Cold Opening – Fox and Friends
- Great to see three professional, committed, and underrated performers lead the open.
- Good laugh from Mikey’s “fatality”.
- Kenan’s not even pretending to impersonate Justice Thomas.
- Kate’s giving me good laughs from her facial reactions, she’s just so good at getting laughs from me without much effort.
- Why is the audience applauding Cecily? I guess her Judge Jeanine Pirro impression is that popular.
- A solid laugh from Cecily’s Jeanine ”Twinkerbells”.
- I did not need to see JAJ’s Trump, it’s still dead-on and well-performed, but we’ve been seeing it too many times.
- James’s delivery & lines as Trump are still on-point and I’m getting some laughs here and there, yet it’s been there done that.
- Didn’t care for the Truth Social callback at the end.
- An alright open, very average, checklist, yet it didn’t make me lose it like other opens, so that’s a plus I guess.
Rating: **1/2
Monologue
- Great to see another stand-up monologue so soon.
- A good laugh from Jerrod’s refusal to talk about the Will Smith/Chris Rock debacle.
- Love the “white people on Twitter” line.
- A hilarious “the nation need to heal” line about Lorne.
- Jerrod’s talk about how he’s not that famous as compared to other hosts is very funny & also quite endearing.
- Solid bit from Jerrod about being gay in New York.
- I’m enjoying the bit with Jerrod talking to Barack Obama directly through the camera, and a great conclusion to his “we need to talk about it”.
- A very solid stand-up set overall, filled with quick transitions, funny quick moments, and a solid recurring bit about that whole Smith/Rock debacle. Jerrod already is coming off great & likable so early on the episode.
Rating: ****
Is My Brain Okay?
- A solid choice of Kate as a game show host.
- Good laugh from Kate’s name being Lisa Something.
- Happy to see Sarah in yet another game show sketch, and damn if she doesn’t look really good in that wig.
- Creative comedic conceit to this sketch.
- Sarah’s getting her usual laughs from the audience by just delivering her lines.
- A big laugh from the first image, and I love how the contestant are having a hard time figuring it out.
- Strong straight man reactions from Kate, as always her versatility is underrated sometimes.
- A huge laugh from the contestants answering Kate’s “What’s wrong with me?”.
- Chris’ part is very solid, and is adding well to this sketch.
- Hilarious visual of Sarah licking her podium.
- Great part with Sarah writing “Let me be inside you now”.
- Solid laughs from Bowen’s overlong written message.
- Dark & guilty laughs from Jerrod’s writing.
- Good ending.
- Strong & creative sketch overall, led by a great Kate McKinnon performance.
Rating: ****
Short-Ass Movies
- Meh, this looks like it’s going to be our usual, boring, formulaic “Pete Raps!” vanity piece from one of the most limited, talentless, and frustrating performers in recent SNL history.
- Ok, some nice visuals & direction, but where’s the joke in this?
- Our obligatory music video with Gunna.
- Who the hell is this guy rapping with Pete? He’s cute though, I’m not complaining.
- Ok, we get that you want to watch short movies, is THAT the joke of this dull video?
- Ah, here comes Chris to hopefully add something to this video.
- A big laugh (my first of the sketch), from Chris’ crying while watching Bambi.
- And thankfully, this is over. Like the majority of “Pete Raps!”, this had the nice visuals, cool direction, and alright idea behind it. But NOTHING ELSE, just a vanity piece to show us how “dope” and “sick” Pete Davidson and his rap buddies are truly are.
- (*yawn*) Next, please.
Rating: **
ShopTV
- Uh-oh, seeing Cecily here with that accent and getup, this sketch looks straight out of Anderlette’s mind.
- Alex’s funny in that brief cutaway.
- Meh at the joke about Jerrod’s character last name.
- I’m getting mild guilty laughs from all the bits about Jerrod’s doll, these “jokes” aren’t enough to raise this above being below average in quality.
- Blaaah at the desperate bit about the doll having “rainbow bush”, this type of immature, crude, and desperate humor is the one I most despise.
- Ego’s call is almost saving this sketch for me, and god bless her for giving me my much-needed laughs.
- Pretty weak, immature sketch overall. Not that weak for me to give it a lower rating than the one it will get.
Rating: **
Seat Fillers
- The obligatory Oscars sketch.
- I guess you all know my feelings regarding Chris Rock getting that slap.
- While I’m still NOT caring about that whole incident, seeing Chris being his usual fantastic, charismatic, and hilarious self here is giving me faith in this sketch.
- Jerrod is pretty solid as the star-struck fan of Will Smith.
- Oh, here goes the joke.
