December 2, 2017 – Saoirse Ronan / U2 (S43 E7)

Cold Opening – Spirits of Trump’s Past

• After a two-weeks break, now we get Trumpwin front-and-center in his own cold opening. Well, it was nice while it lasted.
• I’m not really caring for the premise of this cold opening, even when it’s actually trying new things with the impression.
• A Christmas Carol is one of my personal favorite stories by Charles Dickens (himself one of my personal favorite authors), and to see his great tale being butchered here for very weak & unfunny political “satire” makes me even more annoyed by this cold open than usual.
• Alec’s Trump sounds even more half-assed, dull, and lethargic than usual here, which is saying something.
• A walk-on from Mikey playing Michael Cohen, an impression that will be later be taken over by Ben Stiller, as this era certainly loves having unnecessary, ridiculous celebrity cameos each time they can even for the dullest roles ever.
• And now we’re getting a walk-on from Kate’s Hillary Clinton to thunderous applause from the audience. A one that feels so pandering & desperate to me.
• Overall, not as horrible as I feared it was going to be, but still weak, thus making this season 6-for-6 in terms of cold opens that suck.

Rating: **

Monologue

• Good St. Patrick’s Day joke from Saoirse, who’s already shining with her wonderful, lovable presence.
• A very fun conceit to this musical monologue, which is coming off like a breath of fresh air, much like the previous one, in having actual comedy in the lyrics themselves & some energy that pulls the monologue together.
• I love the very catchy tune from Saoirse on how to pronounce her name.
• Fun walk-ons from the cast, especially Beck being his usual endearing & goofy self.

Rating: ***1/2

Floribama Shore

• I’ve always really loved this short in the past, which makes me very excited to cover it for this review.
• I love Mikey’s look & characterization here. Come to think of it, I’m loving how everybody looks here.
• This is such a dead-on parody of these types of shows, and the combo of both the direction & strong writing is the icing on the cake.
• The setting during Hurricane Irma is both bold & hilarious on SNL’s part, and this is nailing the idea without coming off edgy or tryhard.
• Chris is a great straight man here, continuing his solid first year on the show. His concerned looks & observations regarding shooting the show during Hurricane Irma are well-done.
• Holy hell at the sudden moment of Luke being struck by the stop sign. Luke’s yelling about if hell was real afterwards gave me a big laugh.
• An overall fantastic piece, and a major season highlight. I read that Luke & future cast member Andrew Dismukes wrote this piece together, which really shows how talented both are. There is also two more showcases that Luke was supposed to get on this episode: an Update piece of his that got cut just before air, and a certain very notorious sketch later in the episode, that we’ll…. get to when we get there.

Rating: ****1/2

Eye on Phoenix

• A variation of the classic Live Report sketch from last season, even when Mikey is not playing Matt Shatt here.
• This sketch feels similar to the original Matt Shatt, down to Kenan as the reporter, Leslie’s part, and Beck & Cecily as the news anchors. I’m not disliking the sketch so far, but it feels a bit formulaic.
• Some laughs from Mikey’s both obsession & digression in regards to American Girl Dolls. And this sketch is really living mostly by Mikey’s performance, as Saoirse feels a bit wasted here.

Rating: ***

Welcome to Hell

• A very famous & acclaimed music short from this SNL era.
• I’m loving the color grading & general atmosphere of this short, which fits brilliantly as a contrast to the dark subject matter of the song.
• A great American accent by Saoirse.
• Great line from Aidy about this not being a girl group, but they travel together for safety purposes.
• The whole moment with Saoirse and the pink gun is brilliant & one of my favorite single moments from this entire season.
• Love the cutaway to Heidi wearing that detective coat & mustache.
• The cutaways to Melissa showing women’s suffering throughout history are pretty solid, but why not use her in the short as a whole, considering her musical talents? She at least does join the other performers at the end singing the final chorus.
• Leslie’s walk-on felt a bit tacked-on, but she came off her fun self here, even when I get why they would include her scene.
• Great bit with the many things that have been ruined for women, which include walking, parking, Uber, and for some reason ponytails as well.
• Melissa’s absolutely STEALING the short near the end with her vocals.
• An overall great short & amongst this era’s finest musical pieces, as well as sharp satirical takes too.

Rating: *****

Return Counter

• Great night for Mikey, with tons of airtime and lead roles.
• This seems to be our usual silly parade of idiots sketch that this era does frequently, utilizing by that most of the cast. Those sometimes live or die on the strength of the characterizations.
• A shame that Luke wasn’t given much to do in his bit here, but like a pro, he performed it as best as he could.
• Kyle is absolutely hilarious as the guy who’s loudly talking about turning over the Magnum Condoms as they are not big enough for him.
• Kenan’s role feels like he could’ve played it in his sleep by this point in his tenure.
• Cecily’s role here, while is giving me some laughs, feels way too similar to many of her other wacky one-off characters; a sign that she’s been on the show for a long while (and will remain so, four seasons later as well).
• Kate’s always hilarious as elderly women, and her whole scene steals the sketch for me, even Cecily’s entrance near the end added to the fun vibes of the sketch.

