This was a perfectly nice episode of Saturday Night Live, with the likable Harry Styles pulling double duty as both host and musical guest.
The music was the highlight of this show, which had a few fine sketches, but nothing that stood out. There was a time, even in the so-called legendary first years of SNL when there were episodes like this: sort of funny sometimes, pretty good at other times, with a few touchstone moments, but not the type of episode to keep in the time capsule.
Given the uneven manner of Season 51, and the fact that last week’s episode was horrible, it was nice to get a solid episode of the program.
Cold Open
A family (Mikey Day, Ashley Padilla, Marcello Hernandez, and Sarah Sherman) stop to fuel up at a gas station but realize the price of gas is too high due to the Iran War. At that point, JAJ‘s Donald Trump interrupts the sketch which freezes the performers, while he riffs. Colin Jost‘s “Pete Hegseth” pops in too, and the pair deliver the LFNY line.
Monologue
Styles discusses his image as being a “boring Brit.” He’s right: he does seem a little bland. But, it’s a charming sort of simplicity. His self-referential monologue ended with a kiss shared with Ben Marshall. The best part of the monologue was his suit.
Sebastian Maniscalco Court
Tommy Brennan is a defendant in a court case, represented by Sebastian Maniscalco, played by Hernandez. The prosecutor is Styles.
Eventually, Styles does his own Maniscalco impression to put a bow on this rather one-note sketch.
This Hernandez impression is energetic and fine enough. My problem with it is that Maniscalco isn’t quite an A-list enough of a celebrity to carry a sketch (twice, since this is now a recurring impression).
Kenan Thompson appears as the judge, Chloe Fineman is the courtroom artist, Jane Wickline is the stenographer, and Jeremy Culhane is the bailiff.
Pretape: Mahaspital
At the “Make America Healthy Again” Hospital you don’t use real medicine, real procedures, or rely on science.
Sparkle of the Sea
Fineman and Styles in a fake commercial sketch for a cruise ship vacation that serves as a way to showcase most of the cast. Appearances by Culhane and Wickline, who seem like a nice comedy pairing now that we’ve seen them in this going 1000 percent as a rock duo.
JAJ appears as a lounge singer character with two much sexual energy. Mikey Day as a magician, with Padilla as his assistant. Thompson as a standup comedian. Brennan and Veronika Slowikowska as City Vogue Machine, stealing the sketch.
The sketch was definitely mediocre in spite of a few good performances. Here’s a joke they actually kept in: “A cruise is like staying in a hotel, except you can drown.” I think that’s from a standup routine in the 1980s. Someone should take YouTube away from the SNL writers.
Best Buy Rewards
Styles, Day, Slowikowska, Brennan, and Thompson appear as Best Buy employees in a meeting about changes to the company rewards program. Very quickly, it devolves into the crush “Mr. Pouty” (Thompson) has on Styles.
This is the first sketch in Season 51 that centers essentially on Thompson, and it works pretty well.
Weekend Update
Jeremy Culhane appears as Tucker Carlson, in a fantastic impression. Like Dana Carvey, Culhane clearly has skill at attaching himself to one aspect of a celebrity and exaggerating it. His “What are we doing? What’s going on?” and “That’s the rule. That’s the goal now,” seems like it will go viral.
Hernandez and Day appear as emojis: red heart and aerial tramway, respectively. In much of this segment, Day seems to go off-script, but it’s pretty funny. Even when Hernandez breaks.
A lot of jokes from Jost and Michael Che this week. Including more “inside jokes” on Che and his celeb wife AND OR the “joke” that he’s racist. Yikes.
Once again, less than mediocre jokes from the anchors. Most frustrating: Jost and Che like to ad-lib when the jokes go over poorly. If your joke writing sucks, that doesn’t mean we want to hear you riff.
We roast Jost and Che every episode. But there’s a very good reason: they deserve it.
Update ran 15 minutes in tonight’s show.
White Castle Drive-Thru
Styles as a high school jock working at a White Castle. Padilla appears as his co-worker. Two classmates, played by Slowikowska and Wickline, nervously try to flirt with Styles at the drive-thru.
Solid performance by Wickline, who is getting much more comfortable in sketch work. Slowikowska is the perfect type of silly, awkward, and bizarre. She’s sort of a cross between Rachel Dratch and Laraine Newman.
She’s a Dancer
A well-done pretape that features most of the women in the cast as Irish step dancers. Once again, the writers of Season 51 show that given time and production, they can use the pretape format to create funny material.
Musical Numbers
There may have never been another musical guest on SNL who seemed more comfortable than Harry Styles. He commands the stage as a performer, and like Michael Jackson, to whom he can faithfully be compared, it’s impossible to listen to a Styles pop song and not want to tap your toes or move your hips.
Last week’s SNL host Ryan Gosling appeared to introduce Styles as the musical guest for his first number, and Paul Simon did it the next time.
Harry for Him
Cast members model outfits worn by Styles for his “Harry for Him” line of clothing.
Episode Grade: C
This was a perfectly average SNL episode. There were funny moments (emojis and Culhan’s Carson Tucker on Update were the highs), and some lows (Che & Jost have got to go). And then there were several sketches that were middling, like Best Buy and the Courtroom sketch.