- Chris is as expected, hilarious in his outburst, and good timing on the bleep by the way, but is THIS really the best they could’ve done? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I don’t care about the incident, but SNL KILLED previously when it comes to covering big celeb stories (the fantastic R. Kelly cold open being a prime example of that), but this feels way too lazy and reliant on Chris’ energy.
- An ok ending, again helped by Chris’ charisma and energy.
Rating: ***
Weekend Update
- Again, I’m not caring about all of these Will Smith jokes.
- Ok, got a solid laugh from the Bad Boys joke just now.
- Colin: “Lindsey Graham: Seen here picturing the Orgy Madison Cawthorn went to”.
- I’m not that pleased to see Cecily back front-and-center on SNL, considering how much I had to suffer through her sketches in season 46 when I covered it.
- A predictable casting of Cecily as Marsha Blackburn, this is a role she could play in her sleep by this point in her tenure. I did expect Kate though, so I should be somewhat happy that my expectations were subverted for once, but I’m not.
- Not caring for Cecily’s lines in this, yet she’s performing this well enough.
- An ok bit with the board, again Cecily’s energetic here but the material is been there done that about a thousand times.
- Boy, the audience seems kinda dead at certain parts during this overlong commentary. You could kinda tell that she notices that, as they usually eat up Cecily schtick when she yells or acts like these right wing ghouls.
- An ok commentary from Cecily, yet again another instance of a performer showing us all what they have in their tool kit, it’s still better than the majority of Cecily’s work these past few seasons though (faint praise, I know).
- I should be happy to see Kenan’s OJ back, considering how many big easy laughs he gives me each time, but I don’t know why he’s here, aside from the lame Rock/Smith debacle, and if you know my feelings regarding Rock, you know how I feel about SNL bringing him so many times in this episode.
- A good laugh about love making you do crazy things, Kenan’s reliable delivery is elevating the material.
- Very surprised Kenan’s commentary is already over, got one or two laughs, yet I could’ve used better correspondents this time around.
- Pretty solid Update as usual, I’m loving the hot streak Update’s been on in the second half so far, and despite two alright commentaries from Cecily & Kenan, the rest of Update was pretty strong.
Rating: ****
In Memoriam – a photo of Taylor Hawkins marks his passing
Scattering Remains
- Why is Kyle here? At least I’m happy he’s not wearing that blonde teen wig #37373.
- A good shocking visual from the visual of the whole body being thrown off the cliff.
- This is kinda giving me season 20 vibes (not good), but Andrew’s reliability is kinda holding it together.
- Jerrod is kinda wasted here, he feels tacked on i sketches for most of the night, kinda sad seeing how naturally funny he clearly is.
- Andrew’s reactions are giving me my expected laughs so far, but the material is kinda meh so far.
- A weak ending.
Rating: ***
Story
- Why is Kyle here again? Where is Aristotle, Punkie, and Melissa? Don’t tell me that they are MIA tonight?
- Meh, this seems to be going toward the loser role that Kyle’s fucking played to death.
- Jerrod’s story is doing nothing for me, even with his reliable delivery.
- The sketch goes on and on and on and on…
- This sketch seems to be going toward the one-joke route, kinda like season 46 (not a good thing), and seeing Kyle here doing his tired shtick is not giving me any hope. Considering that this season is his low point, I’m sure I’m not going to care for him here.
- What am I watching?! How did this make it past dress?! And they cut an Angelo, and a Sarah & Bowen sketch for THIS?!?!
- It’s becoming morbidly fascinating to see how Kyle Mooney can continue to sink on a weekly basis. Oh Kyle, why didn’t you just leave with Beck?
- Terrible ending. Fuck this, I’m going to say it right now: Kyle needs to FUCK OFF SNL right now.
Rating: **
Osh Kosh F*gosh
- My goodness! Is this Chloe’s first & ONLY appearance all night? And in a pretape?! SNL’s frustrating underutilization of this fantastic performer is making my blood boil.
- I’m not pleased that Aristotle, Melissa, Punkie, and Aidy are not in tonight’s episode too, and with some performers making one or two appearances is giving this episode dead vibes, and low energy feel.
- Why do they have Cecily do the voice-over for everything on SNL???! I’ve never been a big fan of her voice-over work, and it mostly doesn’t fit the majority of the ads. I’ll admit, her work here fits the tone of this commercial.
- This is giving me unwanted flashbacks to the Swiffer Sleepers (*shudder*) fake ad.
- A pretty lame conceit to this commercial, and it’s coming off more cutesy than anything else, and I truly don’t know if there’s any point that whomever wrote this is trying to make.
- Ok, just got a couple of good laughs from some of the shirts.
- A pretty average, but not too bad of a fake commercial piece. Better than I thought it would be actually, which is something I guess.
