one they did last year or the year before with the same QVC hosts and a doll who’s hair grew or something. I can’t remember any of the details (obviously) but it was funny.
sir, you are correct on both points!
I don’t think Driver is as funny as you do, but the material was definitely better. I never thought I’d see on SNL two gay men planning on “trying for a baby” because they are so clueless about female anatomy. But GenZ is making a lot of waves with their absurdist humor (which can only be so funny, for some reason). Maybe it’s just the realization that it’s all funny ha ha because we’re all f*cked. That dampens things a bit.Interesting monologue. It sounds as though Driver is practicing the Christopher Walken accen’t he’ll be using in, what, 10 or 12 years when he plays him?
Raised by Gen X and iPads there was no way Gen Z was going to come out of this unscathed and innocent lol
I’m literally terrified for those kids and I didn’t even have kids.I don’t care much for SNL but that seemed refreshingly courageous. It’s beyond politically incorrect to make fun of LGTBQ+ folks (in my community at least) but the show went there. I wonder what the response from the LGTBQ community is? Nothing can compell me to ‘do’ tiktok again. It’s a profoundly addictive ‘substance’.
I think it was making fun of couples talking in depth about trying for a baby. As adults, it’s weird having conversation based on unprotected sex, genitals, fluids, etc. under the cover of “trying for a baby”.
Lol, now I’m remembering my (awful) relatives going on an on about this at holiday meals and how uncomfortable it made me. “Yes, guys, that’s cute, but now I have to see you in my mind…… f*cking. Just watching you all eat is bad enough.”
Raised by Gen X and iPads there was no way Gen Z was going to come out of this unscathed and innocent lol
Honestly Gen Z(in general) doesn’t like absurdist humor from what I understand. Thats really Millenials thing, basically growing up with shows like Tim and Eric on Adult Swim. Which makes sense because SNL has always tried to be funny for the “kids” but its comedy always feels a decade old.
Do you think the Millenial ‘outlook’ has always been this dark? I know that sounds like a terrible essay test question.
Re SNL, I think Andy Samberg was doing absurdist humor before Gen-Z was even born. And do you not remember the sketches John Mulaney wrote for years?The vast majority of humor that Millennials grew up with was extremely Gen-X. Still is.Love the Christopher Walken comparison! I read that this morning somewhere and I’m fully here for it.
I mean, Andy Kaufman was doing it in the 70s on the very first episode of SNL, if you wanna go that far. Absurdism in humor is nothing new and won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.
I can’t say how pleased I am that someone else thought of it! It was pretty subtle, I think.I’m not even sure what GenX humor is, not to mention the other two generations. I’m not a fan of Mulaney, sorry to say. Idk, maybe comedians are kind of like hot dogs: everyone just has this special kind that only works for them (ketchup, no ketchup, chili on it, etc….). I see a lof of video reels on facebook (I admit it) where 20-Somethings stand in front of a camera and act clueless. A guy looking at a wall outlet. A trickle of water is coming out of it. “I don’t know what to do!! Someone please help me!”
WTF? Is this a play on learned helplessness, maybe weaponized helplessness? It’s ridiculous but possibly the new trend? “Help me I’m an idiot?” (but I’m really not, haha).
As a Gen X’er myself, I feel the prevailing humor sort of matched the smartass attitude towards the world. Less absurdist, more observational.
It absolutely is. And that is a better term for it. It’s also very dead-pan and darkly satirical in a way that many still don’t “get” it (South Park, The Onion, etc…)I just get irritated that so many younger generations think they “invented” any kind of humor. And that so many of the shows they enjoy were invented by or have writers that are fully Gen-X. You know our generation gets snubbed and forgotten a lot….I tend to get overly defensive.
As always, the Simpsons nailed it.
Perfect.
Interesting monologue. It sounds as though Driver is practicing the Christopher Walken accen’t he’ll be using in, what, 10 or 12 years when he plays him?
