Im the first Black woman to host SNL, yall!
Im not an actor, Im a [pay cable and movie] star [with nothing going on right now]!!
Issa Rae joked in her monologue about having nothing but time on her hands these days. (Puzzles, bitch, is her go-to response to people asking what shes been working on). That may or may not be true for the multitalented Insecure creator and star, but it is true that she had a lot moreto promote when she was originally scheduled to host Saturday Night Live in the before-times. Still, perhaps its indicative of COVID-era Hollywood hiatuses that big stars are freed up to do more character-based pieces when they host SNL in this new season. Apart from the de rigueur cold opens giving the Sunday talk shows and Twitterverse something to get pontificating about before going to bed early, these first three episodes have seen the writers largely stepping back from the overtly topical to do some premise-based sketches.
Which is a fine choice, honestly, considering the current SNLs faltering facility with politics. Its a shame Raean excellent actress and game performerdidnt have some better material in her meager handful of live sketches tonight. (Three, if anyones counting.) Shaky distinctions aside, having an actor host the show and having a comedian host shifts expectations, and opportunities. Rae wasnt provided with many chances to go big, apart from trotting out a decent comical French accent at one point, but grounded her sketches with aplomb. (Sure, she gave the occasional hosts cue card glance, but shes better at that than Chris Rock was, and Rock was a cast member.) With Rae in the house, however, I couldnt help but come away thinking about those missed opportunities.
Issa Rae/Justin Bieber
The dinner date sketch with Chris Redd could have used an ending. And it was a lot funnier before it started explaining some of its weirder elements halfway through. But it was still Issas best showcase of the nightthe sort of almost-there actorly piece that, on a show that gave her more to do, would have been in a decent third place on the sketch scorecard. As it was, she and Redd made a solid pair as two first-daters whose outside-dining assignation is repeatedly interrupted by a parade of increasingly disreputable exes of Raes. Kenan is hawking flowers to vulnerable outside diners when, spotting Rae, he praises her titty meat, and smoothly swipes their vin de table as he departs, ordering Redd to be good to his former lover. Thus, the setup, one that repeats promisingly with Pete Davidson, in full martial arts gi, doing the same. Theres the repeat, but the escalation that Davidson is only referred toby Rae and himselfas Karate Man seems poised to make this pop right off to absurdist heaven. (Redd interjecting incredulously that Karate Mans one regret was dumping Rae is funny stuff.) And then comes Bowen Yang slathered in silver body paint as a living statue, also praising his exs titty meat, before sloppily robot-ing away, to Redds confusion. Rae, put in the position of playing a seemingly together woman whose choice in men is absurdly inexplicable, is good at acting like having three shifty loons in her past is just date-awkward and not Taxi! disqualifying for her straitlaced date, but explaining the weirdness away sucks the air out of the studio. (Raes an Elsa in Times Square, so her coworker dating pool is a little limited.) Just let weird be weird. And the endingRedds boisterously embarrassing ex also shows upis a wheeze.
And thats really Raes highlight. These first episodes have breezed by, a mixed blessing after the extra-long COVID break and three at-home episodes whose quick-hit denseness meant evaluating dozens of often half-realized home movies. Im all for SNL choosing some writers sketches over effortful topicality if thats the way the show wants to go. But, for that to produce a memorable show, the writing has to be that much better without a lazy-but-recognizable hook to hang on. This episode sailed past without much to think about afterward, a fate that, with the estimable and effortlessly charismatic Rae on hand, feels especially disappointing.
Best/Worst Sketch Of The Night
I mean, the date night sketch at least feinted toward originality, so, I guess?
That said, the 5-Hour Empathy commercial was genuinely pointed and, thanks to Beck Bennett, Heidi Gardner, and Kenan Thompsons unseen pitchman narrator, consistently smart and funny. The idea of a product that can temporarily tamp down peoples most inconvenient societal anxieties has been a pretty reliable well over the years, and this oneabout a chuggable shot of complete understanding of years of systemic oppression and ever-present racismbecomes, in white liberal Bennetts increasingly sweaty hands, a potent symbol of unwillingness to literally internalize his performative allyship. Bennett pretending to somberly, finally get it, is punctured by Kenans knowing observation that the caps still on the bottle, while wife Gardners similar fear sees her hastily also demurring before proclaiming, Because Im a woman, so its the same! before high-tailing it out of the room. A quick shot of insightful laughs.
