Rami Malek/Young Thug October 16, 2021

The SNL season continues to get underway. Last week, first time host Kim Kardashian West and returning musical guest Halsey appeared on the show. As mentioned in my previous post, the episode wasn’t great but it also wasn’t terrible, which surprised me. There were some good sketches along with great musical performances from Halsey.

This week, Rami Malek came to Studio 8H to host for the first time along with musical guest Young Thug. I didn’t really know much about Rami other than he was in the TV show Mr. Robot and the movie Bohemian Rhapsody. I also didn’t really know much about Young Thug. This meant that I didn’t have a lot of expectations for this episode, other than I hoped that it was better than last week’s episode.

Here is my review of the episode hosted by Rami Malek with musical guest Young Thug.

Sketch Rundown:

Football Press Conference Cold Open:

With everything in the news about the NFL and the coach of the Las Vegas Raiders resigning, I knew there would be some kind of sketch about the NFL. I loved Cecily’s character “Prefers to Remain Anonymous” and how she does PR for the NFL. I also loved when she said “if anyone wants to switch jobs, let me know”. I also loved how she introduced Roger Goodell by saying that it wasn’t the NFL Draft but it was still okay to boo him. I was also surprised to see Colin Jost in a sketch. I also loved the constant resignations and new coaches. I also loved how the Chairman of Women’s Relations for the NFL was a cheerleader for the Washington Football Team. I loved how Heidi introduced the character by saying “I, just like my team, don’t have a name”. The new mascot was a little weird but kind of funny. I also loved Chris as Colin Kaepernick and Kenan as the new coach LeVar Burton. I also loved the NFL “Reading Rainbow” song. I thought this was a very funny and topical cold open.

Rami Malek Monologue:

Like I mentioned before, I really only knew Rami from some of his more dramatic roles. I also had no idea what to expect from the monologue. I will say I was pleasantly surprised with this monologue and it was funnier than I thought it would be. I loved how he said “I’ve always been more drawn to villains”. I also loved the joke about how his twin brother was going to swap places with him in a sketch.

Bug Assembly:

I loved how this sketch started off as being described as “Burning Man for the weird kids”. Bowen as a Daddy Long Legs was incredible. I loved his lines of “Call me Daddy” and “I’m a father and my legs go on for weeks”. I also loved how Bowen’s character’s parents were described as “his dad’s an exec for Bravo and his other dad’s a Republican”. One of the legs on Bowen’s costume falling off during one of the dances was also funny. I thought this sketch was funny and a great way to start off the show. 

Squid Game:

I was surprised with the turn that this sketch took when it went from a country song to “Squid Game”. I’m going to be completely honest, I don’t know much about “Squid Game” but I thought this sketch was funny. This sketch also featured a cameo by Country singer Big Wet and it turns out that this sketch is a parody of his song “Turn Up on the Weekend” with Branchez. I thought there were so many great lines like “they got symbols on their faces like the ones on PlayStations,” “piggy bank in the sky,” “I’m confused by the currency,” “and you go bye bye now,” “I took all my money and I bet it on the Jets,” and “I’m terrible with money”. I also loved the Red Light, Green Light scene. I thought this was a great sketch and I still have the song stuck in my head.

Prince Auditions:

I thought this was another very funny sketch. I also loved Chris as Jordan Peele. Rami and Kenan were also great in this sketch. I thought the “Prince off” was hilarious. I loved the twist that “it starts off as a Prince biopic but then it turns into being a horror movie about racism”. The Daniel Craig cameo was a surprise but also a little expected. I also loved Kenan’s line “Get off me Double O Ugly”. 

Celeb School Game Show:

This sketch easily had to be one of my favorite sketches of the night. I loved that Kenan’s character was named “Burt Simpson” and emphasized the “Burt”. The impressions were incredible and I thought it was funny how Rami and Pete played each other. I loved Mikey as John Oliver doing a rant about Ikea as well as the “over the shoulder graphics”. I also loved Melissa’s Kristen Wiig throwing a paper airplane at Kenan’s character. I also loved that Chris’s Lil Wayne was confusing this game show for all of the other game shows. I also loved Bowen’s George Takei, especially when asking why William Shatner went to space instead of him. I absolutely loved this sketch and it utilized a lot of the cast members known for doing great impressions.

Young Thug “Tick Tock” Performance:

As I mentioned earlier, I didn’t know much about Young Thug and I don’t know his music very well. I thought this was an okay performance but for some reason it also felt like a shorter performance. I don’t know if that was planned or if that’s how long the song is.

