Jeff “jmunney” Malone watches every new episode of Saturday Night Live and then reviews all the sketches and segments according to a “wacky” theme.
Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers in the universe! Did you spend part of the holiday watching the newest Saturday Night Live? I sure did! It’s a great idea if Mom loves to laugh.
The 2025 Mother’s Day edition of SNL was hosted by Walton Goggins, whom you might recognize in recent months from The White Lotus or The Righteous Gemstones. He was also in a pretty entertaining movie called The Luckiest Man in America! Or perhaps you remember him from back when as the primary antagonist on Justified. But I think I like him best for the short-lived sitcom The Unicorn.
The musical guest was the rock ‘n’ roll band Arcade Fire, whom you might remember from their five previous appearances on the show, dating all the way back to 2007. I wonder what 18-year-olds who weren’t alive at that time think of them?
Seeing as it is Mother’s Day, I’m going to review each sketch and segment by asking: Would Mom like this sketch? Now, of course, there are many different moms out there, and not all of them have the same sensibilities. So one mom might love a sketch that another absolutely hates. But I’ll do my best anyway.
getting her first real six string (CREDIT: Hulu/Screenshot)
Every week, I list all the upcoming (or recently released) movies, TV shows, albums, podcasts, etc. that I believe are worth checking out.
Movies
–Clown in a Cornfield (Theaters)
–Fight or Flight (Theaters)
–Friendship (Theaters)
–Summer of 69 (May 9 on Hulu) – Chloe Fineman offers sex tips; Jillian Bell’s directorial debut.
TV
–RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 10 Premiere (May 9 on Paramount+) – They’re doing a bracket-style tournament this year.
Music
-Arcade Fire, Pink Elephant
-The Head and the Heart, Aperture
-Kali Uchis, Sincerely
-Thom Yorke and Mark Pritchard, Tall Tales
Sports
-PGA Championship (May 15-18 on ESPN and CBS)
It seems like whenever there’s a new Doctor Strange movie in the theaters, Benedict Cumberbatch is hosting Saturday Night Live. And it also seems like whenever Arcade Fire has new music, they’re performing it on SNL. Case in both of those points: this episode that I’m reviewing right now.
A few months ago, I listed the sketches in order of how many speaking/singing parts they had, most first. But I never did the reverse order! So that’s what I’m doing this time. A few points of clarification: narrators are counted, except for the introductions of Weekend Update and by Darrell Hammond during the monologue (since that’s more a part of the opening credits). The person introducing the musical guest IS counted for the musical performances, while backup singers generally aren’t counted if they only sing backup. Although in the case of Arcade Fire, it made sense to count Régine Chassagne’s vocals, since she gets enough of a spotlight. And for Weekend Update, the parts with guests are counted separately from the parts that are just Michael and Colin telling jokes. Got it? In that case … here we go!
This review was originally posted on News Cult in March 2018.
NewsCult Entertainment Editor Jeffrey Malone watches every new episode of Saturday Night Live and then organizes the sketches into the following categories: “Love It” (potentially Best of the Season-worthy), “Keep It” (perfectly adequate), or “Leave It” (in need of a rewrite, to say the least). Then he concludes with assessments of the host and musical guest.
Love It
Stefon – It is rare that an SNL recurring character gets as satisfying a “final” appearance as Stefon did, which would seem to render any subsequent City Correspondent segments sacrosanct. But when Bill Hader returns to host, are you going to not have him revive one of the greatest bits in comedy history? Stefon just continues to epitomize excellent humor writing, doling out new, fascinating information in perfectly timed, rhythmic fashion.
Obama Press Conference
With all the guests that Obama was bringing on to tell their stories, I thought this was going to be one of those every-cast-member-appears sketches, what with the huge cast and all. But it ended up only covering about 60%. There seemed to be a fair amount of applause for Beck Bennett – did people recognize him from the AT&T commercials? Or was that just premature applause for Aaron Paul? I had heard speculation that the cold opening would cover Ted Cruz, or maybe Breaking Bad – what do you know, they were both right! Cecily’s appearance here was the first of several times this episode I was upset we’ll never see her again as a guest on the Update desk, with the complaint of a broken iPhone 5S a rather Girl at a Party-esque problem. B-
Tina Fey’s Monologue
I like a well-crafted pun, delivered with conviction (or a terrible pun delivered with conviction), so Tina’s fake recurring characters were a quick delight. And I also like deconstruction, so Tina explaining that new cast members have to pay their dues as backup dancers to the host was better than just another plain old song and dance monologue. And those outfits made it clear that we are living in a post-Magic Mike world. B+
Cold Opening – G20 Press Conference
This was so identical to last year’s Obama/Hu Jintao press conference sketch that I almost thought I was watching a rerun. Logically, I knew that that could not be true. I knew that I was watching a new episode and that Bill Hader had not played Hu in the last sketch, but perception is not always completely rational. Anyway, last year’s sketch was strongly decent; this one suffered from being exactly the same. B-
Scarlett Johansson’s Monologue
The premise of ScarJo keeping it classy was promising enough. I guess. Maybe. Abby’s Ke$ha was right on, but I don’t think she really fit in this bit, because I don’t think Ke$ha particularly cares if she appears classy or not. B-
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