[9.3/10] I may have prematurely declared the demise of this season of SNL. It may have had a rough first third of the season in some ways, but after some departures and additions, the new cast may finally start gelling.
It doesn’t hurt to have someone like Soarise Ronan hosting. While Soarise didn’t necessarily show off any outstanding comedy chops, she’s clearly great at crafting characters, since even when the individuals she played throughout the night were not laugh out loud funny, they felt well-formed and fit into whatever sketch the writers deposited her into.
There was a more absurdists, rapid-fire bent to the comedy this evening, which really fared well for the show. My favorite sketch of the night followed that tack, which featured Pete Davidson reprising his blank slate “Chad” character, while the attendees of a tennis club bachelor auction go increasingly gaga for his mundane presence and stupid human tricks. The bit just kept escalating in terms of the silly comedy, from the verbal jousting among the ladies, to the emergence of Kenan as a wildly dressed, slightly disturbing winning bidder, to of all people, John McEnroe, getting mostly ho-hum responses for the same stuff. It’s a great example of escalating goofiness paying dividends.
There were a number of other great, irreverent sketches in this ep. The “K-Mart” returns sketch worked well as a way to have a series of rapid-fire jokes that do better from not overstaying their welcome, and Mikey Dey as the beleaguered employee is great. And later in the night, Luke Null’s debut feature sketch was a winner, with his character’s obnoxious behavior receiving a supreme, hilarious rebuke from his fellow students. It’s a bit that seemed awful at first, but really turned things around with its reveal.
And even the sketches that were a little more traditional had a looney bent to them. The skit with Mikey Dey as a sheepish adult male American Girl doll enthusiast hit the expected beats, but did so with aplomb and kept finding new gags in the premise. The “Floribama Shore” parody did a nice mix of poking fun at ridiculous reality T.V. drama with the disbelief of the one guy actually preparing for the hurricane. The standard Trump opening is still sort of the same mad libs sketch with the news of the week, but the A Christmas Carol conceit gave it some spice. And even the Kyle Mooney/Beck Bennett pre-taped sketch, an 80s pastiche about racing to get office documents, was no great shakes but amiable enough (to use a word that’s appropriate given the host).
Speaking of which, the episode did play on Ronan’s Irish heritage a bit with mild but still amusing results. The opening monologue has her singing a song with various cast members (most amusingly, Aidy Bryant) to explain how to pronounce her “very Irish” name, and it was fairly cute. And the last sketch of the night is a little mild itself, throwing a bunch of Emerald Isle gags into some of the episode’s tack toward absurdity with random dogs showing up all over the place on an Irish airline.
But the show also really went for the jugular this week, in a way that was pretty impressive. Weekend Update in particular had the knives out, with absolutely cutting gags about Trump (casting the tax plan’s addition to the deficit as Trump running America like “one of his businesses”), Roy Moore, and other take-no-prisoners attacks on targets that had my laughing but also gasping a little. Pointedness alone does not a good joke make, but the material was clever and that made the sharpness of the one-liners particularly successful.
The correspondents were amusing if a bit softer-edged. Kate McKinnon as Teresa May finds a great character in casting the British P.M. as a standard reserved Brit who’s convinced her gentle nudges are scathing burns, in a good gag. And pairing Mike Dey as the bruised husband to Leslie Jones’s rough-handed but shrinking violet wife if a bit they’ve done before, but which works given the performances from both of the castmembers.
The other sketch that really went for an open wound was the “Welcome to Hell” music video. It’s quietly disturbing in a really interesting way, and the way it contrasts the candy-colored, “sexy baby” aesthetic with the reality of the fears and threats women have to deal with on a daily basis is low-key brilliant. There’s bits that are a little too didactic for my taste, but maybe a little directness is what you need for a point like this one, and the conceit alone is outstanding.
