October 24, 2020 – Adele / H.E.R. (S46 E4)

Cold Open – Final Presidential Debate

• At least this will be one of the last times I have to put up with Trumpwin & Carrey’s Biden.
• Yet another cameo from Maya this season while most of the cast are still in their dressing rooms & some random celebs take all the important roles. I went over why Lorne did that in my Burr review, so read it again if you don’t know the reason.
• The typical muggy, insufferable, self-indulgent line delivery and gestures from Trumpwin that put me to sleep each and every time.
• Double ugh at that The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly joke.
• Goodness. That Bingo joke was fucking horrible.
• Tonight’s open is dying a miserable death as Trumpwin is droning on and on and on and on…
• Not that this cold open hasn’t been providing zero laughs already, we now get Kate’s Rudy to “save” it for us.
• An awful, AWFUL moment with Kate’s Giuliani spoofing his Borat scene.
• Not caring for the end of this lame open, (*sigh*) just end this tripe already, I had my fill.
• In summary: oof! This open was straight up DISASTER! An overlong, laughless, aimless, rotgut, meandering open with half-assed performances & non-existent satire.
• This season is now 4-for-4 in terms of unwatchable cold opens. I cannot FATHOM how much SNL dropped the ball when it come to such a big election season, producing some of the most laugh-free opens in its recent history.

Rating: *

Monologue

• Right out of the gate, I’m loving Adele’s Cockney accent & smooth delivery.
• Unsurprisingly, Adele is coming off very likable and charismatic.
• Funny cutaway to Kenan’s near-full swear jar.
• As usual, Kenan is stealing this monologue with his trademark delivery & his story about meeting Adele backstage is pretty funny.
• Lovely & inspiring words from Adele at the end of her monologue.

Rating: ***1/2

Psychic Reading

• Here comes a major highlight from the first half of the season, and a highly-regarded sketch in general.
• Right out of the gate, I’m getting big laughs from Kate’s character entrance and antics.
• A great reveal of this sketch being set before the pandemic.
• Hilarious vision of Heidi’s boyfriend washing a bag of Doritos.
• You could Tell that Adele’s trying hard not to break into giggles in response to Kate’s hilarious antics.
• I’m telling you all, as much as Kate annoys me sometimes in the 2nd half of her tenure, she’s one of the very few SNL cast members that regularly causes the host and cast to break HARD due to how over-the-top her commitment is. It reminds of how many hosts & fellow cast member that Will Ferrell caused to break back in his days in the cast.
• Kate’s description of the dad’s “His weiner is out on the Zoom” is particularly hilarious & it still made me laugh out loud despite watching this sketch several times before.
• A great ending.

Rating: ****1/2

The Haunted Manor

• Meh, a Chad sketch. Although, I do recall this one being the best of the bunch by default.
• Great cinematography as usual in the shorts of this current SNL era.
• Adele’s look as the ghost is very convincing & her subtle demeanor enhances her performance & the material further.
• Adele’s growing frustration towards Pete is sold very well, I’m being really impressed by her so far into this episode, as I’ve never been a regular listener of her music.
• A great delivery from Adele, helped further by her naturally-strong Cockney accent of her line “Oh, for (*bleep*)’s sake”.
• An actually pretty solid short for Chad’s standards, helped further by Adele’s strong & funny performance. Yet, I do recall the one from the Elon Musk (*shudder*) episode to be an absolute DEATH OF COMEDY. But, we’ll get into that upon review soon enough.

Rating: ***1/2

The Bachelor

• A somewhat flimsy premise, but I’ll keep an open mind.
• Chloe is very funny in her part here, and continues her low-key strong season.
• (*sigh*) Lauren in thankless role #363.
• Beck’s reactions are pretty funny.
• It’s quite heartwarming to see the audience (who’s been very lively tonight), join Adele as she sings “Rolling in the Deep”.
• Adele sounds as great live, by the way.
• Oh, yes! I LOVE the turn with Adele going into the audience to sing “Someone Like You”, this is absolutely great to witness.
• A solid sketch overall, and once more tonight, Adele’s commitment & performance elevated the material further.

Rating: ***1/2

Trump Addicts of America

• Melissa looks very funny in that wig.
• An early example of how effortlessly funny Andrew’s delivery is, as he gave me a good laugh in his part here.
• Ah, Kenan’s energy & fun delivery here is so infectious and as usual makes his lines even funnier.
• An overall pretty good commercial with a solid satirical take (hear that open?).

