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Look. I’ve been pooh-poohing this season of Saturday Night Live, and some of you who haven’t been avid readers don’t know how deep I’ve rolled with some of the performers and writers on the show, so you might not know how long or how hard I’ve rooted for them, so any frustrations I have with the current product really is aimed more at production decisions and the working environment that all-too-often tends to tamper the creative potential of the creative talent working on the show. So let me just say once more: Sarah Sherman is brilliant any time she gets the chance to shine. The “Please Don’t Destroy” trio provide a distinct point of view that frankly, too much of the rest of the show is lacking. Kenan Thompson and Cecily Strong can make any bad sketch seem not so bad. James Austin Johnson is impersonating two presidents at the same time!?! Let the other cast members assert themselves! Stop forcing them into sketches that feel focus-grouped for the lowest sense of humor denominator. Please. This week would be great! Thanks. Now back to our regularly scheduled recap…
What’s The Deal For The SNL Cold Open For Last Night (11/05/22)?
Speaking of JAJ’s presidential medal of comedy honor, he opened this week’s episode as President Joe Biden, preemptively offering a “big yikes!” assessment of the Democrat’s chances on Election Day, despite all of the good things Biden and the Democrats have accomplished in the past two years. I’m not sure anyone should follow his advice to “Google ‘young Joe Biden,’ and start a bubble bath,” nor is it necessary wise for the Dems to begin recruiting celebrity candidates to counteract the infamous lot running on the GOP ticket. But the premise allows for a cattle call of several cast member impersonations: Chloe Fineman as Marianne Williamson, Molly Kearney as Guy Fieri, Marcello Hernandez as 6ix9ine, Cecily Strong as Stormy Daniels (in a twist, with Biden offering her up as an alternative to Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, also portrayed by Strong), Ego Nwodim as Azealia Banks and Kenan Thompson as Tracy Morgan. Kenan’s line reading just before the “Live from New York…” cue broke both Kenan and Cecily, but that was perhaps the biggest laugh of the cold open.
How Did The SNL Guest Host Amy Schumer Do?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elNbcTIWTLY
Amy Schumer has hosted before, but now she’s back to remind us of her sketch acting chops, which also are on display over on Paramount+ with a new season of Inside Amy Schumer (she also mentioned her Hulu series Life & Beth). For her monologue, she dug deep into her past stand-up catalog to update a bit from when she was single, now referencing her husband in wanting to turn the lights on during sex. Also: Is this the first time “when can I get raw dogged from behind?” was said on network TV? Anyhow. Schumer also joked about her pregnancy and her marriage, particularly having a husband with Asperger syndrome, complete with a plot twist zinger comparing the actual Dr. Asperger to Kanye West.
As for Schumer’s performance in the sketches, she was front and center in most everything aside from the cold open, Weekend Update, and one short ad spoof.
The first post-monologue sketch found Amy wondering when her friend (Heidi Gardner) would quit talking about her marital problems so she could enjoy her matzo ball soup, which isn’t much to hang a sketch on, so cue an onscreen bubble where Kenan can sing Amy’s real-time inner monologue!
When YouTube has to slap an informational warning, then perhaps your ad spoof about COVID may have missed the mark? A fake pharma ad suggesting you get COVID to get out of work or family obligations is a bit of a stretch, and then some, considering more than a million American deaths and countless patients suffering from long-term medical complications, but I guess we’re gonna pretend the pandemic is fun now? What’s weird is they did have a better, funnier idea tucked inside the short, where instead of actually getting sick, the customers instead could order an “Always Positive” COVID test. Why not start from that premise instead?!
Much better, if also more ridiculous, was this live courtroom sketch in which Amy, Sarah and Bowen Yang played jurors who keep reacting vocally and viscerally to the prosecutor’s (Heidi’s) revelations. The heightening is stupid and nonsensical, and yet it mostly works thanks to the commitment by the cast with an assist from Kenan as the judge.
This live inaugural Twitter “Content Moderation Council” meeting, on the other hand, suffers from inconsistent performances, or perhaps just poor writing. As the not-yet-laid-off Twitter employees, Chloe and Kenan don’t have much to do and don’t do much with that. As the banned accountholders showing up in person to make their cases (???), Cecily, Bowen, Amy and Punkie Johnson all give their appeals a go, but none of it pays off. I have to give an honorable mention, though, to JAJ, since he showed up in full Trump costume barely a half-hour after opening in full Biden makeup, which is something SNL hasn’t seen in 30 years since Dana Carvey could pull off both George H.W. Bush and Ross Perot!
I’m sure there’s an academic or pop psychologist who could twist their brains into a pretzel looking for deeper contextual meanings for his Jets fan tailgate sketch. But in the end, it’s just a group of fans (Amy, Cecily, Kenan and Andrew Dismukes) plus a cop (Mikey Day) who are mild-mannered but turn into deplorables whenever they see a fan from the other team.