Weekend Update:

I thought this was a solid Weekend Update. I thought Bowen was awesome as a Proud Gay Oompa Loompa. I thought this was such an awesome character. Chris was also great at reporting the “very important unimportant news”. I also loved how they showed a clip from his last appearance and then said “I’m not a scientist. I went to Community College”. I also liked Linus Minus and Roy but the Zendaya jokes were a little cringey. Again, I thought it was a solid Weekend Update.

Mattress Store:

This was a pretty weird but also funny sketch. I thought Bowen, Aidy, and Rami were great in this sketch. I thought the overexaggerated scenarios, or plays as they would call them, were so outrageous but also very funny. I thought it was funny that there were fake guns already under the pillows with Aidy’s character saying to “get the killing gun”. I also loved the closing tagline “a bed for wife, a bed for life”.

Young Thug “Love You More” Performance:

This was another okay performance. I was surprised to see all of the guest performers. These included Nate Reuss, Gunna, and Jeff Bhasker. It is also worth mentioning that Travis Barker played the drums on both songs.

Angelo:

This was another weird but also funny sketch. I thought Aristotle was great in this sketch and this has the possibility of becoming a recurring sketch. I was also surprised to see Daniel Craig in another sketch. I loved how Aristotle’s character Angelo, and later Rami’s character Todd, would always say, “Say for me?”. I also loved how at the end of the sketch Aristotle and Rami started singing “I Wanna Know What Love Is” at the end of the sketch. I thought it was a funny way to end the show.

Overall, I thought this was a great episode. In my opinion, I thought this was so much better than last week. There was a lot of great writing and sketches and it looked like Rami and the cast got along really well. It still baffles me that this was only Rami’s first time hosting. I definitely think that he should host again.

This has been my take on the SNL episode hosted by Rami Malek with musical guest Young Thug. I’ll be back next week with another post about the upcoming episode hosted by Jason Sudeikis with musical guest Brandi Carlile. Be sure to connect with me and follow me on Twitter at @SNLBlogger for up to date SNL news and live tweeting every new episode. See you soon during the next episode!

Thanks for reading!

Lauren

Kim Kardashian West/Halsey October 9, 2021

Season 47 is getting underway! Last week, the season kicked off with Owen Wilson hosting and  Kacey Musgraves as the musical guest. It was a solid first episode with plenty of great sketches and great musical performances. This week, reality TV star and businesswoman Kim Kardashian West was tapped to host with returning musical guest  Halsey. When I saw that Kim was picked to host, I was honestly not too thrilled. I thought maybe she was hosting to promote the upcoming Kardashian show coming to Hulu or her business but I’m honestly still clueless.

Here is my review of the episode hosted by Kim Kardashian West with musical guest Halsey.

Sketch Rundown:

Facebook Hearings Cold Open:

I wasn’t surprised that the cold open was going to be about these hearings. I thought the sketch was very funny with great impressions. I thought it was cool seeing James Austin Johnson play Lindsey Graham while Kate is still filming one of her multiple upcoming projects. I loved the different names for the Facebook pages about Aidy’s Ted Cruz impression, such as “Ted Cruz Sucks” and “Ted Cruz is the Real Zodiac Killer”. I especially loved Chris’ impression of Cory Booker and when referencing the real Cory Booker’s romance with actress Rosario Dawson as “Does that make sense?”. Another favorite line of mine from this was “When you open an Incognito window on Google, does that prevent God from seeing what you’re googling?”. I also thought the memes were funny as well as Aidy’s Cruz’ pronunciation of the word meme. I also loved that they included references to Squid Game as well as the impressions of Mark Zuckerberg and Tom from MySpace. I thought it was a great and very topical cold open.

Kim Kardashian West Monologue:

I was quite surprised with the monologue. I appreciate that the writers wrote some really savage jokes, especially the ones about Kanye. However, I did find the jokes about O.J. Simpson to be very cringey and I’m surprised but also not really surprised that there was an O.J. joke. Even though I was surprised with the monologue, I did think it was just okay.

Jasmine and Aladdin:

If I’m being honest, I thought this was a weird sketch to start the show with. My favorite part would have to be Bowen as The Genie but Kenan and Cecily were also funny. I loved the line that Jasmine and her sisters all have “J” names.

Ladies Night Song:

Strangely enough, even though I’m twenty-six, I found this sketch somewhat relatable. The parts about wearing heels felt very relatable because they hurt so bad. I also loved the part about checking traffic. At the end when they were leaving the club at 9:01 PM, I felt that because I’ve gotten to the point where there are some parties and events that I want to leave early because I’m so tired.

