Megan Thee Stallion makes for a Hot Girl SNL
As Saturday Night Live's host and musical guest, Megan Thee Stallion shows she can do it all
TV Reviews Megan Thee Stallion
Few talents in recent memory have had the reach and impact of Megan Thee Stallion over the collective cultural landscape. It’s why she is one of the rare celebrities and personalities who can successfully serve as both host and musical guest on Saturday Night Live. Not to mention, she delivered a terrific album in August this year with Traumazine.
Talented with an infectious natural charm and charisma, she is the perfect host to bring eyes back to SNL. Her hosting duties already earned headlines when it was revealed that her LA home was robbed while she was preparing this week, and she’s already announced that she will take a much-deserved break from the spotlight following her hosting duties. Let’s get to the best (and most meh) of this week’s episode.
Best sketch of the night
SNL is at its best when it understands the host and can create content suited to their skills and unique persona. That understanding was best captured in “Hot Girl Hospital,” combining Megan Thee Stallion’s nursing degree and her hot girl brand. Joined by Punkie Johnson and Ego Nwodim, Megan Thee Stallion’s hospital dedicated to “bad bitches” was a sketch that could only really be done with her as host. The New York Times quote, “Somehow empowering and regressive at the same time,” was the perfect summation of a tongue-in-cheek sketch.
Most relatable sketch
“We Got Brought” was one of those universal SNL sketches that captures the anxieties of social gatherings. With Bowen Yang, Nwodim, and Megan Thee Stallion as the plus-ones of a trio of old friends, forced conversations and awkward silences created perfectly calibrated cringe comedy. Structuring the sketch as a music video was perfect for Megan Thee Stallion. The peak of the sketch was really her forceful exit line about going to the bathroom to escape those two strangers.
Most emotional moment
You don’t expect too many serious moments during SNL. However, during her performance of “Anxiety,” Megan Thee Stallion seemed overcome with emotion. The performance was simple with a strong point of view, but her visible emotion reflected the authenticity that she exudes that has earned her such a wide and devoted fanbase. It’s worth pressing play.
Worst technical direction
The premise of “Workout Class” is promising. Channeling Megan Thee Stallion’s uniquely confident “hottie” energy into an exercise instructor in contrast to Heidi Gardner and Chloe Fineman as assistant instructors focused on maintaining a flat butt works well in theory. It was strange technical decisions and hiccups that hindered the sketch. The awkward transitions between shots only seemed to highlight the odd blocking of the scene. There were three focal points throughout the scene that felt oddly siphoned off from one another. Both Megan and Yang seemed to be breaking during the scene, which can always be amusing on SNL, but the confusing geography of the scene created a disconnect.
MVP of the week
While she has always been great on the show, Nwodim really got the chance to shine in this episode. She was great in everything and appeared in most sketches of the night. Her delivery of “they can” in “Girl Talk” was particularly hilarious, but it was “Classroom” that really showed off Nwodim’s unique talents. Riffing off films like Dangerous Minds or Freedom Writers, Nwodim comes in as a substitute teacher with mistaken assumptions and expectations. The way that she attempts to save face as the fool in the sketch is precision comedy.
Stray observations
- The cold open felt really stale. It would be great if they went wilder with the political comedy. It always feels like they are a little too tied to the reality of the situation.
- Would have been great if Cecily Strong had been available for the Hocus Pocus mom segment. That feels like her wheelhouse.
- The Dunder Mifflin sweatshirt was the highlight of “Women’s Charity.”
- “Deer” was one of those SNL sketches that eventually wins you over with its stupidity.
84 Comments
This episode was distinctly meh. That’s not the host’s fault. They were fine. They’re not an actor or comedian so were just treading water and that’s ok. The sketches were mainly just bland fluff. I think you’re heaping on a lil too much praise here.And though there were major tech problems during the booty workout sketch, it was still a terrible sketch. Trying to blame the wonky camera is ridiculous.Best sketch was the 10 to 1 “I’m gonna reach these struggling schoolkids” bit.Btw, if you reuse templates to produce these articles quickly, you should really look them over. Hot girl hospital wasn’t a branded/sponsored sketch but you have left the “best BRANDED sketch” header.
Meghans degree isn’t nursing, it’s medical admin I believe. This episode was meh. 2nd half was better. Ego was the best here imo.
The episode was fucking dreadful. If not for Weekend Update and whatever roles Sarah Sherman has, this show would be a complete waste of time.
Thank you! Having watched that lazily written, unfunny WB level garbage last night, I was wondering if AV Club would have the courage to call it out. To see it praised is absolutely amazing. It was a low water mark for the show and easily one of the poorest installments ever broadcast.
It’s a weird review. Also very short. It heaped mostly praise and then gave the episode a C+? I dunno, I think I’m done reading these. The coverage has been erratic at best since the new writer took over.
