SNL: Alex Moffat, Brandi Carlile, Jason Sudeikis, Chloe Fineman
Jason Sudeikis used to be a cast member on Saturday Night Live, but now he’s the host. Not permanently, just for this episode (although possibly also future episodes as well). Brandi Carlile is the musical guest. Rock ‘n’ roll!
This time, I’m assembling my review in order of the birthdays of the first person to speak in each sketch. Just the dates and not the years, though. So, for example, someone born January 1, 1980 will go ahead of someone born on January 2, 1970. (For the musical performances, I’ll organize them according to the introducing person’s birthday.)
This is a review of a very special episode of Saturday Night Live, because all SNL episodes are special, because they’re put together by special people, because all people are special. The particular special people this time are host Rami Malek and Young Thug.
This season, I’ve been playing around with the order of the sketches in my reviews, and this time, I’m going to list them in order of length of what I’ve written (in terms of number of lines and the length of the last line, as written in Times New Roman on Google Docs), from shortest to longest. Here we go!
SNL: Halsey, Kim Kardashian West, Cecily Strong (CREDIT: NBC/Screenshot)
For last week’s premiere episode, I reviewed the sketches in backwards order, and now this time I’m going to review them in alphabetical order. This can potentially be a little tricky, because sometimes I think certain sketches should have a different name than what’s listed on SNL‘s YouTube page. So I’ll say this to make sure that we’re all on the same page: I’m going with the sketch names that I think make the most sense.
But first, a first word on a couple of the new cast members: the “h” in “Aristotle Athari” is silent, so his last name sounds like a certain video game system, and I think that’s pretty cool. And there’s also Sarah Sherman, whose name sounds VERY similar to “Sarah Silverman,” who was also once upon a time a brunette SNL cast member.
Hello, readers, you are now about to read my review of Saturday Night Live‘s Season 47 premiere, which was hosted by Mr. Owen Wilson with musical guest Ms. Kacey Musgraves. I like to mix up my review style every once in a while, so for this episode, I will talk about the sketches in the reverse order in which they aired. I don’t think I’ll be doing that for every episode this season; instead, I’ll be mixing it up … we’ll see how it goes!
Also, I should mention that I’m in the midst of training for the New York City Marathon, so if it feels like my review was written after running double-digit miles, now you know why.
Oh my god, Saturday Night Live Season 46 is already complete?! It’s already late May 2021?! Okay then, I guess it’s time to let you know what I liked the most about the past year of Studio 8H’s offerings in various categories. If you want to know my absolute favorite hosts, musical guests, episodes, etc., then get with it and keep reading! The number of entrants varies by category, because that’s just what I felt like doing, lol.
(My favorite ketches get their own post, which can be found here.)
Most Valuable Cast Member
I don’t think I’ve ever picked Pete Davidson as the MVCM of a season, so I’m going to go ahead and do that now. Why not! After all, he appeared in several of my favorite sketches this year. Can you believe he just finished his seventh season?
Pete Davidson
Runners-Up:
Kenan Thompson
Kate McKinnon
What makes a good comedy sketch? Oh jeez, there are so many ways to answer that, but one thing’s for sure: we’d better be laughing! So with that in mind, I decided to discuss my favorite sketches of SNL Season 46 by describing how they made me LAUGH.
(As per usual, both sketches that aired live and cut-for-time sketches that were posted online were deemed eligible.)
15. New Choreographers: I laughed WHILE ACKNOWLEDGING THAT I WAS IN THE PRESENCE OF GREATNESS because legends were talking to each other.
SNL: Lil Nas X, Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Redd (CREDIT: YouTube Screenshot)
You are now currently reading a review of the Saturday Night Live Season 46 finale – can you believe it? 7 months ago, could anyone have predicted that this episode would be hosted by Anya Taylor-Joy with musical guest Lil Nas X? Probably. Whether you predicted it or not, it happened.
The cold opening had an honest-to-goodness title displayed on the screen: “What I remember about this year” (Grade: 3.5/5 Remembrances of Things Past). As it opened with the longest-serving veteran cast members on the stage, I had to wonder if this would be their last episode (and I doubt I was the only one who thought that). That matter was never directly addressed, though. Instead, everyone just mentioned unusual things that happened during the past several months … and they also stretched the truth a little bit. SNL Life sometimes truly is stranger than SNL Fiction!
SNL: Olivia Rodrigo, Keegan-Michael Key, Kate McKinnon (CREDIT: YouTube Screenshot)
The penultimate episode of Saturday Night Live Season 46 has been hosted by Keegan-Michael Key! Fun fact about Keegan: he used to be one of the two stars of his own eponymous sketch show. But that show ended its run nearly six years ago. What do you think about that! The musical guest is Olivia Rodrigo, a teenager who writes songs.
For sustenance, I had a typical Sunday breakfast: two fried eggs, toast with strawberry jelly, and orange peach mango juice. Was the fruit-based-products-to-eggs ratio too high? #BreakfastThoughts
I didn’t forget to review the sketches! (Not that you thought I did, lol.) We start off with a Message from Dr. Fauci (Grade: 3/5 Faucis) and a bunch of other folks who are supposedly doctors, but they’re REALLY wacky by doctor standards. Supposedly they were acting out scenarios to help people figure out if and when they should still wear face coverings, but instead it was all just an excuse to act out shenanigans.
SNL: Miley Cyrus, Elon Musk, Cecily Strong (CREDIT: YouTube Screenshot)
Happy Mother’s Day! How come Richard Roundtree has never hosted SNL? Instead, this Mother’s Day Weekend, the host is Business Man Elon Musk, whose booking reminds me of that of Steve Forbes (i.e., Teve Torbes) in 1996. Musk is famously Not-A-Comedian, but can he successfully appear in funny comedy sketches? I have decided to find out. Miley Cyrus is the musical guest. She likes to appear on this show frequently!
I received my second COVID vaccination dose approximately 16 hours before I began watching this episode. I think the shot made me especially hungry, so it helped that I had a hearty breakfast that included some combination of eggs, strawberries, crumbs, and other nutrient-packed selections.
Now onto the part of the review where I talk about the sketches! The Cold Opening (Grade: 3.5/5 Mothers) features Miley Cyrus singing a song and the cast members bantering with their moms. It all culminates with a quite-possibly-record-breaking 36 people declaring, “LFNY,ISN!” at the same time.
Fun fact: I enjoy watching Carey Mulligan acting in the movies1 Does that mean I’ll also enjoy watching her host Saturday Night Live for the first time? If you read this review, you just might find out! The musical guest is Kid Cudi, who I mostly know from his one-season stint as bandleader on Comedy Bang! Bang!, though I did also know him before that, and now I’ll know him even more after this.
I got my first COVID vaccine dose approximately 10 hours before this episode started airing. I’ve had some soreness around the injection site, but that didn’t really affect my viewing experience in any significant way.
The cold opening goes the local news route by putting an Eye on Minnesota (Grade: 4/5 Eyes) and the Derek Chauvin trial, and quite frankly, everyone involved does a fine job being goofy in the midst of such a distressing topic.