Was coming here to say this, glad it wasn’t just me. There were several times this episode I got Walken hosting SNL vibes.
Lol, I think it’s one of those – what do you call it? “When you know you know?”I’m such a big fan of Walkens I guess I’m always on the alert. Brainstorm will always be one of my favorite movies 😀
Driver can play offbeat when he wants, whereas it seems like an effort for Walken to NOT come off that way. He’s definitely a Swiss army knife that the show can use a lot of ways.
I don’t know if Driver is “funny,” per se, but SNL has had a lot of success using his intensity for comedic purposes. This episode didn’t have anything like the Career Day sketch from Driver’s first time hosting, but there is something inherently amusing about watching Driver approach an SNL sketch like it’s a Very Serious Movie.
So do you think he’s really that serious or he’s making fun of himself?Up until five minutes ago I didn’t know anything about him. Lived in Indiana (!) I assumed he was a native New Yorker. He was in the marines. He has a spouse and kids. I knew that he doesn’t like seeing or hearing himself recorded. That’s all very serious and responsible-adult stuff. So different from the stereotypical Hollywood A-lister type. I suppose it isn’t odd that most people only know him from the Star Wars project (which I didn’t see), rather than Girls and a few movies.
I remember him also from the movies Midnight Special, and The Jacket.
I’m so grateful that you mentioned those. I’ve been thinking about the conclusion of Midnight Special for weeks, I just could not remember the movie or its title. Good little movie and the revelation that Earth as we know it houses more than one dimension is not only fascinating but very possible, imo.
He’s on Conan O’Brien’s podcast this week, and definitely sounds like he’s making fun of himself, in a pretty self-aware way.They actually talk about his SNL appearances a bit, and how that seriousness makes the comedy work better.
Thanks!
I caught the Walken vibes too.
I’m enjoying this feedback because I thought I might be reaching. I don’t see any resemblance between the two other than that vocal similarity, although I just looked at a blog written in 2014 claiming that Driver is turning into a young Walken, with only one sentence to support this metamorphosis.Anyway I was looking to see if the two had ever worked together. Don’t seem to have. But in keeping with general weirdness of everything right now I found this video of Mel Gibson ranting about Walken. Gibson calling Walken “scary” lol.
That headline alone catches what made this episode work for me to the degree it did. The writing knew what it had with Driver, so they just went weird in a delightful manner knowing that the man would be willing to commit to everything.
Driver solidified his “one of the best SNL hosts” title when he did the Undercover Boss skit back in 2016. I still laugh at him giving Taran Killam a card apologizing for killing his son. “Yeah we know you’re Kylo Ren”. Also, Chris Wallace can suck it. Driver is a good looking guy. And how about showing some respect for a Marine who was getting ready to deploy to Iraq til an injury caused his honorable discharge. JFC, Chris, could you BE a bigger dick?
“I knew when you threw me through the soda machine.”
His turn as the elderly oil baron (or whatever) visiting his son (Pete Davidson’s) class for Career Day is legitimately among my all-time favorites for the show.
I had forgotten this one. Lorne needs to get him back ASAP so he gets his Five Timer Blazer. When he stabs that fake bird I lost it. I assume this was a spoof of There Will Be Blood? I haven’t seen all his films but he is one of my favorite actors. I may have to check out some I’ve missed.
Here’s another deranged delight all the friendly av club kids are sure to enjoy!
Hey long time no see! Still making this stuff?
Don’t encourage that idiot’s band spam, they suck.
We are!
In order to give this episode an “A”, one would have to pretend as though that catastrophically bad cold open never happened, which this review cleverly did. I fear it may have turned away a lot of viewers from what was an otherwise very strong episode.
I tuned in during Weekend Update and there felt like a weird energy from the crowd. Haven’t seen what the cold open is, but if it tanked, maybe they just brought down the energy to a place it couldn’t recover from?