The Dream Guy:

I honestly was surprised that there would be a “Bachelor” type sketch. I was also surprised with the amount of cameos in the sketch. The one I was particularly shocked to see was Tyler Cameron who has actually been on “The Bachelorette”. Other cameos included Chace Crawford, Jesse Williams, Chris Rock, John Cena, Blake Griffin, and Amy Schumer. Kyle’s character was also funny. I also thought it was funny that Alex was playing a host similar to Chris Harrison. I also thought it was funny they gave out tokens instead of roses. I loved one of the last lines “say your goodbyes and walk into the pit”. I’m honestly even surprised that I even liked this sketch.

The Switch:

I loved seeing another Aidy based sketch. I definitely got some “Freaky Friday” vibes from this sketch. I also wasn’t surprised to see cameos from Kris Jenner and Khloé Kardashian. I also liked how Streeter Seidell (a writer on the show) played Aidy’s husband, although I thought they would have had her real-life husband Conner O’Malley in the sketch. I also thought the joke about the milkshakes was funny. I also thought the ending of the sketch was pretty funny. This was probably one of the sketches I liked the most.

Lotto Drawing:

I thought this sketch started off funny but then just became redundant. I did love Kenan, Aidy, Chris, and Cecily in this sketch. I also loved Chris’ line as the sports anchor “They won’t tell me the scores!”. I did think it was strange that Kim and Cecily’s characters were in front of the other’s lottery set. For example, Kim’s character was in front of the double play when she was supposed to be in front of the powerplay and Cecily’s character was in front of the powerplay when she was supposed to be in front of the doubleplay. I don’t know if anyone else noticed that. I didn’t until I watched the sketch back to write my review. I also loved Ego’s Diana Ross impression and that she had a winning ticket.

Halsey “I Am Not a Woman, I’m a God” Performance:

I thought this was a great performance by Halsey and also a great song. I also wish that Halsey could’ve hosted along with being the musical guest but they did just have a baby and may not have felt up to hosting in addition to being the musical guest, which is completely understandable. All in all, it was great to see Halsey again.

Weekend Update:

I think this was another solid Weekend Update. I loved Colin’s jokes about Facebook and that he mentioned that he attended Harvard with Mark Zuckerberg. I also loved Michael Che’s joke about the Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp outages, leaving those to only go on Twitter, TikTok, and host the show, in reference to the night’s host. I loved Alex’s character of Terry Fink, which seems to be a new character for him. I thought his reviews were funny as well as the ratings he gave the different movies as well as the off the walls review of the new Venom movie. I also loved Heidi’s new character, Kelly Party. I thought this character was so funny and how they just kept playing Icona Pop’s “I Love It”. I also love how she was like “Lorne, play my song”. I hope to see both of these characters again in the future.

The People’s Kourt:

I wasn’t surprised they would do a spoof of a possible new Kardashian show but I was surprised that Kim did an impression of her sister Kourtney (it does make sense for the title of the sketch). I also wasn’t surprised that Kris and Khloé appeared in a sketch in addition to “The Switch”. I also loved seeing Halsey appear in a sketch as Kendall Jenner alongside Melissa as Kylie Jenner. I also loved the joke that Kendall has no drama (I mean, clearly a joke). I also loved the line “I’m a Jenner, not a Kardashian”. I also loved the impressions of Mikey as Travis Barker, Pete as Machine Gun Kelly, and Chloe as Megan Fox. I also loved Heidi doing an impression of Kim while wearing a replica of Kim’s outfit from the Met Gala. Kenan’s impression of O.J. Simpson was kind of predictable and a little cringey if I’m being completely honest. My one major complaint, however, was them referring to “Wicked” as a play instead of a musical even when a graphic of a Tweet saying it was a musical. I’m a theatre kid so using “play” and “musical” interchangeably is really annoying to me. Overall, I thought this sketch was funny at times but also just okay.

Please Don’t Destroy-Hard Seltzer:

I thought it was cool to see a pre-taped sketch with only writers featured. It almost reminded me of the Good Neighbor sketches that were on in the early seasons of Beck and Kyle. I thought it was funny that it seemed like every major company was coming out with a hard seltzer, like JC Penney and Jiffy Lube who also had a summer variety pack. The belt buckle in the can of the JC Penney seltzer was funny as well as the desk in the office even having a hard seltzer. The writers in this sketch were Martin Herlihy, John Higgins, and Ben Marshall.

Halsey “Darling” Performance:

I thought this was another great and beautiful performance by Halsey. I was also surprised to see Lindsey Buckingham appear during this performance. I loved that this song was done acoustically and that it was fitting as the second performance. I can’t wait to see Halsey back at 8H.