As for the bottom, its Your Voice Chicago, one of Issas other trio of live sketches, unfortunately. Saturday Night Live isnt what it used to be, thankfully, when it comes to presenting the impression of a roomful of straight, white, Harvard boys tackling racial or sexual politics from the perspective of above-it-all placid liberalism. Dragged kicking into the real world of diverse cultural and comedic points of view as SNL was (and still is), theres yet the occasional sketch that seems to have been conceived and written by someone(s) speaking from actual experience rather than theoretical comedic remove and cultural stereotype. I think of the line in David Wains SNL-adjacent, Will Forte-starring Doug Kenney sort-of biopic A Futile And Stupid Gesture, where Martin Mull (as the aged, present-day version of the dead-at-33 Kenney), blithely reassures a passing Black couple (including a cameoing Chris Redd), that hes sure there were, indeed, funny Black writers the all-white National Lampoon could have hired, but, We just didnt look for them.
This is a long way to go for a white guy to say that this sketch, relying as it does on one lazy premise and peopled by a handful of lazier stereotypes, feels like it was written by some white guys. The idea is that Raes NAACP activist blindly equates Black political empowerment with voting for any Black candidate for office, no matter how unqualified or ridiculous. Which, apart from being a talking point for both Fox News and white people who would have voted for Obama three times if they could, is a choice. Im happy to see an SNL sketch with three Black characters talking politics (or, you know, just sharing the screen), but someone in the writers room looked at the political landscape, with its mix of ever-present cultural complexity and never-starker good-versus-evil Black Lives Matter activism and white supremacist pandering, and thought, Yup, Black people are a monolithic, unreflecting voting blocthats hilarious. That Raes character is presented as an otherwise sober-minded representative of the NAACP only amplifies the queasy hackiness of the material, while Ego Nwodims writer for The Root (G/O Media, represent) at least attempts to put on the brakes at times, as when Rae finds ways to endorse candidate Redds self-ordained reverend and former strip club owner. (Still, Nwodim still mainly disqualifies Redd because he was gross when they went to grade school together.)
If Saturday Night Live wants to lay low on the politics, as its seemed, thats more than fine. (Sure, Americas in the fight of the century over the fate of democracy and human rights while SNL continues to position itself as a risk-taking cultural-comedic voice, but you do you.) But, once more, if this is the one post-opening stab at political relevance the SNL production pipeline gave the thumbs-up to out of what one only hopes were some more sophisticated ideas, thats a choice that says a lot about where the organizations heads at.
Onto the merely forgettable. Raes other live sketch saw her, alongside Kate McKinnon and Bowen Yang, trotting out over-the-top Frenchness for the Montreal-based morning show, Bonjoir Hi! Hyping their home city as the best parts of Canada and the worst parts of France set the tone, as the sketch became a panoply of enthusiastic ethnic comedy at the expense of our French-Canadian neighbors, a staple of SNLs comedy right from the jump. (Check out Tim Robbins still-unsettling broadside Bob Roberts for onetime host Robbins dig at fictional late-night show Cutting Edge Lives penchant for building gut-busters out of the concept that people from different places talk funny.) Yang stole the sketch from McKinnon, which is not easy to do, his fast-talking co-anchor keeping up a patter of just-exaggerated-enough English and mumbled fake French, and finally exploding in near-violence whenever American guest journalist Mikey Day disses Drake. (Rae, as the chipper Drake correspondent, pops in periodically to update everyone that, no, that guy she saw earlier was not, in fact, Drake.) And while its dispiriting to see SNL (after taking a few weeks mostly off) slip back into the comfy comedy slippers of news and talk show sketches, Yang and McKinnons committed silliness is at least entertaining.
Kyle and Issas dance battle to see who could become Justin Biebers backup dancer tested the limits of my just give Kyle Mooney five minutes and let him do what he wants advice. The mid-film breakout visualizing the way that Rae and Mooney really see their hallway dancing (Funk Jam in the future) energized proceedings a bit (and heres to guest Chance coming back to host again), but Kyles made himself the butt of the joke a lot more inventively elsewhere.
Weekend Update Update
Drive-by asides are what Colin Jost has settled into as his most reliable laugh-getters, and hes not wrong. Doing jokes about the COVID-positive Donald Trump resuming live campaigning in front of crowds of mask-averse, red-capped fans is a lot to take in and process. (Id say rabid fans, but thats not medically accurate.) Theres the fear-mongering, base-pandering white supremacy and constant, egregious lying, of course, but thats both a lot of work, and clearly fruitless if ones looking to change any MAGA minds that have already decided that packing together to get breathed on by a white supremacist disease vector is a smart night out. So references to Trumps coronavirus giveaways tour, and a Trump-loving representative crowd-surfing on the second wave of COVID get knowing laughs and move on.
