November 18, 2017 – Chance the Rapper / Eminem (S43 E6)

Cold Opening – The Mueller Files

• Mercifully, we aren’t getting a Trumpwin cold open for the second episode in a row. Some really shitty political “satire” is abound here at least. So, yippee?
• Ugh at the mention of Robert Mueller, I’m already cringing in anticipation of all of those “epic” and “hilarious” cold opens, sketches, Update commentaries/jokes that will be seemingly never-ending in the upcoming few seasons. Needless to say, everything that SNL did surrounding that investigation has aged like milk.
• Kate plays, in yet another drag role of hers, Julian Assange here before it gets taken over with ANOTHER pointless cameo by Michael Keaton in front of a dead studio audience in next season’s Emma Stone episode.
• Nothing much to say here, but that Eric Trump is giving me some decent laughs in a sea of dullness & mediocrity.

Rating: **

Monologue

• Great energy from Chance right out of the gate, and I love how infectious his presence feels already.
• A good conceit to our obligatory musical monologue with Chance, and for this to be our first musical monologue of the season, it feels appropriate.
• Fun involvement from the cast throughout Chance’s song.
• Leslie is stealing this monologue with her walk-on as the aunt with the gun.
• I absolutely love the ending visual with the cast gathering as chance is finishing his song, Leslie’s smile in particular is very endearing & a testament to how naturally lovable she is.

Rating: ***1/2

Wayne Manor

• A fairly solid, clever sketch concept.
• Beck seems perfectly cast as Bruce Wayne, as he has both the looks & demeanor to pull off such a role.
• Already, Chance is impressing me with his solid & believable performance here as a teenager. I love his character’s look especially.
• Some really good social commentary in this sketch without it being too obvious.
• Beck is, of course, great in this sketch, and his straight man work especially is enhancing the already-solid material even further.
• Melissa’s bit in the sketch is pretty good, and she’s playing a role that I don’t think we see her much in. It makes me wonder why won’t they give her more urban, realistic roles such this one as she is coming off believable here.
• An overall great, well-written & well-performed sketch.

Rating: ****

Come Back Barack

• Here comes a very popular & beloved short from this season that would go on to win an Emmy.
• This also happens to be our first of MANY music shorts with Chris in a prominent role.
• A very dead-on and funny parody of the R&B music genre, not only in terms of music, but also the direction of music video.
• I love the very catchy melody here, which has always stuck with me from prior viewings.
• The turn with the tear transitioning into another portion with them singing under heavy rainfall is hilarious.
• Kenan is stealing the entire short with his straight talk to Obama. His lines in particular are both well-written & hilarious.
• Chris’ line about voting for Joe Biden is funny, for obvious reasons.
• While I never liked Obama much as a politician, despite not having problems with the guy himself, this short works for me & many others as it avoids being a hero worship to a politician with it having an actual comedic conceit of both parodying the R&B genre in general and having a tender song dedicated to a politician instead of a woman. Unlike that embarrassing To Sir With Love from the previous season.

Rating: ****1/2

Family Feud: Harvey Family Thanksgiving

• This has always been one of my favorite installments of an otherwise tired, overused recurring sketch.
• Fun involvement from both Che & writer Gary Richardson in this sketch.
• Great to see Chris so prominent already in this episode.
• A great reveal of Chance’s character, and his look alone here is giving me so many laughs without much effort. He’s been killing it more and more as the episode goes along.
• Great slow realization from Kenan’s Steve Harvey that Chance’s character is his lovechild.
• Chance is a riot as this Steve Harvey-esque character, and his imitation of Kenan’s Harvey is very funny.
• I love Kenan’s whole bit asking if Chance is smart or is he like him, while gesturing at himself after his verbal questioning.
• An overall very strong, fun sketch.

Rating: ****1/2

Musical Performance – “Walk On Water” / “Stan” / “Love The Way You Lie”

• Jesse Nathan: Nice opening vocals from Skylar Grey. I kinda want to say that she’s better on the chorus than Beyoncé on the album version. Then again, that’s not too surprising, as she did co-write this song.
• Eminem’s first verse left me with nothing. His rapping’s on point, but the song doesn’t give him too much to work with.
• Nice addition of violins, and they actually sound great here. At the same time, though, I can’t help but feel that this is manipulation. Trying to make the audience feel emotional over something that’s very thin.
• I think I hear a bass during the third chorus. If it actually is the bass, then it’s tuned up a little higher than expected.
• What’s the slight glimmering during this chorus?
• The drums are a nice complement to Skylar’s vocals.
• Eminem’s third verse was complemented nicely by the violins.
• While this rendition sounds great, I’m finding myself slightly bored by the actual song. Not sure why, because I actually kinda like this song. In fact, I remember after this episode aired, this song kinda dominated the radio.
• Clever transition to “Stan” by having Em say that he wrote “Stan”. And yes, I am aware that that line is in the actual song, but still.
• I like the audience reaction to when the famous “Stan” chorus plays.
• Skylar’s vocals on the chorus aren’t doing much for me on this song. They sound kinda flat.
• I think I’m hearing bongos during this rendition of “Stan”.
• This orchestral version of “Stan” is kinda nice, but I can’t shake the feeling that this song sounds a lot better without the orchestra, and that it was best the way it was.
• Skylar’s vocals on the chorus for “Love the Way You Lie” actually sound better than they do on “Stan”. But then again, unlike “Stan”, I believe Skylar had a hand in writing “Love the Way You Lie”.
• I hear a slight piano during this rendition, but it’s kinda drowned out.
• Kinda shocking that Em had only one performance tonight, but seeing as how this was nearly 9 minutes long (which I didn’t realize until today), I can kinda see why.