It’s felt like a sketch that wanted to be edgy politics(as much as SNL ever is) but ended up in rewrites to “both sides”. It seems like they wanted to lampoon the Congressional hearing about Antisemitism on college campuses in light of the human rights nightmare Israel is currently committing in the West Bank but then about half way through they started to go “look at how weird these college representatives are too”. The jokes all seemed lazy.
That was a tough needle to thread but it was a pretty noble effort to show the absurdity of both that whack-job Stefanik, and the inability of the universities’ to give simple “yes” or “no” answers.
I think it would have been funnier if they picked one or the other to focus on. They should have made Stefanik relatively “normal” and let the college presidents be the funny ones (the thesaurus part wasn’t so bad). But just having Stefanik scream at them and state the obvious joke (“am I winning this?”) was lazy. The real Stefanik (of whom, it must be stated, I am no fan) didn’t even sound like that. The “joke” was nothing more than a fake voice. There was a way to be funny here but the writers took the easy way out.
I agree that that “version” of Stefanik was awful. It really, truly made me miss Cecily Strong and her ability to make those characters truly funny. Again, age differences aside, Kate McKinnon could have pulled it off as well back in the day.Meanwhile, the “university presidents” (SNL regulars) were great. I freaking love Heidi Gardner.I don’t think a lot of the younger, newer cast are standing out. I do like the super tall guy, but I really wish they would stop trying to push Andrew Dismukes on me.I’m also super annoyed SNL has not found a Ron DeSantis yet. I need someone to perfect the whiny voice, the bobble head, the high-heels, etc…
I heard that if they went too hard on the Israel thing the execs threatened to get Gal Gadot back.
All I heard online was that SNL was in bed with hamas and the crowd was upset and angry at the worst cold open ever so it was not a good thing. The problem with the sketch was to not hit the target. They were trying to make the lady look like another Trump supporting loser harassing good people who were trying to keep themselves safe. The humor needed to use the Senator as a keystone around which jabs at all sides could be taken. Look, the Pennsylvania one was fired so there is genuine anger at the school administrations, so you are allowed to mock the lack of reaction and even support of antisemitism then go ahead and mock Trumplady for her “shrillness” (that got results mind you) and the fact that Palestinians deserve support too.
I think the writers, who are generally younger, just totally dropped the ball with this topic, and it’s clear they didn’t really have the depth to tackle it. I really don’t care which side or group SNL mocks, as long as the skit is funny. The cold open was cringe as hell, not to mention totally directionless. It’s like they simultaneously wanted to offend and not offend at the same time, rather than come up with actual humor.
I think it would be more surprising if they had picked a lane and gone for the absolute jugular. That hasn’t been their style in…hell, I don’t know. 30 years?
I always skip the political cold opens.
I always skip the political cold opens.
I thought it was way more provocative than the Hamas joke last week.It’s like they tried to handle a very complicated issue wearing mittens.
Yep, this was a new low for their “republicans are bad 100% of the time” thing they always do. People see them now as very biased. No one even knows or cares who house members are in the best of times, and trying to act like a house member was overly indignant about people not saying genocide is a bad thing? Okay. They do not even have a Biden impersonator, when they always have someone for 30 years before no matter who was president speaks volumes. People have given them the worst thing you can do to a show, ignore them.
I remind people who conveniently forget that SNL had a field day ruthlessly skewering the Clintons for 8 years. On Weekend Update, Norm MacDonald referred to then First Lady Hillary Clinton as a “bitch” not once, but twice. Not once did the Clintons or Democrats whine about bias. They haven’t found a Biden impersonator because none of the cast can do a decent job. They keep switching actors, and they all suck. The last good Biden impersonator was Jason Sudeikis, but he imitated a younger, more energetic Biden. And you clearly haven’t seen the several Biden jokes attacking his age and mental state being currently made on Weekend Update every single week. People didn’t start accusing SNL of partisan bias until Trump started crying like a baby about it on Twitter at 3:00AM.