Skims Commercial:

When I saw them doing this sketch, I wasn’t surprised they were going to joke about one of Kim’s business ventures. I thought the sketch wasn’t that great but it did have a lot of memorable moments. I also loved all of the dogs, especially the one that Heidi was holding that gave her kisses on the face. I did think it was funny how Kim introduced herself in the sketch as “a mother, millionaire, law student, and billionaire”. I also loved when Aristotle’s character came on wearing the product and said “Wait, these are for dogs?”. I loved how they mentioned that the colors were “beige, brown, and that’s it” and that it takes “ninety minutes to put on”. I also liked Kenan’s slogan at the end “turn your good girl into a bad bitch”. Again, not my favorite sketch but I did love that there were dogs. 

Overall, I thought it wasn’t as terrible as I thought it would be but it also wasn’t great. I didn’t think this episode was really all that memorable. I did like that she seemed game for anything and was a good sport. That being said, I don’t think she should host again any time soon. 

This has been my take on the  SNL episode hosted by Kim Kardashian West with musical guest Halsey. I’ll be back next week with another post about the upcoming episode hosted by Rami Malek with musical guest Young Thug. Be sure to connect with me and follow me on Twitter at @SNLBlogger for up to date SNL news and live tweeting every new episode. See you soon during the next episode!

Thanks for reading!

Lauren

Owen Wilson/Kacey Musgraves October 2, 2021

Another season of SNL is here! After a good season last year, I’m so excited to see what this season has to offer. Last season ended with a great episode from host Anya Taylor-Joy and musical guest Lil Nas X. As mentioned in my last post, that episode was the first episode to have a full audience (one that was masked and vaccinated) since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

For the start of this season, Owen Wilson comes to Studio 8H to host with returning musical guest Kacey Musgraves. Here is my take on the season premiere.

Sketch Rundown:

Biden Unites Democrats Cold Open:

It wasn’t a surprise to me that the new season would start with some kind of political cold open. What I was surprised with was that they went with a new cast member portraying President Joe Biden. Last season, Alex Moffat took over from guest Jim Carrey. This season, new cast member James Austin Johnson took over the impression. I thought it was a strong impression and Johnson is very well known for his spot on impressions. I also loved the other impressions in the sketch. I loved the joke about the Child Tax Credit and how “children shouldn’t pay taxes, that’s a lot of math”. I also loved the joke where the president and the senators were trying to find common ground and all were finding common ground about roads until Senator Simena, portrayed by Cecily Strong, said she wanted no roads because of “chaos”. I also loved Pete Davidson’s portrayal of “Governorish” Andrew Cuomo and Alex Moffat portraying Senator Schumer. I also loved the book titles of “Whoops” and “Sandwiches I Have Liked and Tried”. Overall, I thought this was a great cold open with great writing and a great portrayal of the current situation. 

Owen Wilson Monologue:

I thought this was a solid monologue. I thought it was cool that his brothers were there. I honestly didn’t know he had two brothers. I also loved the joke that his dad was a part of the 3790 club: “three sons, seven high schools, nine colleges, and zero degrees”. I also thought the Daniel Day-Lewis joke was funny where his retirement inspired Wilson to do “Cars 3”.

Women’s Talk Show:

When I saw this sketch, I wasn’t surprised that they were going to do a sketch about what happened on “The View” (I watched the actual episode and saw it happen in real time and I’m still shocked something like this happened). I did think that they were going to do an actual parody of the show, although they don’t have cast members able to portray all of the hosts. I also thought it was funny that they had bickering co-hosts, even though that doesn’t really happen on “The View” anymore. I did think it was funny that they had a doctor give the results instead of a producer. I loved that the doctor said that revealing the results “has to be on TV for HIPAA [and] we either can’t tell anybody or have to tell everybody, no middle ground”. I also thought it was funny that when one of the hosts tried to go to a commercial that they ran out of commercials. I loved this sketch and thought it was a great start to the show. 

Billionaire Star Trek:

This was another sketch that I thought would happen because of the recent launches. I did like how they had Luke Wilson play Jeff Bezos’ brother Mark, also known as “Bezos’ brother whose name escapes me”. I also loved the Richard Branson impression as well as the spaceships racing. I also loved how they called it a “midlife crisis of cosmic proportions”. The Elon Musk impression was great and I kind of wish the impression of Musk hosted last season instead of the actual person. I also loved the line of “space is only big enough for one weird, white billionaire” and they called it “Star Trek: Ego Quest”. I loved the sketch and thought it was very funny.

Cars 4:

With Owen Wilson hosting, I wasn’t surprised they would do something “Cars” related. I thought it was cringey but also funny. I didn’t realize until later that this was partially inspired by the allegations against Rep. Matt Gaetz. I also loved the Larry the Cable Guy impression, which was also a great utilization of Johnson.

