Season 41 continues it’s great start with
a great host pick. Last week, Amy Schumer graced the stage of studio 8H for the
first time fresh off her Emmy win for her show Inside Amy Schumer and her hit movie Trainwreck. The Weeknd brought in Nicki Minaj for his performance
of “The Hills” and performed his hit song “Can’t Feel My Face” near the end of
the show. Some highlights from last episode are:
-A
Fox & Friends cold open.
-A
stand-up monologue from Schumer.
-A
sketch about a Delta flight where Amy and Vanessa parodied the Spice Girls and
fell out of a plane.
-A
short about how people are obsessed about their guns.
-A
new Update character from Jay and the
return of Kate’s character Mrs. Santini.
-A
short about a hands-free selfie stick.
This week’s episode is one I’ve been
waiting for since the first three hosts were announced close to the end of the
summer. Tracy Morgan made his triumphant return not only to Rockefeller Center
and SNL but to comedy in general.
This was Tracy’s first performance since he was severely injured in a car
accident over a year ago. I thought Tracy did a great job and it was great to
see him perform again. Demi Lovato, one of my favorite singers, came to perform
for the first time on the show. I loved her performances and I thought they
made a great addition to the show.
Here’s my review of Tracy’s big return to
comedy.
Sketch
Rundown:
Democratic
Debate Cold Open:
I thought this was a funny cold open. I
thought Jon’s Anderson Cooper impression was pretty good and I can understand
why the real Anderson Cooper wouldn’t like his impression. To be fair,
Rudnitsky’s probably never done this impression before and the last person to
do an Anderson Cooper impression was Seth Meyers. I loved seeing Alec Baldwin
as Jim Webb (I had a feeling he would be here because of Tracy hosting) and seeing
Larry David as Bernie Sanders was a nice surprise. I thought his impression was
very good that I thought it was the real Bernie Sanders. I loved his line “I
don’t have a SuperPAC. I don’t even have a backpack.” I loved the underwear and
BernieSanders.com bits. I loved this cold open and I thought it was a great way
to open the show.
Tracy
Morgan Monologue:
I loved this monologue and I thought Tracy
deserved the standing ovation when he came out. I loved how he poked fun at his
injuries. I loved the 30 Rock episode
in the monologue and loved seeing the whole cast reunited. I loved the Smash and Animal Practice bumpers and the lines “Remember, this is 2012,” and
“Are those Smash people under me?” I
thought this was a great monologue and one of my favorites of the season so
far.
Family
Feud:
I liked that they did a regular Family Feud instead of another Celebrity Family Feud. I honestly don’t
know if I could take another one of those. I loved Tracy and Leslie playing
exes. I also loved seeing Che in a sketch. A couple of the lines I liked were “Looks
like we surveyed 100 divorced women,” and “He has stolen enough from me, Steve!”
I thought the excessive buzzer over Leslie was very funny. I loved this sketch
a lot and thought it was funny.
Brian
Fellow’s Safari Planet:
I’m so glad they brought this sketch back
since this is one of Tracy’s well-known characters. I loved how they used the
original intro from when Tracy was on the show. I thought Pete was very funny
in this sketch and the beaver was cute. I was surprised they brought a camel
into the studio. The whole time I was like “There’s a camel in studio 8H.” The
thought bubbles over Tracy, Aidy, and the camel were very funny. The camel
moving in front of the camera was funny and shows that this is a live show. I
loved it when Tracy was like “I can’t see camel!” I thought this was a funny
sketch and one of my favorites of the night.
Fake
Cocaine:
I thought this was a weird sketch but I
loved the first tagline “The #1 excuse for going #2.” I also loved Leslie’s
line “Who took a s*** in my bedroom?” Even though there were some funny
moments, I didn’t absolutely love this sketch.
Demi
Lovato “Cool For The Summer/Confident” Performance:
As I mentioned earlier, I love Demi and
she’s one of my favorite singers. I was so excited that she was picked to be
the musical guest. I had a feeling she would perform “Cool For The Summer” and “Confident”
but I didn’t expect a medley even though it worked for these songs. I thought
this was a very fun, catchy performance of two great songs.