“I remind people who conveniently forget that SNL had a field day ruthlessly skewering the Clintons for 8 years.”Oh wow I do remember that. They went really hard on Chelsea Clinton. Harder than they should have considering she was a kid.
Actually, that’s the only time they complained. Chelsea was only 11 at the time.
That was a fair thing to complain about, I think.
A bunch of things that happened 25 years ago..yawn
My point with that example was that the Clintons and the Democrats didn’t whine like babies about it. Liberal viewers didn’t cry each week or keep tabs on how many jokes were made at their expense vs. how many Republican jokes. Nor did conservatives cry when they made fun of George W. Bush. The whining (now coming from you) didn’t start until 2016 when the big, orange man baby started Tweeting his complaint from his toilet in the middle of the night. And now here you are, even using the same adjectives he uses in his tweets, like “biased and irrelevant”. You’re only proving my point. Nobody got their undies in a bunch about SNL’s jokes until he came along. And here you are, like his loyal little parakeet, continuing to obsess over partisan bias. Thanks for validating every word I said.
LOL a bunch of straw man nonsense. You guys cared A LOT. Why they don’t do Biden jokes at his expense, because you are babies. I really don’t care what you guys think, as you lost and are irrelevant.
The fact that you’re still whining about this topic a week later only proves my point that your side are a bunch of thin-skinned babies. Just like your orange cult leader. Move on, dude. It’s just SNL.
And their cold open’s about Biden are basically love letters. Last week the impersonator went on about how great the economy is. (LOL) To zero laughs. It is propaganda and they are used mostly to attack the press for daring to criticize him. SNL is laughably biased and irrelevant
Shift those goal posts again, Base Model Conservadrone #66903.
Dude, they have two Biden impersonators right now: James Austin Johnson, who did it last season, and Mikey Day. They’ve had two Biden cold opens in the last week.
I mean, the Republicans are bad 100% of the time, but I agree with you that they picked the wrong joke here. Stefanik wasn’t wrong because she wanted them to say that genocide was bad. She’s bad because she only cares that genocide is bad when it’s happening to certain groups. The writers made the joke out of the wrong thing. It would have been better to just let the college presidents be the joke here.
Yeah who in their right mind would have thought doing that premise was a good idea? HOW did that get through the writers room? I was absolutely stunned at how bad it was.
Agree. This was a great episode that deserved an A, but that cold open was diiiiiire. I had read these comments first and assumed they must be overstating how bad it was. The political cold opens are always a little bad, but y’all didn’t lie. This one was awful. It had no point of view or comment. “Hey, all these folks didn’t do well at this hearing!” And that was it.
I just want to say that you are kind of unfair to the writers at times vis a vis the social media thing. I see you comment a lot like “well they were a month late on the month old social media gag”. I mean… they are either going to be first and go viral or practice the dancing gag for a month with Julia Styles and be a month late. Not everyone is just terminally online soaking in the latest Gen Z wackiness and therefore many millennial women may have just found out about it through this sketch. You can never overestimate an audience. Also this new idea that only the hippest youngest people watch SNL is a really new fangled thing, it used to be a lot of baby boomers watched out of habit and Gen X may have watched it with their parents. Who knows maybe Gen X saw this movie before and laughed a lot at this reference. The important thing is to just do it anyway and see how much joy it provides the people and do your best.There was a subversive conservative bent IMO to these sketches and jokes but maybe it is just me.
I agree 100% with what you said about the writers. It would beyond annoying it they embraced every single idiotic thing that was “trending” for a hot second.
But I disagree it has gone “conservative.” And Save the Last Dance came out over 22 years ago – Gen X saw it and we claim Julia Stiles!
while this was one of the better shows of the year this was far from a A.
There are a few evergreen recurring hosts I’ll always tune in for, and Adam Driver is one.