Ches got the stronger comic voice (and stand-up chops), and the odd couple dynamic the two have built up allows him to land reliably funny jokes at Josts expense. After Jost adopted a deep voice for a punchline tonight, Ches aside, Was that voice blackface? summed up their work personae perfectly. Ches also best at putting it on the audience when a joke doesnt go over, one of many strategies Update anchors have employed to cover dead spots during the years. (Blaming the writers can work, but not when youre writing much of your own stuff.) And while Che and Jost did a bit more covering than usual, their jokes themselves werefine. Ill keep saying it and people will still say Im repeating myself, but Update could be a lot more ambitious, considering the material this four-year sideshow of horrors provides with sickening regularity. But Updates largely ceded the substantive-but-scathing fake news (as opposed to Donald Trumps FAKE NEWS) position to late-night hosts, settling for smirky cleverness. Its fine.
Aidys alive! And in a field somewhere! That Aidys mission to interview the elusive undecided heartland voter left her lost and alone but for some cows might be a followup to Ches joke about there being no actually undecided voters at this point. (Sit down, Bone.) But it was just more of a chance for Aidy to hilariously complain about what looks to be a remote assignment gone terribly wrong. There was some talk about staggering in-person appearances on the show this cold-and-coronavirus season, so heres to Aidy for making the most of some time in the open air. Somewhere.
Heidi Gardner is one of those character performers just built for Update. The four-minute correspondent piece is the perfect place for such a talented comic actress to unravel a creations comic seams. Speaking of unraveling, I loved Famous 80s Cocaine Wife Carla, Gardners newest addition to her Update guest resume. Gardner is a miniaturist who gets huge laughs, her Carla channeling that doomed movie stereotype of old, the coked-out aging party girl whos constantly hitting her compact when not faux-nonchalantly trying to get invited to whatever back room will feed her indulgences that night. At the news that the vaunted SNL afterparties are a COVID casualty, Carla blurts, desperately, Cmon, Michaelyou, me, Lorne, and a fat lasagna at 3 A.M.! Filled with sparkling little details (her jealous husband works in scaffolding garbage construction), its another fleshed-out comic creation from Gardner.
Eric and Don Jr. are back too. More below. They brought a guest.
What do you call that act? The Californians!Recurring sketch report
Just Don Jr. and Eric. For all my griping, thats a good sign.
It was my understanding there would be no mathPolitical comedy report
At least Jim Carrey wasnt puking in a fly suit. (You can use that for a pull quote, NBC.) What Carrey did do was his on-safety-rails Joe Biden as the cold open mimicked the experience of flipping channels between both presidential candidates network talk-a-thons. It was a huge get for Lorne to convince Carrey to sign on for a who-knows-how-long guest-starring role, and theres the suggestion, in his quieter moments, of the work Carreys put in to craft an actual vocal impression of the Democratic nominee. But, as its history shows, SNLs approach to political takes is settled on up front, with the jokes varying from the predetermined pattern only in response to drastic, unavoidable real-world necessity. Joe Bidens old. He wears sunglasses. He tells long, old-timey stories. Nailed itlets have Jim do Biden doing a funny little dance for the TikTok kids.
Alec Baldwin, clearly continuing to curse that damned monkeys paw, did his thing on the other channel, which at least had McKinnons surprise badass moderator Savannah Guthrie on hand to relive the usual schtick. Now, Id like to start by tearing you a new one, McKinnons Guthrie segued smoothly into a question about Trumps coddling of white supremacists. Theres plenty to analyze, criticize and satirize in the Biden campaign, but simply painting these wildly contrasting events as a Hallmark movie and an alien autopsy leaves pretty much everything of substance on the table.
As much criticism has been heaped (by meI did that) on Baldwins blandly boorish Trump, his brag about supposedly beating COVID went merrily afield with Trump boasting, I never died. I never saw hell, or the devil. It takes some crisp and/or mean writing for me not to just hear white noise whenever Baldwins Trump is desultorily hamming it up, so heres to Trumps actual non-answer/lie about nutjob conspiracy cult Qanon morphing, in his ever-shifting lack of moral center to a heartfelt, rest in power, to documented party pal, the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Meanwhile, Carrey embodied the shows take on Biden (remember: old), by donning Mr. Rogers sweater and Bob Ross painting-afro as the slow-hardening cement of the SNLs apparent one-note impression solidified. Like Ches (and Aidys) Update pieces suggested, it might be true that the choice between these two candidates has already been made by literally everyone conceivably watching, but its still a disappointment that so little effort appears to be going into doing anything but grabbing top-of-the-show ratings with saggy, low-hanging fruit.