School Board Meeting:

When I saw that they were doing this sketch, it reminded me a lot of the clips of school board meetings that I would see on the news. I liked how they started off with passing the motion of changing Robert E. Lee Middle School to Robert E. Lee Was Bad Middle School. The sketch had a memorable line “I am concerned and I am also crazy”. There were also mentions of a vaccine named “Mike’s Hard Vaccine” and also a child with a beard as a side effect to some kind of “treatment”. Bowen’s character was also great and Aidy’s character seemed like it was a past character. I’m not sure but the way she said her lines sounded like a past character of her’s. Pete coming on as Dog the Bounty Hunter was also really funny. Sarah’s character was random but also very funny. I also loved the singing group as well as Kenan’s character, especially when he came up behind Ego and Alex. I thought this sketch was great and I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw more of these sketches.

Kacey Musgraves “justified” Performance:

I love Kacey Musgraves and I was so excited to see that she was going to appear as the musical guest again. I thought this was a beautiful performance. I also can’t believe she performed wearing only cowboy boots and with her guitar in front of her. I also didn’t know that this was inspired by a scene in “Forrest Gump”. Even with precautions in place, I’m still surprised she was able to get away with performing naked.

Weekend Update:

I liked how Colin opened up Update with how last year started with no COVID-19 vaccine and a really intense presidential election and now the biggest story is infrastructure. I also loved the joke about how some Catholics are claiming religious exemption from the COVID-19 vaccine. The punch line was especially funny: “nothing more Catholic than letting someone else die for your sins”. I also loved Ego’s character “A Black Woman Who’s Been Missing for Ten Years”. I thought it was a great way to blend comedy with social commentary. I loved the joke about the fifteen dollar gift card to Chili’s Too as a reward. Pete’s segment about the Met Gala and his outfit to the Met Gala was great. I haven’t laughed super hard during one of his segments in a long time. I also loved his joke about Colin in the movie “Tom & Jerry” as well as Pete saying at the end of his segment, “I can’t believe I’m back!”. There was also a great tribute to former cast member and former Weekend Update anchor Norm Macdonald, with a video montage of some of Norm’s best jokes as well as Pete’s shirt that he wore during his segment. I figured they would do a proper tribute instead of just a bumper during a planned rerun.

Funeral Song:

This was another cringey but funny sketch. I should’ve known that with the recent conviction of R. Kelly. I did think it was funny that Lorne was walking off set at the beginning of the sketch and I’m pretty sure that was not planned. I also loved Kenan’s character of LeVar B. Burton as well as the slide show. I also thought it was funny for the second song that Kenan was keeping time by hitting the casket.

Kacey Musgraves “camera roll” Performance:

I thought this was another great performance. I could really feel the emotion as she was singing. I also bought Kacey’s album recently and seeing her performances during the show, it makes me really want to listen to the album as soon as possible.

NFL on Fox:

This sketch, I felt, was the typical parody of a typical broadcast of an NFL game on Fox. I thought the impressions were great, especially the ones of Joe Buck and Erin Andrews. The graphics for the show that was being promoted were great as well as the monster puppet. The lines “Did I just see Stacey Abrams with a monster puppet?” and “Wait, McKayla is the monster puppet?”. 

Mail-in Testing Service:

I thought this was a typical final sketch of the night but also a great way to utilize new cast members. I thought Andrew and Sarah were great and had great chemistry. I would love to see them appear in more sketches together. I loved Chris’ character and thought it was funny and creepy at the same time. Overall, I thought it was a solid sketch.

Also that comes with a new season is welcoming new cast members and saying goodbye to those outgoing. Prior to the start of the season, it was announced that Beck Bennett was leaving the show after eight seasons. Lauren Holt, who joined the cast at the beginning of last season, was also let go. Three new cast members were also hired prior to the start of the season. Those new cast members are Aristotle Athari, James Austin Johnson, and Sarah Sherman. Bowen Yang and Chloe Fineman were also promoted to repertory players at the beginning of the season. SNL also hired ten new writers. It was also announced that Liz Patrick will become the new SNL director at some point this season after long time director Don Roy King announced he will retire at some point this season.

This has been my take on the season 47 premiere episode with host Owen Wilson and musical guest Kacey Musgraves. I’ll be back with another post about the upcoming episode with host Kim Kardashian West and musical guest Halsey. Be sure to connect with me and follow me on Twitter at @SNLBlogger for up to date SNL news and live tweeting every new episode. See you soon during the next episode!

Thanks for reading!

Lauren