Weekend
Update:
I loved Jost’s joke at the beginning of Update about the debate and the joke
after that about Huckabee. I also loved the bit between Jost and Che about the
Republican candidates and the process for becoming president shouldn’t be
treated like an open call audition. I loved how Jost was like “Mets beat the
Cubs tonight!” and Che talking about how he recorded the game and was going to
watch it back later. I loved Tina’s bit about Playboy, especially her line “Girls need to know coding and arm
butts,” and her poses on top of the Update
desk. I also loved how she just ran from the desk with her arms flailing. I
loved how Jost was about to break during Che’s joke about aliens. I did kind of
see the Segway to Willie coming. I didn’t even expect Tracy’s character Woodrow
to appear since I’m not that familiar with the character. I loved how Tracy
brought out a Degree deodorant saying that he has a degree. I also thought the
song the two of them sang was funny. I thought this was a very good Update.
Morning
Song:
I thought this sketch was very random and
the typical sketch saved for after Update.
It reminded me of the opening scene from Beauty
and the Beast. The sketch got really weird after the line “I’m sleeping
with this boy child.” I was surprised this sketch didn’t get a lot of
controversy. Overall, this wasn’t my favorite sketch.
The
Standoff:
I thought this was an okay sketch. I liked
how they were going to dance. I thought that was a great direction for this
sketch. I thought the ballet slippers were funny. Overall, I thought this was
an okay sketch.
Demi
Lovato “Stone Cold” Performance:
I thought this was a beautiful song and a
beautiful performance. This song reminded me of her song “Warrior” from her
previous album and this performance just shows how great of a performer she is.
I loved how she got emotional during this performance. I loved this performance
and thought she did a great job with both of her performances.
Yo!
Where Jackie Chan At Right Now?:
I thought this was a funny yet random
sketch. I loved the phone line and asking random celebrities where Jackie Chan
is. I loved the line “People need to respect this show. We won a Peabody.” I
loved that Leslie played herself in this sketch. I also loved the trap set out
for Jackie Chan and thought it was funny. Even though I thought it was a weird
sketch, I thought it was very funny.
Astronaut
Jones: The Martian:
I really liked how they brought this
sketch back and that they used the original intro, the dumb yet very catchy
theme song. I thought it was funny, even though predictable, that they would
combine The Martian and Astronaut
Jones. I loved seeing Demi in a sketch, especially since she has a background
in acting. I ended up liking this sketch a lot more than I thought I would and
thought it was a good way to end the show.
Overall, I thought this was an amazing
show. I thought Tracy did an amazing job and it was great to see him back doing
what he does best: making people laugh. I loved how he had his wife and little
daughter onstage with him at the goodnights and how he messed up Jane Krakowski’s
last name. I would love to see him host again in the future. I also thought
Demi did a great job as the musical guest and I would love to see her come back
and pull double duty as host and musical guest. This episode deserved to be the
highest rated episode of this season.
Some SNL
news from this week includes the news that Colin Jost is no longer a head
writer for SNL but remains on the
writing staff. My guess to why he’s no longer a head writer is so he can focus
more on Update instead of the show as
a whole.
As you might know, Donald Trump was
announced to host on November 7th. It’s definitely a controversial
choice and a choice I’m not happy about. Out of all the presidential
candidates, Trump was the one chosen to host, probably since he’s hosted
before. I’m still going to watch the episode and live tweet but I’m not going
to do a full review of the show. I’ve been going back and forth for a couple
weeks about whether or not I should write a post. I’ve decided I won’t review
Trump but instead focus on Sia’s performances, Weekend Update, and focusing on the strongest sketch for each cast
member. My reason for watching the show on November 7th and not
boycotting has nothing to with supporting Trump. Honestly, I can’t stand him
and I don’t agree with anything he stands for. I’m only watching the show
because the cast, crew, writers, producers, and everyone at the show put in so
much work week after week. Sia’s also put in a lot of work to her performances.
I may not be happy with the host choice for this upcoming episode but there are
a lot of other host picks I haven’t liked in the past and may not like in the
future.
This has been my take on this very special
SNL episode hosted by Tracy Morgan
with musical guest Demi Lovato. I’ll be back soon with some kind of review for
the episode hosted by Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump with
musical guest Sia. Please spread the word about the blog and subscribe to the
blog. Also, follow the blog on Twitter @SNLblogger. I live tweet during new
episodes on the blog’s Twitter so feel free to join in on the conversation.
Feel free to start your own conversations about episodes in the comments
section but keep them clean. Also, please feel free to give me constructive
criticism about the blog so I can improve the blog in any way.
Thanks for reading!
Lauren
