SNL: Bowen Yang, Nick Jonas, Ego Nwodim (CREDIT: YouTube Screenshot)

Hellooooooooooooooooooooooo to my readers! I am about to review the February 27, 2021 episode of Saturday Night Live, which featured Nick Jonas as host and musical guest. He’s previously appeared before as musical guest once on his own and twice with his brothers, but this time, it’s something different, and my review should reflect that.

I had eggs and some side dishes for breakfast Sunday morning.

The opening sketch is A Message From Dr. Fauci (Grade: Pfizer Visor Consolation Prize), which promptly turns into a game show entitled “So You Think You Can Get the Vaccine,” with a trio of current American governors serving as the judges. I was most amused by Pete’s Andrew Cuomo inexplicably mentioning Five Guys.

For his Monologue (Grade: Gray Sweats), Nick J. wore an orange jacket (a preview of even more color to come), and then a few cast members joined him for drinks and to sing a song. It was fairly quick and efficient!

For the first post-Monologue sketch, we’ve got a Workout Mirror (Grade: 4/5 Guac Experts), and what a delight it was to see Kate McKinnon as Shannon Delgado, the woman stuck in the mirror and harassed by the demon Azuzel. Bonus points to Heidi Gardner for totally embracing the exercising ethos and showing off her flat tummy.

Some ladies sing about a Murder Show (Grade: 3/5 Cannibals), and I can relate, because my sister and mom and brother’s fiance are all very much into the genre.

I had more eggs than usual for breakfast.

We had a retelling of the classic story Cinderella (Grade: 2.5/5 Unibrows), and oh boy, does SNL like to frequently put a talking animal-themed naughty spin on popular fairy tales.

The Bachelor Party music video (Grade: Stiffy) is about a group of good buddies happily sharing a moment of physical arousal, and unsurprisingly, my attention was primarily drawn to Kyle Mooney and his unique energy.

As the musical guest (and not just the host), Nick Jonas made an implicit promise that he would sing some songs at some point during the show. The first was a ditty called “Spaceman” (Grade: 3/5 Starboys), and he sure seemed to be dressed in a way that could be called Alien (1979)-chic.

This is the point in the review when I discuss Weekend Update, and it’s worth noting that when Colin mentioned Ted Cruz’s hard drive, I thought he was calling the Texas senator a robot.

There were a couple of Update correspondent pieces, and I’m going to talk about them now. The first of the two was the return of Kenan as father-of-ballers LaVar Ball (Grade: 3/5 Super Carolinas), and this was certainly one of those instances of “Kenan continuing to do his thing.”

The second correspondent was Marjorie Taylor Greene (Grade: 3/5 Misrepresentations) – not the actual congresswoman, but an impression of her courtesy of Cecily Strong. The demon getting inside her after she sneezed was a clever innovation.

I also had a toasted bagel with my breakfast.

Wow, Kyle Mooney’s character sure was treated cruelly by his so-called friends during the Viking Voyager sketch (Grade: Justice for Robert). It was a little hard to watch, but at least that life-size Joe Gardner doll looked like it was fun to hang with.

If Ego Nwodim is comfy making The Dionne Warwick Talk Show (Grade: 3.5/5 Sandy Cakes) a regular thing, I won’t complain. In fact, I’ll probably laugh at least a few times every time it comes on.

I didn’t forget to talk about Nick Jonas’ second song! In fact, I’m about to talk about it right now. It’s called “This is Heaven” (Grade: 3/5 Orange Suits), and quite frankly, it sounds like a pastiche of 80s adult contemporary pop. The sax solo clinched it.

There are a lot of episode-closing sketches in the history of SNL that take place in drinking establishments, like the bit about Bar Flirting (Grade: A Lion with an Explorer’s Head in Its Mouth) from this episode. I guess it’s an apt setting for wacky shenanigans. That was certainly the case this time around, what with the “LOVE HAT” knuckle tattoos, the cat milk switcheroo, and of course, “Guy Piano.”

We (and by “we,” I mean “the royal we,” and in this case, “the royal we” is SNL) will be taking most of the coming March off, as the next new episode will air on March 27, with host Maya Rudolph and musical guest Jack Harlow. I’m very familiar with Maya, but I’m not too familiar with Jack, though I imagine I’ll be somewhat more familiar with him by the time he takes the Studio 8H stage.