The 51st season of Saturday Night Live was put to bed on May 16, with a legendary duo at the top of the bill. Maybe one of the greatest SNL host/musical guest combos ever.
But the show didn’t live up to expectations, and in retrospect maybe we should have expected it. You can’t turn back the clock. Especially when the writing staff phones it in as they get their feet out the door for the summer break.
Fans deserved better. But Paul McCartney did icon stuff that only icons do, in what could be his last appearance on the SNL.
Here’s a rundown of the last of Season 51.
Cold Open: Jeffrey Epstein Ghost
After a few weeks away from the Trump makeup and hair, James Austin Johnson returned as our idiotic president. In this sketch he’s visited by the Ghost of Jeffrey Epstein, played by Ferrell.
It could be said that this was the most scathing, relentless attack on Trump by SNL in Season 51. There were several barbs that had to prickle The Orange One. Ferrell was fine in this role, a first for the show in representing an unsavory character. The dialogue was careful, but not too careful, with the controversial Epstein.
We also saw Jeremy Culhane, Asley Padilla, Colin Jost, and Aziz Ansari, back again as FBI Director Kash Patel.
Monologue
Clearly something was strange from the jump here. We got “Will Ferrell” at home base, but…not really. Instead, Chad Smith came out and delivered the first few lines of the monologue. That’s when the real Will Ferrell came onto the stage, joining his doppelganger. Lookalikes Ferrell and Smith have done this joke before, most notably on The Tonight Show. It worked ok here, but didn’t land spectatcularly.
McCartney asked a question from the audience, joined Ferrell on stage, and helped transition the show from monologue to the first sketch.
The “hiccup” of Smith coming out sort of let the steam out of what could have been a very hyped monologue to kick off the season finale. Instead, it felt like a ho-hum intro to just another show. The first of several missteps on the evening.
Sketch: Post-Op
A hospital sketch started the show post-monologue. We see Mikey Day (as a patient post-operation), Ashley Padilla as his wife, and Ferrell as the surgeon. Rather quickly, the doctor has bad news to deliver: he inadvertently removed Day’s penis.
One might think Ferrell was reprising his famous Dr. Beamon character from several sketches in the 1990s. Instead, Ferrell’s doctor is far less developed. He’s just incompetent. Padilla doesn’t have much to do, and Day performs his trope: repeating bizarre things other characters say in sketches.
The first live sketch is often red meat. It’s increasingly become less nuanced, and more lowbrow. But it should be funny. This one is pretty lazy, and one-note.
Pretape: Bobbin’s Sacrifice
Another Dan Bulla short or pretape in his series called “Midnight Matinee.” In this entry we have Ferrell as “Bobbins,” a character obviously based on Bilbo Baggins. Ferrell volunteers to confront the Orcs at the start of an epic battle, but then flips the script by deciding to change sides. The sketch careens into a bloody mess at the end, which we’ve sort of come to expect from a Bulla pretape.
This may have worked better if SNL had just called it a Lord of the Rings parody. Maybe NBC can’t afford to allow the use of LOTR copyright material?
This was mediocre, and it also feels strangely placed near the top of the show. But as we would learn throughout the night, Episode 20 would have many unique timing sequences.
Sketch: Cast List 2
Of the many “Cut for Time” sketches that have made it to YouTube over the years, the original Cast List was one of the more well-known. Originally, this sketch appeared at dress rehearsal for Season 45, Episode 7. Tonight, Ferrell and almost the entire cast was on hand for a reboot.
Ferrell plays a high school drama teacher casting a school musical. The students and cast hopefuls are played by Padilla, Culhane, Tommy Brennan, Sarah Sherman, Ben Marshall, Andrew Dismukes, Veronika Slowikowska, Jane Wickline, Marcello Hernandez, and Kam Patterson.
We eventually see Day as co-director, Kenan Thompson as choreographer, and Molly Shannon in a fantastic cameo. Few performers in the history of the show have filled the screen with more charisma than Shannon, who gets to do some physical comedy work with Brennan.
There’s something fun for Ferrell, Shannon, Day, and a few others to do in this ensemble piece. It wasn’t laughs from start to finish, but that’s fine. They are called “sketches” for a reason. They’re not always intended to make milk come out of your nose.
