CREDIT: NBC/Screenshots

Sometimes I rank my favorite sketches of the past SNL season, sometimes I just sit and think about random nonsense. For my Season 49 round-up, here’s how it’s going to go: I’ll scan over each episode and remind myself what I thought and then decide which are the parts I feel most compelled to write (aka type) about. I might mention my favorite sketches, I might mention my favorite hosts and musical guests, and I might even mention my favorite Weekend Update segments! We’ll see how it goes! I haven’t decided yet. We’re going to figure it out together.

First off, I have to jump right to the 17th episode of the season (out of 20 total), which was the one hosted by Ryan Gosling, because it was my very favorite episode of Season 49. I was in the midst of training for some long road races at the time, so I went for a double-digit mileage run that Sunday morning. Endurance workouts often put me in a laughing mood, and that was certainly the case this time. But I’m pretty sure I would’ve loved this episode no matter what, thanks to the sketch with the doctors, and the sketch with (not) Beavis and (not) Butt-Head, and the parody of Erin Brockovich. And this was also the episode with the Caitlin Clark cameo! That was definitely, definitely my favorite Weekend Update segment of the season.

Speaking of that Ryan Gosling episode, I’m going to go ahead and talk about the musical guests now, because Chris Stapleton was the M.G. alongside Gosling, and he delivered some of my favorite Season 49 performances on Studio 8H. But he doesn’t quite top the list! No, that honor goes to a lady called RAYE. I’d heard her name before, but not her music. Fortunately, now I’ve heard both!

Nate Bargatze was perhaps the most pleasant surprise of the season, thanks to his highly capable job hosting Episode 3. He’s a lot like RAYE, in the sense that before he appeared on SNL, I’d heard his name, but not his voice. He may just have been my second favorite host of the season! And that’s really saying something in a year when Emma Stone joined the Five-Timers Club and reminded us why we love her so much.

Some other moments I really quite enjoyed from this here Season 49:
–A misdirect from Adam Driver
–The return of Garrett
–The please don’t destroy boys mourning a friend
–“Tssidahn”
–An unforgettable Q&A
–Accurate NPR vibes

And one other cool thing was that Ariana Grande (who i’m a fan of) was the musical guest on the episode that aired on my birthday. And she actually sang “Happy Birthday to You” on that episode!

I’ll also mention that I’ve been listening to the new audio program known as The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast, in which former SNL head writer Seth Meyers reminisces alongside Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone about their time on SNL during the Digital Shorts era. I was in high school and college for most of that period, so it was a rather formative time when it comes to my SNL fandom. Maybe 20 years from now, all you youngsters who are currently watching SNL on your TikTok machines during study hall will be listening to the “Colin Jost and please don’t destroy Podcast”!

7/2/24 UPDATE: I forgot to talk about the Cut for Time sketches! And I really needed to, because the Limu Emu was so wonderfully, funderfully, darkly fantastic.