Adam Driver is a wonderful host, but I am begging SNL to stop doing political cold opens. They haven’t been good since Tina Fey was doing Sarah Palin. They aren’t even good impressions anymore. They’re just dire, especially since this focused on a congressional showboating hearing most people didn’t follow. Also, in a shocking turn, I thought a lot of sketches ended too soon. Both Beep Beep and Plane Baby could’ve escalated further. Still, better to get out sooner than stay too long.
Matt Damon as Brett Kavanaugh was brilliant.
Skipping political cold opens and sad ballads makes the show much better.
I feel like political cold opens used to be fun but have stopped more recently as, for lack of a better term, shit has gotten more real in politics. Jokes about George W Bush seem like relics of an innocent time (even when Will Ferrell did that guest appearance as W a while back and specifically made a joke about how no, he was still really bad). Now even the most mild “orange man bad” Trump jokes have the baggage of “he’s still around and alarmingly dangerous for being so dumb” saddled to them.
They just got too obvious. The better ones were those that focused on second-tier members of Trump’s staff, like Melissa McCarthy as Sean Spicer just ripping reporters new assholes for asking normal questions. Trump impressions make me want to stick a pencil in my ears.
Trump impressions make me want to stick a pencil in my ears.
I agree totally. Frankly one of the things that scares me about the possibility of a second Trump term (it’s way way down the list, to be clear) is the idea of having to endure another 4 years of every late night show or even vaguely comedy show doing jokes about him/impressions of him on a regular basis. I get that he talks funny but ugh it’s almost worse than having to listen to the man’s actual voice
It’s what made me stop watching Colbert. “Dot dot, dot dot dot…”Every. Single. Night. He’s just read Trump tweets that were sometimes 30 seconds long, then drop a one-liner that was nowhere near a payoff.
Ugh yeah he was by far the worst about it.
Which is weird because for the longest time, SNL was taking things too far and not ending on the original joke. For example, “Most Evil Invention” that suddenly pivots to a dig on White Castle, and Andy Samberg’s “Like A Boss” music video.
Julia Stiles should host SNL
She was once a famous actress but now works in my hometown.
She lived by me for years when she was attending Columbia and it was a always a bit of a thrill to see her. She’s even prettier in person and always had a lot of books with her.I’ve always been a fan.
nooooo please god, please stop, not again. nooooooo
lol
I like how instead of saying what exactly Stefanik did wrong they just had her say “I’m bad!” over and over. Commentary!
I dunno, when she incredulously second-guessed herself with the “Am I winning this argument” was pretty spot on.
I love Emma Stone on SNL, but let’s be honest —- her episode last week was bad. Adam Driver really committed to the sketches and did a great job with the material he had, but the cold open was atrocious and didn’t garner many laughs from the studio audience. Rumor is that Cecily Strong was going to make an appears as Elise Stefanik, but bailed when the sketch got a cold reception in dress rehearsal.
In my opinion, her best episodes was when Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, and the gang still around. Beyond that, her appearances had diminishing return. Sure there are a few gem here and there, such as short movie “The Actress” from a couple years ago.
Not blaming Emma Stone here, per se. She is always committed and 100% in. But the majority can be pin down to weak materials. Which is unfortunate when the show been graced with arguably the best actress of our time.
“The Actress” is one of my top-10 SNL bits of all time. And I love Emma Stone on SNL because not only does she commit 100% to every bit, she very obviously has all the dialogue memorized so that she never trips herself up looking for cue cards. But I think she needs more content from, say, Sarah Sherman than from the other writers on the show – something where her commitment and poker face can really bring the weird in a way that few other actors can or are willing to do.
Old Friends just got better and better.
this ep was ok, I do like Driver’s commitment. also no mention that Please Don’t Destroy didn’t have a short film this time. I’ve gotten so used to them having a short these past 2 years that this ep felt so incomplete without them. as for favorite of this season, hands down the Neil Bargatze episode. I had no idea who he was and went into it with low expectations and they knocked it out the park with that one, the writing was great and he turned out to be a great host. ( that Top Chef parody sketch is one for the ages) .