This pre-taped ad spoof for Pinx period underwear features testimonials from Ego, Chloe and Amy (and voiceover from Cecily), with one catch. Turns out any dogs nearby will still smell the period blood on you. The twist gets heightened when Amy’s date takes her to the zoo. The kicker, voiced by producer Steve Higgins? “This is the best idea we got.”
The final half-hour post-Update is generally when the show’s allowed to go more off the rails, and this live sketch features newbie Michael Longfellow as a brand-new local TV reporter for WKTV, trying to file a report from a residential fire for anchors Ego and Heidi. He’s got his work cut out for him, thanks to the homeowner (Cecily) accusing her cousin (Amy) of setting the fire because she wants to get with Cecily’s husband (Bowen). They all have accents suggesting they’re small-town folk, and their neighbors seem even more unaccustomed to live TV, lining up for the chance to show off their unique talents on camera. This one could’ve afforded to go even more off the rails immediately.
And then there’s “Big Penis Therapy,” where Amy and Andrew are a married couple playing a game of Uno with Sarah and Ego. Turns out Andrew finally started going to therapy, but only because Amy tricked him into it by making him think it’s reserved for guys with big penises, which is also why he started attending Long Dong Church. Ego and Sarah remain incredulous. Again, this is a sketch that could’ve landed a whole lot harder if they rewrote it to go harder.
How Relevant Was The Musical Guest Steve Lacy?
Steve Lacy is one of them thar new TikTok music stars, and the first notes from his first song clued everyone into the sound that made him TikTok famous, “Bad Habit.” It’s still a banger.
Lacy’s second song, “Helmet,” reminded me of something out of The Beatles’ “Magical Mystery Tour,” and not just because they were decked out in matching costumes.
Which Sketch Will We Be Sharing: “The Looker”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8jsXHFkKw8
I must confess I have not yet watched Netflix hit, The Watcher, so I cannot tell you how accurately this short film parodies that series. I can say that “The Looker” reveals enough disturbing facts about what Amy’s character is doing when her husband (JAJ) and kids (Marcello and Chloe) are not around or awake, that it works comedically regardless of having seen said Netflix show.
Who Stopped By Weekend Update?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vO7UQ9DxWU
Cecily shows up as “Tammy the Trucker” who is definitely here to talk about gas process and not about abortion. Which makes this sort of a sequel to her shoulda-won-an-Emmy moment a year ago when she played Goober The Clown to reveal her own personal history with abortion. This time around, Cecily gets off a nice zinger at NBC’s expense, noting how much she’s talking about this issue on live TV, “or Peacock, whatever that counts as,” and implores people to “mother-trucking vote” because civil rights might actually disappear while gas prices aren’t so controlled by politics or courts.
Second week in a row with only one guest to the Update desk, which is slightly concerning. Both Cecily this week and Bobby Moynihan demonstrated just how much a cast member can give a jolt to the live TV proceedings thanks to their confidence and voice, and Update is precisely the place where more cast members can and should deliver their own best shots with the least amount of interference. Think of how much more you loved Bowen when he showed up at Update as the Titanic iceberg! Or so many past cast members as recurring characters on Update. More of these, please, and less of the meandering sketches.
What Sketch Filled The “10-to-1” Slot?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bvwKqSNAgk
At 12:57 a.m. Eastern, before the clocks turned back to Standard Time, we’ve got Chloe, Amy and Heidi as the type of white women who would wear a Big Dumb Hat. The kind of women who’d wind up with boyfriends who’ll eventually deliver the ultimatum: “It’s me or the hat.” No matter how silly Heidi’s hat swaps were so she could reach up for a Starbucks shot or a pizza slice, or even Amy’s hat reveal at the end, this was yet another example of a premise that could’ve landed a knockout punch to the target demo but wound up using kid gloves instead.
Who Was The Episode’s MVP?
So who does that leave for this week’s most valuable performer, then? Definitely another step forward in the development of Chloe Fineman and Heidi Gardner as leading ladies for this season, and last year’s super-rookies Sarah Sherman and James Austin Johnson continue to prove why they’re in it for the long run. But it’s the two longest-serving vets, Kenan Thompson and Cecily Strong, who provided support where this episode needed it most.
Next week, would you believe Lorne Michaels is going back to the Dave Chappelle well? Chappelle hosted the post-election Saturdays in both 2016 and 2020. He’ll be joined by musical guest Black Star (the duo of Talib Kweli and Yasiin Bey, who also join Chappelle as a trio for their podcast series, The Midnight Miracle).
Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat for his own digital newspaper, The Comic’s Comic; before that, for actual newspapers. Based in NYC but will travel anywhere for the scoop: Ice cream or news. He also tweets @thecomicscomic and podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.