Usually these reviews are fucking exhaustingly long. It is kinda suspicious how short this one is.
Yeah, that cannot possibly be the best sketch. It was frankly dreadful.
Agreed. I felt the same way. Heaps of praise followed by a middling grade. Critiquing a live show as if it was a sitcom has always felt odd. Every week is a dress rehearsal – SNL has always worked just as often as it hasn’t. I’ve been OK with this fact since 1975.
C+ isn’t exactly high praise. Writer does seems strangely afraid to criticize despite their below average score. Glad they at least kept this recap under their usual 10000 word count.
av club is run by jez and root writers at this point. a morbidly obese black women could take a a shit on live tv and it would be all banners here.
Yaaaaas queen!!
It was like when they have an athlete and have to write around the athlete’s persona. I thought the workout sketch and the last one were funny, it’s probably not a coincidence Megan wasn’t the focus in them. I like Chloe but having her paired with Heidi in two sketches in a row really showed Heidi blowing her out of the water.
Chloe only tries when she’s the sole focus.
Yeah it was clear that MTS is not an actor. She has an act, but it’s a very specific thing she does and they didn’t have her venture out of it. Seems like she would have been better as the musical act that maybe cameos on a sketch with another actor doing the hosting role. She wasn’t the worst at it and she looked like she was having fun. So who am I to complain. This may have been the best SNL this season but that’s not a very high bar.
Not sure about that – Chloe on Weekend Update possessed by a demon was inspired.
Writer is obviously a huge Stallion fan, and she was okay, but the material and timing of most of the skits was pretty bad. Even Update was only good for a couple of chuckles.
It really was. I think the premiere got a D+, which I and many others said was too low. And this episode is an example of why you have to save those kinds of grades for messes like this. I thought Megan actually did a fine job as a host, but the material just wasn’t there. Much of it was just plain bad.
Yeah this show felt like concepts that never went anywhere. Megan was game, but the material just wasn’t good.
This whole season is gunna be rough. What they really need is a strong alumni host or experienced returning host to give the show a shot in the arm.
Megan was fine—I agree. But it was indeed dreadful. We got brought was amusing (and sure, “relatable”,) and the deer sketch was so stupid that I genuinely laughed, and the Dangerous Minds riff… amusing. But that was it. The Hot Girl Nurses or whatever sketch was particularly dire (but it’s a fave here?) and not only was the blocking, as called out here, for the fitness sketch weird, but obviously something was off with the cameras–going to the wrong one at the wrong time. A friend of mine said it was the worst SNL in a long time, which is a strong statement considering but… he might be right.
I agree but also liked the classroom sketch. I thought it did a decent job of subverting the expectations.
Yeah it wasn’t bad. I laughed a bit at that, but not because of anything Megan did. She’s young and popular, so I really hope that’s the last time she’s ever invited to do this show again.
I would agree more if I had not muttered “It’s an AP English class” halfway through the setup.
haha, same. You could write the rest of the sketch about 15 seconds into it.
I would agree more if I had not muttered “It’s an AP English class” halfway through the setup.
I’m pretty sure that the reason why this horrible episode got such a high grade (and a flattering lede) is because nu-AV Club would probably be in hot water if they dared to throw any criticism Megan Thee Stallion’s way.
This is 100% correct.
I thought Kate McKinnon was great playing male politicians, but Sarah Sherman’s Chuck Schumer was HILARIOUS. She’s the breakout of the “new” group for me….
I watched half an hour of this ep—I really do like Megan thee Stallion—and as I turned it off even before Update, I wondered how the AV Club will try to spin this to say it was a great up, because that’s what they do now: they grade it on how much they liked the host going into the show. Because this ep was the WORST I’ve seen in a long time. If ANY recap ever deserved the AV Club boilerplate “A game/talented so-and-so can’t elevate a middling SNL…” it was certainly this one. It wasn’t Megan’s fault. The writing in general and the writing for her specifically was awful. From the first seconds of the cold open, it was dreadful. I don’t even hate the nearly mandatory political sketches as cold opens, but this was just baaaaad and it just dragged on and on.
The opening sketch was pretty pointless, agreed. (Slightly comic twists on what are legitimately troubling events just desensitizes people, and is dangerous. But I digress…)Sarah Sherman’s Chuck Schumer was pretty good and was about the best part of that sketch.
Thank you! I tuned out after Weekend Update. It’s to the point where I’ll just wait until the next day to watch it on YouTube.
Psst…that really wasn’t very good if you give it a C+ after all those praises, is it?
When the musical performances are the best part we got problems. Major problems.
My highlight of the night was seeing a lady taking Megan by the hand at the end of the hospital sketch and leading her off-stage to prepare for the next sketch. It was the only time in the show where it felt like there was some direction involved.