Rating: ***1/2

The Race

• Here comes what I (and I believe many other SNL fans too) consider to be amongst Good Neighbor’s finest SNL pieces, if not the finest ever.
• I’m LOVING the very accurate 90s office workspace aesthetic to this short, and the more and more subtle hints of random, absurdist humor throughout this short (that I’ll be pointing out) also add wonderfully to this its quality.
• Greta Gerwig cameo, which is surprisingly met with lack of recognition applause from the audience. Yet, they’ve been always somewhat silent during many of Good Neighbor’s pieces that make it on the air.
• The whole bits about running around the office as fast as you can & the rips on the character’s pants to indicate injuries are SO dumb, yet pulled off with great care and seriousness that makes them not only hilarious, but work incredible well.
• Love the random & very quick training montage of Kyle just walking down the hall in a straight line only ONCE.
• Fantastic detail with the gun that Saoirse’s character firing to begin the race being actually loaded.
• Another brilliant, absurdist detail with Saoirse’s character being revealed as a ghost, and the Mac and Me puppet showing up to give Kyle that information.
• I love the very absurdist visual of Greta’s character docking down from the shot at the end of the short.
• Overall, an absolute absurdist masterpiece & quite possibly my favorite Good Neighbor short.

Rating: *****

Musical Performance – “American Soul”

• Jesse Nathan: The fact that Saoirse Ronan is the one introducing U2 can only mean one thing: the Irish are planning on taking over our country.
• A cool visual of a spoken word from Kendrick Lamar at the start, even though I’m 99% sure that’s the official lyric video.
• Something about the guitar sounds oddly mixed.
• We now begin with Bono speaking into a megaphone. I mean, it’s fine, but it kinda messes up his voice a little.
• Bono’s mic could stand to be turned up a little bit.
• Despite my quibbles about the poor mixing of the guitar, I actually dig this riff.
• The fact that the megaphone messes up Bono’s voice makes the chorus lose the impact it has on the album version.
• I notice The Edge is singing along with Bono on the refrain. I wish his mic was turned up more.
• I like the drum work on the bridge.
• This whole rambling from Bono near the end isn’t even on the album version.
• Overall, similar to what Blue said in their review, this felt rather lackluster. Despite the cool visual element, something about the way the song was executed felt off. And even with the cool visuals, it doesn’t change the fact that they’re from the lyric video. If I wanted to look at those visuals, I could just go to YouTube and watch the lyric video there.

Rating: ***

Weekend Update

• The debut of Kate’s Theresa May impression, in her first of three major appearances, each of them in three different formats.
• Good English accent from Kate, even when it feels similar to her stock Maggie Smith-esque voice that she goes to when playing supposedly posh Brits.
• Ok, I get that this Update commentary is mocking how soft May’s critique of Trump’s racism & Islamophobia was at the time, but the pacing could be a little faster.
• Kate is doing a fairly good job in selling this one-note commentary like the pro she is. Her reliable deliveries are making the material funnier than it is.
• Love Colin’s joke about the Powerball numbers & outed sexual harassers.
• The second, and final appearance of the Duncans, as played by Mikey & Leslie.
• Like last time, Leslie & Mikey are working well here and are surprisingly coming off believable as a couple, and the utilization of their size & personality difference is providing good laughs.
• Luke Null had a commentary of his cut from this Update edition where he was supposed to be a Suits fan that gets angry that Meghan Markle is leaving the show. More on that a little bit later in the review.

Rating: ***1/2

Bachelor Auction

• I believe that this is the only Chad sketch not to be pretaped.
• The pacing of this sketch is much better than the usual dull, formulaic Chad pieces, especially with how more and more women are bidding money for him each time he reveals a “secret” talent of his.
• Ugh at the “doink-doink” bit from Chad.
• This sketch, while fine enough so far, feels like a poor utilization of our host, who’s just sitting there barely doing anything comedic.
• Kenan’s bit here was pretty random, yet I laughed at it. He’s always good in selling the most outlandish of characters with his always-reliable delivery.
• Speaking of random, we get a VERY random John McEnroe cameo here. I don’t mind it much, considering how very funny John is when cameoing on SNL, especially throughout the Andy Roddick episode from season 29.