Rating: ***1/2

Weekend Update

• Some very solid commentary on the presidential debate from Colin, making me wish the show knew how to write actual FUNNY satirical take on the debate instead of the laughless bottomless pit that I just suffered through.
• Here comes a notorious Melissa commentary, a one that would cause her to lash out at the audience’s dead response to her piece on her social media accounts, before deleting them after a major backlash.
• Melissa’s Weekend Updates are usually particularly very solid & memorable, often being major highlights of whole seasons, like Kid Genius, White Male Rage, Lady Gaga, Law & Order Teen Murder Suspect, etc. But, this one is NOT one of those.
• The two biggest problems with this commentary are: The incoherent structure & the very outdated pop culture references, which instead of having the audience on Melissa’s side, it alienates them even further.
• NOT caring for The Legend of Zelda bit, and it deservedly died a horrible death with the audience.
• This is the first time ever that I sit through a Melissa commentary without one single chuckle or even a laugh.
• I’m not caring at all with her various vocal impressions, this bit is not working as well as it should, and it’s absolutely bombing with the audience.
• Overall, a rare flop for the usually-strong Melissa Villaseñor. Knowing her upcoming memorable commentary & her decent Home Alone sketch, I’ll consider this a very rare misfire from her, she’s certainly FAR more consistent than the show’s designated female forever stars.
• Sadly, knowing how the 2nd half of the season will go for Melissa, she’ll be even more underused and neglected than EVER. Getting measly one or two sketch appearances as a dull, non-comedic character, getting shut out of entire episodes for our umpteenth Kaidy or Cecily vanity pieces, seeing Chloe FAR outshining her in the strong 2nd half that she’ll have. All of that makes me wonder two things: How in the world didn’t the aforementioned fantastic, viral commentaries garner far more screen time for Melissa? And why in the world is SNL still keeping Melissa while disrespecting her and underusing her this much?
• The usual funny “seen here” joke from Colin & Michael.
• Pretty funny dig at Michael from Colin just now.
• Here comes the memorable The Village People commentary.
• Kenan’s absolutely perfect as the lead singer, and his energy is carrying this through.
• I’m quite visually pleased with Beck’s look & pelvic thrusts throughout this segment, and I thought of him initially as Alex at first, till Alex came out as Dershowitz and I was confused as hell then.
• Did not need Colin reacting to the lyrics every two seconds, I did get my laughs the first time, thank you very much.
• An overall yet another solid Weekend Update this season, aside from Melissa’s subpar commentary. We got a fun and very memorable The Village People commentary, lots of solid jokes & commentary from Colin and Michael, nothing much to complain about.

Rating: ****

Visiting Grandma

• Oh no, dear god please no.
• Seeing Maya in that old lady makeup, and that throaty annoying voice that she always used since her days on the cast makes me ALREADY weary of this sketch’s direction.
• Yeah, I’m two minutes or so into this, and it’s downright unwatchable. This sketch is just a bunch of hacky & lame old people jokes.
• How many times am I supposed to be laughing at Maya’s character not being able to hear Adele & her friends?
• Maya’s VERY slow delivery & frequent pauses for comedic effect are PURE COMEDY DEATH. Ugh! Just end this sketch already SNL!
• (*sigh*) Next please.

Rating: *

Tourism Board of Africa

• Uh-oh, seeing Kate front-and-center of this sketch is giving me a bad feeling, and knowing the episode, I ain’t wrong.
• (*sigh*) The usual Anna Drezen & Allison Gates densely-worded and rambling dialogue that gets little-to-no-laughs from me and puts me regualry to sleep.
• Ok, I’m about a minute into this and I’m ALREADY bored to death by the sketch & zoning the FUCK out of it.
• Kate’s mugging & her frequent looks to the camera causes Adele to break HARD. Is she breaking in order to “save” this sketch?
• Meh, this D.O.A sketch is seemingly getting worse and worse as it goes along, it’s becoming BRUTAL to sit through.
• Mercifully, this is over. And to know that as bad as this sketch was, it’s not even the worst Kate sketch of the season (hint: Wedding Friends) makes me shudder even more.

Rating: *

Ass Angel Perfumed Jeans

• A priceless premise.
• Why in a season with a bloated, underused, and misused cast is freaking Maya Rudolph dominating??!!
• As usual with commercials from this era, the visual style of this piece is on-point in terms of replicating the style of commercials about jeans and other forms of clothing.
• Beck’s stealing this commercial with his bad singing.
• The visual of the jeans bleaching the bar stool is freaking priceless, and it was stuck in my head since I first saw this piece for days.
• Great commercial overall.

Rating: ****

Segments Ranked From Best to Worst

Psychic Reading

Ass Angel Perfumed Jeans

Weekend Update

The Bachelor

Monologue

The Haunted Manor

Trump Addicts of America

Tourism Board of Africa

Visiting Grandma

The Presidential Debate

Final Thoughts:-

• An overall slightly below average episode from this season & our first one that I didn’t care for that much since the horrible premiere, even when it’s NOWHERE near as bad as that notorious episode.
• This episode started, aside from the usual shithole open, absolutely fine with a solid monologue and a fantastic lead-off sketch, and seemingly got better and better as it went along. Yet, rather reminiscent of the Jonathan Majors episode from the current season, suddenly crashed-and-burned HARD post-Update with two downright unwatchable sketches, before having a nice upswing in quality with the memorable fake ad that closed the night.
• Adele was a solid host tonight, coming off charming, fun, game, and energetic in her performances, aside from her heavy breaking in that horrid ad sketch, elevating several segments by her full commitment and energy. The crowd tonight also helped give this episode a nice feeling.

Up Next:-

• Our annual Mulaney episode with The Strokes as out musical guest.