Rating: ***
Goodnights:-
- Sarah holding a Flat Stanley just made my night. Can we love her even more?
- Aristotle is getting more airtime here than he had in full episodes, is it more obvious that the writing is on the wall by this point?
Segments Ranked From Best to Worst
Is My Brain Okay?
Monologue
Weekend Update
Scattering Remains
Seat Fillers
Osh Kosh F*gosh
Fox and Friends
ShopTV
Story
Short-Ass Movies
Final Thoughts:-
- A very average episode, with barely anything standing out as strong, aside from the monologue, Is My Brain Okay?, and Weekend Update. Also, the cast frustrations contributed to this episode having a dead, low energy feel. I mean, do we need Kyle in every sketch? And I love Heidi, but why not use Melissa at least once tonight?
- Jerrod Carmichael was a good host, but like some this season, he was way underutilized and not given any roles that would truly showcase his comedic skills.
- I hope this is just a minor slump in quality, as I’ve been enjoying this season a whole lot, but it’s starting to get shaky with our second consecutive episode that I wasn’t crazy about, hopefully the final five episodes finish the season strongly.
Next Week:-
- Jake Gyllenhaal returns to 8H after 15 seasons with musical guest Camilla Cabello.
An ok episode for me in words this time here are my thoughts
Cold Open was ok didn’t really think much of it could’ve been a lot better but was confused what there goal was for this
Monologue was really good lots of funny lines and love how he didn’t want to address it but he felt like he had no choice his ending with Barack was good to
This was good surprised I didn’t get annoyed by Kate and a very good premise Sarah licking her answer was great too
Even though I had a feeling you wouldn’t like this and I can understand why I loved this Pete always kills it with Rap pretapes and like with Chad i never get sick of them because they are always so good
Kinda on your side with The Jesus lunchbox was silly but my only real big laughs were from Ego ans the number going up so high but other than that should’ve been cut
Kinda funny how you will often say something is obligatory but with this it most definitely is and it ended weirdly but this was something
Update jokes were as good as there usually are and Cecily’s commentary was ok Kenan was great if course as O.J. who I will always be surprised that he hosted
Part 2
This was ok not anything stood out and like the Oscar’s sketch this ended kinda strange
Kyle while being awesome should’ve left with Beck and this sketch went to silly fun Kyle to boring annoying Kyle though I did laugh at the ending and this was another sketch that ended abruptly imo
Not even sure what to laugh at as a straight gay humor never lands with me oh and I cannot BELIEVE that they cut Angelo AGAIN Justice for Aristotle
An overall ok episode
How this episode stacks up against the preceding one (Zoe Kravitz):
A very slight step up
How I put each episode from best to worst now
Mulaney
Sudeikis
DaFoe
Culkin
Malek
Forte
Liu
Wilson
Carmichael
Isaac
Rudd
Kravitz
Eilish
DeBose
Majors
Kardashian
Can’t think of anything else to add here, as we’re mostly on the same page about this episode. However, I will say that I genuinely didn’t notice that Melissa was absent until I saw the goodnights. Again, I haven’t been keeping track of the numbers like I have been in the past, so I can’t exactly say for certain.
And as always, the averages:
Wilson – 7.1
Kardashian – 5.0
Malek – 7.6
Sudeikis – 7.7
Culkin – 6.5
Majors – 5.8
Liu – 6.3
Eilish – 6.3
Rudd – 6.0
DeBose – 7.9
Forte – 5.7
Dafoe – 6.8
Mulaney – 8.0
Isaac – 6.1
Kravitz – 5.8
Carmichael – 5.9
Overall average (so far): 6.5
I think the 4 sketches that cause the mist discussion are the game show, the doll, the Oscar’s sketch and scattering ashes. I think we all agree on the rest.
The game show I wasn’t so hot on. I didn’t necessarily go for Kate as a host.
It seemed to be a collage of lots of different game shows. What’s wrong with this picture, what’s their name, should I take it etc. just pick a lane.
The Oscar sketch I wasn’t in to at all. I didn’t think Chris’s impression was that good, and the joke was obvious from the get go. Is it fair to say I’ve been disappointed with PDDs sketch writing the last two times out.
The other two, I liked. I think the doll sketch coulda got to the costume change aspect a little quicker, but otherwise, it gave me solid lols.
I think the Scattering Remains sketch was SOTN. I’m liking Dismukes writing, although he sometimes runs out of an ending. (See the founding fathers sketch). It didn’t need Kyle. I’m also not a huge “JAJ in the wild” fan yet. AD and JC played their parts perfectly, and Heidi as ever acted the heck out of it.
Late in saying this but tonight’s Vintage episode