Rating: ***

Late for Class

• Hoo, boy. Here comes a very notorious sketch from this season & Luke Null’s most prominent role of his entire short-lived tenure.
• Right out of the gate, Luke is coming off convincing as this intentionally-unlikable character, with all of his wandering around in the classroom and mockery of various students. But, geez at the COMPLETE SILENCE from the studio audience in response to his character’s antics. I mean, I’m sure that when Seiday wrote this sketch for Luke (thanks a lot, you guys) they probably didn’t expect tons of laughs, but Luke was NEW by this point of his tenure, and while he’s performing his role very well here, it will sadly make him come off as unlikable to the audience, if not flat-out sexist or racist. I honestly remember some online fans thinking that Luke was some MAGA guy that the show cast because of this sketch. Geez.
• I also remember that Luke was supposed to do his aforementioned Update commentary which was supposed to introduce us to Luke. That Update piece was supposed to build sort of a trust between Luke & the audience, but was cut before air, thus making Luke come off as unlikable in his very first big role.
• Moving on past that, a fantastic reveal that this is Luke’s very first day in the school & that he doesn’t know anyone here. A great execution of the premise after the very intense buildup early on in the sketch.
• Love the whole moment with Alex’s janitor character who steals this entire sketch for me, especially the death stare he gives Luke before leaving.
• A solid & well-done ending with Beck’s similarly-traited to Luke’s.
• An overall great sketch that is sadly overshadowed by the lack of audience response due to not being familiar enough with the newbie in the lead role. If nothing, this sketch showed the bravery & talent of Luke as a performer, which is a damn shame that his talents were wasted on the show.

Rating: ****

Musical Performance – “Get Out Of Your Own Way”

• Jesse Nathan: The way Saoirse says U2 is just so adorable. Then again, anything she says is adorable with that Irish accent. Moving on…
• Not really loving Bono’s speech to America.
• The composition of this song sounds way too familiar to “Beautiful Day”, one of U2’s prior hits. I honestly prefer that song.
• Bono’s in fine voice, but I’m not loving these lyrics.
• These visuals are okay, but not too impressive.
• Really? Lincoln’s ghost said “Get out of your own way”? I think you’re just saying random things and trying to find a way to connect them to the chorus, Bono.
• I like the guitar solo from The Edge, even if it feels a bit generic.
• And now we hear the segue to “American Soul”. I agree with Blue that it should’ve been played in the opposite order. I actually feel a similar way to how Green Day performed “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” before “Holiday” back in Season 30.
• There goes Bono with his shoutout to SNL that was done far better in the band’s Season 30 performances.
• Overall, despite the good execution, I wasn’t too crazy about the song. And besides, when it comes to U2 performances on SNL, nothing will ever beat their Season 30 goodnights performance of “I Will Follow”. Or for that matter, their performance of “Elevation” in Season 26. Then again, those two songs are better than the two offerings we had tonight.

Rating: **1/2

Aer Lingus

• I remember this sketch causing a little bit of controversy back when this episode originally aired for supposedly being offensive to Irish people. Saoirse would defend this sketch after the airing of this episode. I would say that this one is perfectly fine to me, and doesn’t come close to being offensive, rather just silly. It’s also nothing when compared to the Irish sketch in the Bill Hader episode later in the season (that episode, in general, has some of the shittiest, hackiest, and laziest stereotype sketches that I’ve ever seen SNL air, but we’ll get to that upon review).
• Very solid Irish accent from Cecily. I always felt her accent abilities were quite underrated at times, especially when compared to Kate, who’s the performer that this era usually leans to when it comes to regional accents from the UK & Ireland.
• Kate’s Irish accent, while not weak, is not as solid as Cecily’s, nor the many other great UK accents that she did throughout her tenure, especially that great northern accent from Jonah Hill’s show in season 41. I do remember, however, that she’ll nail it in that that awful Irish dating sketch from the aforementioned Bill Hader episode later in the season.
• Aidy’s scene was not necessary at all, and didn’t result in a single laugh from me.
• The focus on dogs here is giving me unwanted flashbacks to the many DOGS!! sketches from the upcoming season 45.
• The sketch feels rushed towards its ending but that’s probably because the show is running long.

Rating: ***

Segments Ranked From Best to Worst

The Race

Welcome to Hell

Floribama Shore

Late for Class

Monologue

Weekend Update

Return Counter

Aer Lingus

Eye on Phoenix

Bachelor Auction

Spirits of Trump’s Past

Final Thoughts:-

• A fairly strong episode, and one of the season’s finest. Lots of memorable sketches tonight, including two getting a perfect five-stars rating from me, as well as several really solid pieces all night long. Saoirse Ronan was a delight as the host, and did very well & fit into the show’s format, working especially well with the female cast, even when I would’ve loved to see her get one or two big solo showcases of her talents.

Up Next:-

• James Franco returns for the fourth (and final) time with musical guest SZA.