Rating: ***

Weekend Update

• I’m sorry, but that Al Franken photo made me laugh when it was first shown.
• A bit surreal to hear all the talk about Al Franken’s sexual misconduct, for obvious reasons here.
• Didn’t care much for Che’s very centrist rant here about how all of them, as he said “bitches”, this type of milquetoast, weak, and misdirected commentary is neither clever nor funny.
• Good Christ, did we really need Kate’s Jeff Sessions for the THIRD episode in a row?!
• I’m really sick of SNL pushing these nightmare fueled impressions of Kate as some of the bigger ones in this SNL era. We will be also getting the debut of her horrific Rudy Giuliani toward the season’s end as well.
• UGH, cue all of the cutesy, desperate Kate-as-Sessions moments here that make my blood boil.
• Ok, I just got a pretty huge, guilty laugh from Kate’s Sessions disclosure that his childhood trauma was the passing of the Civil Rights Act.
• And this commentary keeps going on and on and on and on…
• Great to see the return of Kyle’s Bruce Chandling character, this sadly ends up being his final appearance on the air.
• While this commentary is not hitting some new grounds, it is still working well for me, and Bruce’s jokes are even more corny than usual here, and his sudden depressing turn in particular was pulled off flawlessly.
• Another Pete Davidson commentary. I should be happy that we haven’t reached the period where he is a major tabloid fixture yet.
• An interesting & fun conceit to this commentary, and Pete’s self-deprecation here is coming off solid & likable enough.
• Funny bit about Kate not talking to Pete.
• An overall strong Weekend Update, beside Che’s rant early on, and Kate’s Jeff Sessions commentary (beside the priceless childhood trauma bit), everything else worked for me.

Rating: ****

MSG

• Tonight’s episode is on a freakin roll as we get the debut of Chance’s Lazlo Holmes character.
• I love how understated Lazlo Holmes’ frustration here is. Chance is doing a great job in performing the material.
• Chance is so good at elevating what might have been a repetitive premise with his strong energy & naturally funny uncomfortable reactions. His many mentions of being cold are constantly cracking me the hell up.
• Hilarious bit with Alex, Chance’s reaction in particular to his name has me laughing out loud.
• I absolutely love the whole moment with Kenan being the only black guy in the entire arena during the hockey game.
• Great sketch overall, even when I kinda prefer the sequel to this one, as the setting of Lazlo being at a League of Legends championship is funnier to me than being cold at a hockey game.

Rating: ****

Rap History

• Our second consecutive documentary-esque short from this season.
• Fun cameo from Common & Questlove, and the latter is reminding me of how much I liked him in the XXX Rap Roundtable sketch from season 46.
• I love the performances here, and it feels so good to see Chris in so many prominent roles in tonight’s episode.
• Did we really need Pete in this short? Even though his performance is fine, it feels like a precursor to the many boilerplate, flat rap videos that he’ll be doing on the show.
• I’m enjoying not only the accuracy of this short, but also the humor in it, and how it isn’t really in your face, but with subtle & fun escalation with its joke.

Rating: ***1/2

Career Day

• I love that writers Andrew Dismukes, Sudi Green, and Steven Castillo are sitting in the background of the sketch. Castillo, especially, will be contributing so many great sketches during his tenure, including the fantastic Shrek Family Discussion & Dying Ms. Gomez sketches, both in the upcoming Sterling K. Brown episode from this season.
• This sketch screams Seiday to me, not only because of Mikey’s co-starring role, but also the way it is presented as well.
• Good energy from both Mikey & Chance, which is helping in selling an otherwise thin premise.
• Damn at that pratfall from Mikey, another display of his strong physicality, which the show seemingly doesn’t know how to use properly.
• Chance shirtless for the second segment in a row? Not complaining at all.
• Didn’t care much for that ending.

Rating: ***

Skank Babysitter 17

• A pretty good, cheap laugh from the title reveal.
• Heidi is great in playing this ditzy role, even when the vocal fry she’s using here will be way too common in many of her roles throughout her tenure. Vocal Fry: The Character as I recall some SNL fans calling her many interchangeable roles with the same voice, demeanor, and vocal inflections. I only partly agree with that criticism, when it comes to her vacation character & that depressing RV Life sketch where she didn’t need to use this same voice at all & came off more distracting than anything else. It is fine here, though. And is fitting the character well.
• Very funny entrance from Chance, and I love his character’s look especially.
• This sketch has now turned into Aidy’s little girl character that accidentally interrupts the filming of a porn movie.
• The routine with Aidy is the same old same old, but she’s still great in playing children very convincingly.
• That tip joke gave me a pretty good guilty laugh, thanks to Chance’s delivery of it.
• Chance is great in general in this sketch, as his uncomfortable reaction to Aidy’s character & his rapport with Heidi are very well-done, making the sketch in general come off a little better than it is.

Rating: **1/2

Segments Ranked From Best to Worst

Family Feud: Harvey Family Thanksgiving

Come Back Barack

Wayne Manor

MSG

Weekend Update

Monologue

Rap History

Career Day

Skank Babysitter 17

The Mueller Files

Final Thoughts:-

• Another great season 43 episode, with the first half of this episode till the end of MSG being highly-rated, with several standout, great sketches & unique concepts all night long. The string of sketches from “Wayne Manor” to “MSG” were all rated in the 4-5 star range, which is very, very impressive in my book.
• Chance the Rapper was a fantastic host tonight, one that displayed impressive live skills & natural comedic talents, making him feel like an honorary cast member. I’m looking forward to eventually cover his season 45 episode, which I recall being one of my favorites from that season.

Up Next:-

• Saoirse Ronan hosts with the return of U2 as musical guest.