Overall, this is a definite high point, with lots of laughs, some wonderfully absurd sketches, and those that are more pointed and sharp than the show often is. A great outing.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2017-12-03T21:14:39Z
[9.3/10] I may have prematurely declared the demise of this season of SNL. It may have had a rough first third of the season in some ways, but after some departures and additions, the new cast may finally start gelling.
It doesn’t hurt to have someone like Soarise Ronan hosting. While Soarise didn’t necessarily show off any outstanding comedy chops, she’s clearly great at crafting characters, since even when the individuals she played throughout the night were not laugh out loud funny, they felt well-formed and fit into whatever sketch the writers deposited her into.
There was a more absurdists, rapid-fire bent to the comedy this evening, which really fared well for the show. My favorite sketch of the night followed that tack, which featured Pete Davidson reprising his blank slate “Chad” character, while the attendees of a tennis club bachelor auction go increasingly gaga for his mundane presence and stupid human tricks. The bit just kept escalating in terms of the silly comedy, from the verbal jousting among the ladies, to the emergence of Kenan as a wildly dressed, slightly disturbing winning bidder, to of all people, John McEnroe, getting mostly ho-hum responses for the same stuff. It’s a great example of escalating goofiness paying dividends.
There were a number of other great, irreverent sketches in this ep. The “K-Mart” returns sketch worked well as a way to have a series of rapid-fire jokes that do better from not overstaying their welcome, and Mikey Dey as the beleaguered employee is great. And later in the night, Luke Null’s debut feature sketch was a winner, with his character’s obnoxious behavior receiving a supreme, hilarious rebuke from his fellow students. It’s a bit that seemed awful at first, but really turned things around with its reveal.
And even the sketches that were a little more traditional had a looney bent to them. The skit with Mikey Dey as a sheepish adult male American Girl doll enthusiast hit the expected beats, but did so with aplomb and kept finding new gags in the premise. The “Floribama Shore” parody did a nice mix of poking fun at ridiculous reality T.V. drama with the disbelief of the one guy actually preparing for the hurricane. The standard Trump opening is still sort of the same mad libs sketch with the news of the week, but the A Christmas Carol conceit gave it some spice. And even the Kyle Mooney/Beck Bennett pre-taped sketch, an 80s pastiche about racing to get office documents, was no great shakes but amiable enough (to use a word that’s appropriate given the host).
Speaking of which, the episode did play on Ronan’s Irish heritage a bit with mild but still amusing results. The opening monologue has her singing a song with various cast members (most amusingly, Aidy Bryant) to explain how to pronounce her “very Irish” name, and it was fairly cute. And the last sketch of the night is a little mild itself, throwing a bunch of Emerald Isle gags into some of the episode’s tack toward absurdity with random dogs showing up all over the place on an Irish airline.
But the show also really went for the jugular this week, in a way that was pretty impressive. Weekend Update in particular had the knives out, with absolutely cutting gags about Trump (casting the tax plan’s addition to the deficit as Trump running America like “one of his businesses”), Roy Moore, and other take-no-prisoners attacks on targets that had my laughing but also gasping a little. Pointedness alone does not a good joke make, but the material was clever and that made the sharpness of the one-liners particularly successful.
The correspondents were amusing if a bit softer-edged. Kate McKinnon as Teresa May finds a great character in casting the British P.M. as a standard reserved Brit who’s convinced her gentle nudges are scathing burns, in a good gag. And pairing Mike Dey as the bruised husband to Leslie Jones’s rough-handed but shrinking violet wife if a bit they’ve done before, but which works given the performances from both of the castmembers.
The other sketch that really went for an open wound was the “Welcome to Hell” music video. It’s quietly disturbing in a really interesting way, and the way it contrasts the candy-colored, “sexy baby” aesthetic with the reality of the fears and threats women have to deal with on a daily basis is low-key brilliant. There’s bits that are a little too didactic for my taste, but maybe a little directness is what you need for a point like this one, and the conceit alone is outstanding.
Overall, this is a definite high point, with lots of laughs, some wonderfully absurd sketches, and those that are more pointed and sharp than the show often is. A great outing.