Paul McCartney Music
There exists a special connection between SNL and the Beatles. Almost from the start, the program has shared connective tissue with the legendary band. In the 18th episode SNL in Season 1, on April 24, 1976, Lorne Michaels made his half-serious offer to pay the Beatles $3,000 if they reunited on the show.
McCartney was making his fifth appearance as musical guest, and his fourth on his own. He also performed on the 40th and 50th SNL anniversary shows.
McCartney first performed his new single, titled “Days We Left Behind.” This is a beautiful and sad tune, maybe the best from McCartney this century. His second song was “Band on the Run,” a hit from his Wings era. That second one was the weakest performance, as Sir Paul’s voice just isn’t up to the challenge of such a big rocker.
McCartney will be 84 next month. Obviously his pipes are not what they once were. Some criticism was aired on social media over his performances on this Season 51 episode. Those people should have persoective and frankly, shut their mouths.
McCartney has earned the right to age any way he sees fit. He’s an icon. He’s the author of more hits, more NO. 1 songs, more iconic tunes, than anyone in history. He’s the Mozart of this era. Just having him on the stage in Studio 8H is an event.
McCartney also performed a third song: Coming Up, the first song he ever “performed” on SNL (though it’s appearance in 1980 in Season 5 was the music video, not live. Paul’s voice handled “Coming Up” much better than “Band on the Run.” According to people who were in the studio, the former Beatle also played two more songs as an encore following the conclusion of the broadcast.
Weekend Update
Mr. On Blast
Culhane was back behind the Update desk as his hyper, catch-phrase-obsessed character Mr. On Blast. This was the second time we saw this on WU in Season 51, and it proves that Culhane had a superb rookie season.
Joke Swap
The joke swap has become a staple of the Che/Jost Era of Weekend Update. Every season it’s rolled out for the finale. This entry was weak. Here we get “jokes” about Che having a small penis. Here we get Che forced to say enbarrasing things about Michael Jackson.
Used to be, the joke swap was intended to see which of the co-hosts could one-up the other with HUMOR. Now it’s simply a device to see what ridiculous stuff you can get the other person to say. It’s inside jokes and really little more than trying to break each other up.
I’ll have a Season 52 preview in the coming days, and that’s where I’ll discuss what should happen to the cast. The future of Weekend Update, Che & Jost, are a big part of that.
Sketch: Mechanics
A husband and wife (Day and Padilla) are in a garage where they get a status report on their vehicle from Ferrell. He’s joined by Hernandez and later, McCartney. The joke is that instead of a simple oil change, the “entire car should be replaced part-by-part.”
This sketch feels eerily like the Post-Op: Day and Padilla as a couple being confronted by a weird circumstance they didn’t expect. We even get a character (Hernandez here, Ferrell as the doctor in the other) in both that’s holding a tablet.
It was fun to see McCartney doing Dana Carvey’s impression of him (basically) in this sketch. Otherwise, this fell very flat, and the ending, which apparently results in Day being raped anally raped by the garage crew(?) is a little bizarre.
Sketch: The Nudemans
Ferrell, Sherman, and Hernandez as family members who like to leave parts of their bodies unclothed (for some reason). Slowikowska and Dismukes (who really stumbled in this poorly-written sketch) are a young couple trying to make sense of what happens.
This is a vehicle to allow Ferrell to use his body to create laughs. It’s been done before, and it’s been done better.
Goodnites
Ferrell passed the last two minutes of the live show to McCartney, who went from home base to the music stage to do the encores I mentioned above. We also saw Jost come on stage with a bald cap in a callback to a joke from Weekend Update.
Episode Grade: C+
As far as season finale’s go, this one was lackluster. As far as any episode of any season, this one was mediocre. Without the McCartney appearance, Episode 20 would be a C- or D+. But I’ve boosted the Season 51 finale because there was a Beatle on stage.
The writing let Will Ferrell down. Two of the four live sketches were basically the same premise (expert gives bad news to a client/customer and nonsense ensues). There were two sketches that were centered around the penis. The 10-to-1 sketch was the lazy premise of “cast members and the host shockingly reveal parts of their body and stick their parts in the faces of unsuspecting onlookers.”
The two “cut for time” sketches released were better than three of the four sketches that aired. This was a strange way to end Season 51…with a thud.