Yeah, that is like a look at the machine behind the scenes, I like it when they let those bits go over the air.
I could not for the life of me understand what the hell Megan was saying for most of her sketches. Yeah, I already had subtitles turned on, and as always, they sucked with their word salad.
I agree. I don’t know if it was all the slang, Megan being a fast taker or the infamous SNL sound difficulties but I couldn’t hear half the dialogue. I don’t think I missed much, though
It wasn’t the slang, she was just talking too fast. Especially during the monologue
This was particularly true in the nurses sketch.
For sure – she seems to sort of swallow the ends of sentences, which unfortunately is where the punchlines are. “Good luck to that baby, his daddy is wearing Allbirds” was a decent burn but I just barely caught it.
Indeed. I could understand her much easier when she was singing. My girl needs some speech therapy (which is nothing to be ashamed of, even for a performer).
You should learn American Sign Language. At least I’m assuming that’s what she was keeping her hands busy with.
Maybe check that data box for accuracy…?
Seriously, they need maybe 5 of them per day, and it looks like they’ve outsourced it to some script that tries to guess the right data feed by machine learning. Just type out the names yourselves, for God’s sake.
Nwodim totally crushed the Girl Talk and classroom sketches – she’s fast becoming the MVP. “We Got Brought” and Please Don’t Destroy ended up being pretty funny. The deer puppet was adorable. Weekend Update was much better than usual – Chloe and Heidi the new Aidy and Kate?Good episode.
The best pieces were the filmed segments and Weekend Update (at times), Megan was fine and funny, but overall it was just an absolute mess including the direction (see workout sketch).
She is always FIIIIINNNNNEEEE! 🙂
Nah. meh.
She’s fat and ugly. She wears a ton of makeup and writes filthy lyrics about sex. But she’s still fat and ugly.
Whether you deem someone is ugly is personal taste but I’m not sure what world you live in where Meghan the Stallion is fat.
I wanted to enjoy it because MTS seems fun but she was out of her depth. I found her delivery was rushed and she had a number of physical tics that were distracting. Good energy, though Cold open was laugh-free.I’m usually a defender of SNL but the show is slowly losing me.
Every show I get more and more convinced that the only thing that can save Saturday Night Live is for Lorne Michaels to be completely out as producer. And by that I mean his replacement has a free hand to make whatever changes he or she deems necessary without Michaels being able to veto them.
Because his decisions are just comedy poison. There is now an entire show whose title is an absolutely terrible judgment call that Lorne Michaels made, for fuck’s sake.
People here might respond that it’s easy to criticize. And I would say to that: yes, it is easy to criticize because the show is uniformly terrible. Jost and Che, who would be relatively unremarkable in other SNL eras, seem to shine like diamonds compared to everything else. Please Don’t Destroy’s movie might end up being great, but they are lackluster in the show.So now the show is reduced to killing time by giving the new cast members a couple minutes each to recycle their standup bits on Weekend Update. Don’t get me wrong, that’s better than the alternative, which would be the generally unfunny sketches. Michael Longfellow’s bit was pretty damn good; Marcello Hernandez’s was refreshing; and Devon Walker’s this week had that actually funny unscripted moment where he threw to the audience. If the pattern holds, and I’m pretty sure it will, we’ll see Molly Kearney’s routine, which I expect to be their A material, which I imagine is solid.
But for now the only sustained entertainment the show will provide will be predicting who’ll be funny when they’re out from under Lorne Michael’s thumb.
When Lorne Michaels should’ve been let go was in 2016 when he had then-candidate and fellow club denizen Donald Trump on the show. He ORDERED his cast and crew to not make fun of Trump. But then NBC was aleady in the bag for Trump with’’The Apprentice’’ and helped make him popular amongst many people outside of the NYC area that did not know him. Michaels is just as responsible as many Republicans for normalising Trump
Perhaps I’m out of the loop, but what do you mean by the title of the show being a bad call by Lorne? Are you referring to SNL?
The Netflix show I Think You Should Leave is allegedly what Lorne Michaels said to Tim Robinson to let him know that he wasn’t going to get a second season.And the rest is history: I Think You Should Leave proved that Tim Robinson is a comic genius and Lorne Michaels has no idea what to do with talents like his.
Thank you for explaining and that is just fucking hilarious. Good for Tim, bad for SNL.
I did not know that. Thanks. And it is not surprising that “I Think You Should Leave” was Lorne’s parting speech. Robinson (and Richardson) were brilliant on Detroiters (RIP) but ITYSL is next level side-splitting. Like Mr. Show-level.
Always thought the meaning was “I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson”. Now it has 2 meanings!
That made no sense to me either.
