We’re in the home stretch until the halfway point of the season. It feels like just yesterday it was the season premiere. The most recent episode was the Thanksgiving show with host Matthew McConaughey and musical guest Adele. McConaughey delivered a great performance while Adele brought down the house with two impressive performances. Some highlights from the last episode include:
-The return of the “Fox & Friends” cold open.
-A Thanksgiving sketch showing that Adele’s hit song “Hello” can fix any awkward Thanksgiving dinner with relatives.
-Auditions for Star Wars.
-The return of Laura Parsons and David Ortiz
-The return of “Right Side of the Bed”.
This week, Ryan Gosling made his debut as host and Leon Bridges made his debut as a musical guest. I thought both did well with their debuts on the SNL stage and wouldn’t be surprised if either of them came back to the show in the future. Here’s my take on Ryan Gosling.
Sketch Rundown:
A Christmas Message from Donald and Melania Trump Cold Open:
I loved the impressions in this sketch and I think Taran and Cecily do a great job as Donald and Melania. I loved the naughty and nice list bit. I thought it was funny how Santa was on the naughty list with Trump saying that Santa was worse than Obama. Overall, I thought it was a funny cold open.
Ryan Gosling Monologue:
I really loved this monologue (as much as I love Ryan Gosling)! I thought it was funny how Cecily was fact checking him (that had to be one hell of a quick change for her). I was surprised to see Mike Myers but it was a great surprise. I also loved how Myers said that he lived backstage. I thought the snowman was funny. I thought the song was funny as well as the Canadian Christmas dance number. I also loved how the ending was messed up. Overall, I thought this was a great monologue.
Settl:
I thought this sketch was funny and this app looks like something I would want to try at least once. I also loved the tagline, “Settl. Tick tock.”
Alien Abduction:
In all honesty, I thought this was a great sketch to open the show. I loved how just about everyone, most notably Gosling, kept breaking throughout the entirety of the sketch! I was amazed how Cecily was the only person in that sketch that wasn’t breaking. Overall, this sketch was hilarious and one of my favorite sketches of the night.
Santa Baby:
I thought this sketch was a little weird although I thought the Santa bit at the end was funny. The short kinda reminded me a little bit of the movie Elf and I wouldn’t have been surprised if Buddy the Elf showed up in the sketch. To be honest, this is a sketch that probably should’ve ended up in the second half of the show.
Birthday Party:
To be honest, I wasn’t a big fan of this sketch and I’m not a big fan of Aidy’s character. I’m kinda surprised they brought back this character. However, I thought that Ryan Gosling was super cute in this sketch and I loved how he was trying to sing the Backstreet Boys. I did notice that he called Aidy’s character Morgan instead of Melanie at one point in the sketch. This made me wonder if he just got confused or if there was a new installment of “Girlfriends Talk Show” that was cut for time. I did feel bad for Aidy towards the end of the sketch because it looked like it hurt to fall on the breakaway table. Overall, this was probably one of my least favorite sketches of the night.
Leon Bridges “Smooth Sailin’” Performance:
Like many of the artists this season (and in past seasons) of SNL, I had never heard of Leon Bridges before this night’s episode. However, I did like this performance. I thought the song was very catchy, bluesy, and soulful. I was very impressed with Bridges during his performances and thought he did a great job.
Weekend Update:
I thought this week’s Update had a good start with funny jokes about Ben Carson and Jeb Bush. I also thought the joke about the Senate voting on gun control was also very funny. I did like Cecily’s Jill Davenport character and it’s possible this could become another recurring character for her. I’ve actually started to notice a trend where it seems that every Update character that Jost interacts with is trying to flirt with him. I also thought it was funny how Che was wearing headphones when they cut to him during the bit. I also thought the jar bit was funny. I loved the joke Che did about “The Wiz”. I also loved the jokes about the popular baby name and Mouse Mingle. I thought it was great to see Anthony Crispino again. I also loved how they used Ryan Gosling in the bit as Angelo, Crispino’s third-hand news guy. I also loved the smoking tea kettles at the end. Overall, I thought this was another great Update.
GQ Interview:
I thought this was a funny sketch. I found it pretty cool that Cecily was playing reporters from two different magazines in one show. I thought Kyle’s character was hilarious. I also loved how Gosling kept breaking a lot during the sketch. I thought the singing and the dance number were great. I was also one of the probably millions of girls watching that wished Gosling took his shirt off. Regardless, I thought this sketch was funny and a great post-Update sketch.
Nespresso:
I thought this was a funny ad parody and I don’t think I’ll be able to watch the original commercial the same way ever again. I thought the impressions were great and I loved Kate as the actress wearing the beaver costume. Overall, I thought this was a great ad parody.
“The Wiz” Live:
I figured they were gonna do a sketch parody of this musical, either as a sketch or as the cold open. I loved that they were able to utilize all of the black cast members. I also thought it was amazing that they used the costumes from the live production. I loved Gosling as the Scarecrow from “The Wizard of Oz” and I thought his impression was fantastic. Overall, I thought this was a great sketch and I felt that it should’ve been placed in the first half of the show.
Leon Bridges “River” Performance:
I thought this was another great performance from Bridges. I really liked the song and found the song to be very soulful. This is another case where I become of a fan of an artist I’ve never heard of and it’s all thanks to SNL.
Santa and his Magical Elves:
In all honesty, I didn’t like the elves sketch the first time but I did like that they used a Christmas setting. I’m also not surprised that this ended up being the last sketch of the night. Along with the “Birthday Party” sketch, this was another one of my least favorite sketches of the night.
Overall, I thought this was another good episode. I thought the tribute to Jenna Krempel from the SNL Wardrobe who had passed away was sweet. I also loved how Ryan mentioned his wife, Eva Mendes, and daughter, Esmeralda, during the goodnights. I thought that both Gosling and Bridges did a great job on this episode and I’m pretty sure they’ll be back to SNL some time in the future.
This has been my take on the SNL episode hosted by Ryan Gosling with musical guest Leon Bridges. I’ll be back soon with a review of SNL hosted by Chris Hemsworth with musical guest Chance the Rapper. 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
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