SNL Finale Highlights: Tina Fey Spoofs Mean Girls Musical, Royal Wedding
Despite a valiant effort from returning host Tina Fey, Saturday Night Live‘s 43rd season went out with (mostly) a whimper.
Following a lackluster (and dated!) Sopranos-themed cold open, SNL rebounded with Fey’s star-studded monologue, which featured cameos by Jerry Seinfeld, Robert De Niro, Anne Hathaway, Donald Glover, Chris Rock, Benedict Cumberbatch, Fred Armisen and Tracy Morgan. The sharp, resonant bit poked fun at the show’s preference for using big-name guest stars instead of its own cast members.
Weirdly, the underwhelming episode picked up steam in the last half-hour…
BEST: SARAH PALIN ADVICE
Fey reprised her role as the former VP candidate, and was joined by current and former Trump staffers, including John Goodman’s Rex Tillerson, Fred Armisen’s Michael Wolff, Leslie Jones’ Omarosa and Kate McKinnon’s Kellyanne Conway. Together, they sang “What I Did for Trump,” a humorous sendup of A Chorus Line‘s “What I Did for Love.” But funniest of all was Aidy Bryant’s Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who likened her White House tenure to “Saved by the Bell: The New Class, and I’m Screech, still there for some reason.”
BEST: CHICAGO IMPROV
The 12:55 am sketch introduced the latest offshoot of the #OneChicago franchise: a drama centered on an improv group in “America’s number three comedy market.” The pull quotes got funnier as the skit went on, with The Wall Street Journal asking, “Did Dick Wolf lose a bet?” and Improv Magazine lamenting that show featured “too much improv.”
HONORABLE MENTION: SOPRANOS COLD OPEN
Anyone who’s seen the iconic finale knew exactly how this occasionally amusing sketch was going to play out, right up to Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin'” abruptly cutting out and the scene going dark. It’ll be interesting to see just how many of these characters — including Ben Stiller’s Michael Cohen — are still “employed” when SNL returns this fall.
HONORABLE MENTION: ROYAL WEDDING
Mikey Day’s Prince Harry introduced viewers to some of the reception’s most notable attendees… and then the rando table, which included Heidi Gardner as a former briefcase girl who worked with Meghan Markle on Deal or No Deal, as well as Fey’s Aunty Creepy, described as “a monster and a bit of a pedophile.”
HONORABLE MENTION: MEAN GIRLS
The most amusing part was Lin-Manuel Miranda putting Fey in his burn book after she suggested he throws himself into his musicals, for better or worse.
WORST: PERVERT HUNTERS
Why SNL would do a To Catch a Predator spoof more than 10 years after the show departed NBC’s lineup is anybody’s guess.
What were your favorite sketches this week? And what missed the mark? Grade the finale via the following poll, then hit the comments to flesh out your thoughts.
Why was Aidy Bryant dressed up like Gene Simmons at the very end of WU?
Then she showed up again at the closing?
It’s not Gene Simmons. She was spoofing the woman the Internet has nicknamed “Becky” who called police on an African-American family who was having a picnic and barbecuing at a park in Oakland, CA.
Aaahhh….thx! ;-)
SNL and Hollywood generally have the same problem facing the nation as a whole: too many ambitious people competing for the same limited amount of screen time, elected positions, jobs. The current cast members will never get a chance if the former cast members and other older actors don’t find other work or retire. Same with young political leaders and young business people.
So you’re advocating for forced retirement?
Good luck with that.
I went to bed after the first Nicki performance. Seems like I missed the best sketches. Although the honorable mentions to the cold open, I disagree with. It was awkward and they didn’t know how to work in the love from ny it’s saturday night. Also, the royal wedding only got mildly entertaining when they went into the second room
Yea, Nicki was really bad —
Very impressed with the costume department for getting those royal wedding outfits put together in a few hours.
As a fan of the Mean Girls musical, I was thrilled to not only see it as the subject of a sketch but with the actual Broadway cast, no less. I rewatched it a few times looking for all of the familiar faces.
I turned it off after Weekend Update which was uncharacteristically bad. I was expecting a great season finale, but the first hour was mediocre at best. The pacing of the cold open was strange (and I understood the Sopranos connection), the monologue wasn’t funny (ironically it was true about unnecessary cameos which was the unfunny point), and the first few sketches were cringeworthy. Tina Fey was a bit player in most of the sketches except for the terrible Predators skit. I’ll watch the last half hour on DVR because apparently it was better than the first 60 minutes, but I may not be tuning in next season when it returns. This season was really uneven which is a surprise after last year’s Emmy winning season.
Love her! She was amazing
I mean there’s no way Alex Moffat and Mikey Day won’t graduate into the regular cast, will they? They were so prominently figured in almost every sketch of the season finale.
I was shocked that they weren’t promoted already since Kate McKinnon is probably the only cast member who gets more sketches.
I’m a fan of both Nicki & Cardi B. But Damn Nicki’s performance was BAD! I thought she was going to kill it since this is like her “Comeback”. So I guess when it comes to the so called beef btw the 2 Cardi’s SNL performance was better.
Overall the finale was alright.
I thought the Sopranos-inspired cold open was pretty good, although it didn’t inspire me to laugh. I did nod in amused recognition, though. I thought the predator sketch was funny, and it was dated, considering Hansen vs. Predator is a segment on his current syndicated show, Crime Watch Daily. I could have used more Tina, but the show was pretty good from beginning to end. I also enjoyed Nicki’s first performance. If only she had “shown up” for her second one.
sorry…WASN’t dated, the predator sketch.
Funny to me how a reference to The Sopranos is dated, but a reference to “A Chorus Line” is not.
I thought Pervert Hunters was really good. The Talent Show sketch was awful
Good season finale. I judge it by least amount of fast-forwarding. Good anti-Trump sketches, Kate McKinnon, Tina Fey, are all winners !!