Yeah for all the scorn in last season’s reviews I thought it was pretty damn funny. No single episode is great top to bottom (that’s why reruns are often an hour instead of 90 minutes – they cut the worst) but I felt like most had several skits that made me laugh pretty hard, plus Colin and Che are indeed great together.
I think someone wrote “Workout Class” just to feature Meg’s twerking skills, which are prodigious.. It was dumb: yes, flat butts are the opposite of large bottoms. Haha, Just give her the stage and let her twerk; no story necessary.
praying for a lorne stroke at this point
“strange technical decisions and hiccups”CASTThe Saturday Night Live BandThemselvesDon PardoSelf – AnnouncerDarrell HammondVariousLenny PickettSelf – BandleaderKenan ThompsonVariousSeth MeyersWeekend Update Anchor
Saw Terrifier 2 last night I’m going to assume SNL was not as good as a 2 1/2 hour killer clown movie. I’m a little disappointed no one fainted or vomited during our screening. I assume the same wasn’t true with SNL.
What an amazing acting range MTS had, playing Sassy Black Lady and… actually, that’s it.
YES!!! Ugggh, I OD’d on Sassy Black Lady. Enough already!! Annoying does not equal funny!
Dog shit
You got a dog shit notification for this?
I try to see the positives and take the hosts as they come but she was underwhelming in almost everything. Also, all the loud “WOOO”ing from the crowd for no particular reason made me think about how much they weren’t laughing. You can’t genuinely laugh and WOO at the same time. She should have stayed in her lane as a music act who tucked into a couple of sketches. One happy observation is: Glad to see the background peeps from previous years get pushed to the front so far this year.
Gonna be a lot of dumping on MTS (with some justification), but man, some of the new cast is just dire. Michael Longfellow in particular is so far out of his depth that I wonder how he ever got the gig in the first place. And look, I’m all for representation, but Molly Kearney’s act is probably only going to look good if they get a chance to do a Weekend Update spot. Their acting has reminded me uncomfortably of someone doing a discount Chris Farley impression.
I got a Bonanas for Bonanza notification for this?
WOW lotta photoshop in that photo. Girl is fat. Why you take that out?
Were the Please Don’t Destroy guys popular before this show, or was it just a ad-hoc nepotism thing? Because they are so bad.Maybe this season’s just a reversion to the mean, quality-wise? The past seasons have actually been pretty good … this one’s real rocky.
Agree 100% on PDD. I still don’t understand why (if?) they are considered funny.
Are you serious?This was one of the worst episodes I’ve ever seen. Note to writers…saying “bitch” over and over again isn’t funny.
Why did the photoshop her body so thin in that image in the header?
And why does her shin look so much longer than her torso?
I am normally all for hosts brining a lot of energy and MTS was pretty good in that regard. But for whatever reason, this episode seemed like a misfire. She seemed super anxious to start the show (lots of fast talking and hand-waving with the nails, as well as ducking behind her hand to laugh) which she was endearing but somewhat distracting. It seems like there is a technical catastrophe at least once per episode the last couple years but the workout sketch went way beyond catastrophe. I was not the intended audience for Hot Girl Hospital (which is fine) so I probably missed a number of the jokes they were aiming for. I know SNL has a tendency to beat a single joke to death over a 4 minute sketch and I Got Brought did that for me (though Yang repeating “that’s crazy” rang true). Not a ton of laughs in the other sketches either and even the new cast member standup bit during WU largely missed for me. I hope they give MTS another go because she did seem charismatic and fairly game. But that episode in particular did not work. That said, two positives: Ego Nwodim has been consistently pretty great and I did not miss Mikey Day being largely absent from the episode.
Yeah, the hand-waving with the nails was really annoying.
All the episodes this season have been dreadful. Bad writing and just not funny. It’s like they’ve given up.
Somehow empowering and regressive at the same timeThat’s basically the brand for all mainstream female rappers, isn’t it?
I’m an SnL apologist and even I thought that was terrible
I freaking loved this episode, front to back, except the cold open bored the hell out of me. I don’t know if this is a gender thing or a race thing or a queer thing. Heading to Paste now to see what DP thinks
Agree on the cold open.Their political cold opens have been almost universally awful, both this season and last. I’d say they must’ve lost all their decent political writers, but then during Weekend Update, those political jokes are usually not that bad. It’s possible they only have the capacity for one-liners when it comes to politics and have lost the ability to satirize in long form. I’m pretty sick of the guy who does Trump. It’s not enough to be able to sound like him. You have to also do the look and, I dunno, write some jokes, maybe? Hell, they didn’t even bother with the orange makeup in this episode. Lazy.
I have to disagree. The guy who does Trump is a genius with it. His voice makes me overlook the non-resemblance. He totally nails it. I’d watch if the show was just him.