Yeah, the Top Chef as well as the George Washington skits go immediately into the pantheon.
Sometimes there’s kicking . . .
“as for favorite of this season, hands down the Neil Bargatze episode. I had no idea who he was”And you still don’t.
Maybe it’s just makeup or lighting or something, but does Chloe’s face look different?It’s like she’s getting thinner, but she doesn’t look thinner than usual.
It’s definitely extreme weight loss. She looks like an elf now. Her legs turned into toothpicks over the summer.
O-o-o-ozempic!
I don’t know, I thought it was a terrible episode, though Adam Driver has had some really amazing sketches on previous appearances, like Career Day and Undercover Boss, that a mediocre episode with him feels like it’s almost criminal. Like, how dare the writers not come up with really incredible sketches for him to do, instead of just scrounging up some old generic sketches from the bottom of the drawer and giving him a role.It feels like a waste to have Emma Stone and Adam Driver back-to-back. It’s a special thing to have a host that can carry sketches, a host that can be the crazy centerpiece character, that they used up most of the backlog of weird ones for hosts, so instead of doing crazy stuff like a Phil Spector thing for Make Your Own Kind of Music, they had to give him beep-beep sketches that any Travis Kelce or Jack Harlow could do.
Totally agree with you! And the writing was excellent! That helps…..
I was a little bit sad they didn’t take the chance with Driver there to do another Kylo Ren sketch but I suppose now with the sequel trilogy wrapped (and the overwhelmingly negative response to Episode 9) it’d be hard to make it work. Plus that bit did have diminishing returns so maybe it’s for the best.
I like Adam Driver and generally like SNL, so I thought this was a pretty good episode. The baby sketch in particular hit me in a whole new way now that I have kids of my own. The “Beep Beep” sketch even got some laughs too due to Driver’s intensity, though the “this is a duel to the death!” stuff from the other guys was unnecessary.
Sadly, the cold open was a gigantic misfire. It was not funny and SNL, this season in particular, seems to be doing a lot of “both sides”-ing things in a way that reallllllly feels like pandering to the like 3 people in the world who enjoy SNL and also vote consistently conservative. Academics are occasionally over the top with their left leanings? You don’t say! It was worse during Weekend Update. Biden can’t finish sentences? Holy fuck that seems pretty trivial. I doubt Biden is any Dem’s favorite president, but given the active push on the right towards fascism, maybe read the room a bit.Finally, I get the impression someone in the writers room really likes Chloe Troast (or she does her own writing) because she has had more screen time already in her rookie season than anyone in recent memory save for James Austin Johnson. It feels like she’s been in more sketches than Marcello Hernandez, Molly Kearny, Michael Longfellow and Devon Walker were in their first season combined. Not that it’s bad – she is a fine performer and can clearly hang. But SNL always gives off a vibe that the new people better be a hit out of the box (JAJ’s Trump impression) or they need to pay their dues toiling as extras or 10 to 1 stuff, and she seems to have skipped that.
One of the only opening monologues to ever elicit laughter from me. Funny but also casually scary. It makes me wonder if they chose the wrong guy for this Wonka prequel.
one thing i noticed is that adam driver actually gets into character. little things the chocolatier did that would normally just have been someone reading coldly off of cue cards. he really got into that baby character, too. most people would just play it normal, but he seemed to give the baby a confused cranky old man but still a baby persona. its like he actually put time and thought into how he would play the characters. you dont really see that from the guest hosts.
If this episode ended up being Olivia Rodrigo’s precursor to an upcoming host+musical guest double billing, then I was all for it.
The “Beep Beep” sketch was the funniest sketch of the night for me. Driver and Dismukes were perfect. Dismukes is quickly becoming a favorite cast member of mine; kinda reminds me of Beck Bennett with the types of characters he plays and some of his line deliveries.