Alex Moffat and Mikey Days doubles act as manchild Eric and desperately spinning protector Donald Trump Jr., respectively, remains a reliable laugh. Moffats the star, his childlike Erics fascination with shiny things (hand sanitizer here) and inability to toe the family line in dirty secrets the sort of inaccurate but essence-stealing creation that SNL fan favorites are made from. And there remains something improbably endearing about Don Jr.s solicitous care for his helpless siblingt (here seen wearing a Paw Patrol mask)hey, hes a trust-fund ding-dong, but hes my brother. Bringing in Chloe Finemans maskless-partying, little seen Tiffany Trump to finally meet brother Eric (Hi, Not-vanka) and guilelessly spill some more Trump family secrets allowed Chloe some work, but this is really a two-person job.
I Am Hip To The Musics Of Today
Im trying to think of a nice way to say this. For former child-music star Justin Bieber, it cant have been fun to have the media report every stupid thing youve done since you became a millionaire superstar as soon as you hit puberty. And everyones feelings are valid, to them at least. I would still questionin a world where Popstar: Never Stop Stopping existsa still-wealthy and famous former teen idol taking to a national TV stage to sing an utterly self-serious ballad (called Lonely, no less) about how hard it is being Justin Bieber. (Ive had everything but no ones listening.) The fact that Biebers second, heavily guide-tracked performance tonight started out with a somber Bieber in his SNL dressing room crooning into the mirror before the camera reverently preceded him to the stage did not do him any favors, either. (Keyboardist Benny Blanco was there to give him a hug, at least.) Biebers first song (the muddled girl, your love is, like, holy, girl anthem) Holy at least had the good sense to bring out Chance The Rapper for some leavening flow (silencing some of the giggles from when the neon green cross blinked to life before the hangdog Bieber began singing), but its that second trip down Maudlin Self-Pity Lane thats going to find its own Popstar-style verbatim skewering one day. (I know Im on reference overload tonight, but there was a definite Boo Boos going solo energy here.)
Most/Least Valuable Not Ready For Prime Time Player
Melissa Villaseñor has been found. Repeat, call off the search for Melissa Villaseñor. She didnt get to do much, but heres hoping.
The three new kids all got their biggest roles to date. Not huge rolesAndrew Dismukes was fourth man in the Hey, lets kidnap the governor sketch, but it was by far his most screen time to date. And both Punkie Johnson and Lauren Holt took some minor roles. (No mean feat with 2020people in the cast at present.) Johnson probably got the newbie edge, what with getting to ham it up alongside Maya as one half of the Diamond and Silk-esque Trump fans, Crystal and Caviar. Not bad company to be in.
Bowen Yang made his move this week, with juicy roles in two sketches that allowed him to break out of the trade daddy mold.
Once again, we got a fake commercial for the actual last sketch, and it was low-key pretty great, an Ebay ad targeted at all those expensive hobby supplies you bought at the beginning of quarantine but never used. Ego Nwodims $400 chefs knife has only been used to open Amazon packages, while Chris Redds would-be guitarist complains, Guitars hurt. Nobody tells you that.
The real, live, ten-to-one sketch is the penultimate piece about the irate fast food fans whose thwarted passion for their favorite midwestern chains greasy mix of burgers and sassy wait staff has transitioned, with terrifying ease, into a plot to kidnap and murder their states governor. Since that actually happened last week in Michigan when a gang of white supremacist terrorists were arrested before enacting their own, very real plan to assassinate Democratic Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, were officially in beyond-satire territory. Still, Beck Bennett, Kyle Mooney, Andrew Dismukes, and lone non-white would-be killer Kenan (his creepy weirdo is in it for the murder more than the politics) go for broke as their broadcast-interrupting buffoons show just how small a leap it is for even mildly-thwarted white male impulses to turn into full-blown, heavily armed violence. That the plotters voices all drop to a tight, guilty whisper as they avert their eyes at necessary mention of the actual bloody endgame of their shutdown burger-rage adds a creepily amusing tint to all the camo and flop sweat.
Stray observations
- CBCs post Schitts Creek programming hole has been filled by something called Sharts Cavern.
- Raes reporter on the person she thought was Drake: He was crying on a basketball court.
- Ill admit itthe celebrity(?) photo used as the punchline for Ches 21-year-old lemur joke? No idea.
- SNL took a few playfully harmless swipes at parent NBCs decision to give Trump his own competing town hall primetime special, with Kates Savannah Guthrie pretending that allowing Trump to look stupid was the plan all along. Ches happily groan-inducing Update joke about NBC having a type (over pics of noted convicted and/or thoroughly accused network-affiliated sexual assaulters/harassers Trump, Bill Cosby, and Matt Lauer) would carry more of a punch if it included SNL itself in the NBCenablerslist.
- Maya can come back as Kamala any time, but the cold open settled for joking about the purported cluelessness of Ego Nwodims ever on-camera enthusiastic Black Trump supporter, without bothering to incorporate just who that head-nodding plant really was. Ambition and comedy can co-exist.
