Following the strongest episode of Season 51, Saturday Night Live giggled itself through a shockingly poor episode with a veteran host.
This stinker of an episode had me wishing we had jumped ahead an hour at about midnight.
The Ryan Gosling episode, the 14th of the season, was the worst we’ve seen so far in Season 51. That’s not good news, because the season has been filled with way too many lows and few highlights.
Gosling chuckled, giggled, and broke his way through every live sketch in his fourth turn as SNL host. If the material is hilarious, breaking can be fine. But, when the writing is as atrocious as it was this past Saturday, it’s insufferable.
While he’s delivered a few good episodes in the past, Gosling came off as amateurish in Studio 8H on this night. It was an embarrassing episode of SNL that should prompt NBC executives to consider the future of this show. If this is what SNL has become, why keep it going into a second 50 years? Or even Season 52?
This episode should be remembered. Not because it was skillfully written. Not because of any standout performances. Certainly not because of the host, who seemed to simply phone it in. It should be remembered for the worst sketch the show has ever aired. More on that below. Let’s first sludge through this crap fest that was episode 14.
Cold Open: Hegseth and Noem
Colin Jost appears as ultra-bro, douchebag Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, discussing the war in Iran. We also get an appearance by Ashley Padilla as Kristi Noem, former head of Homeland Security.
These bits with Jost are fine: sort of average cold open political bits in terms of SNL quality. I have to give Jost props: he’s gotten much better in sketch work, and he’s as much Hegseth as the real Hegseth, who basically has no qualities that are worth noting.
Sarah Sherman has the best moment in this sketch, as a reporter. It’s the start of a very heavy workload for her in this episode.
I believe this was the first time Padilla got to utter “Live from New York…”
Monologue: Harry Styles is here
The joke for the monologue is that Harry Styles is sitting in the front row, distracting Gosling. Next week, Styles will appear as host and musical guest.
This felt like a reboot of the exact same bit when Will Ferrell hosted in Season 45 and was distracted by Ryan Reynolds, who was in the audience.
Apparently the SNL writers think the audience has never seen the show before.
Wedding Kiss
Mikey Day is the groom, and Sherman is the bride in this wedding reception sketch. The premise: Gosling’s character is an unwanted guest clinking a glass to force a kiss between the couple. This joke expands to encompass siblings played by Jane Wickline and Andrew Dismukes.
Thus starts the evening of Gosling failing to get through much of his lines. There’s not enough funny in this pedestrian sketch to make someone laugh as much as Gosling does. He has to say euphemisms for penis and vagina. That’s so hilarious to Gosling he can’t get through his lines. I guess he’s in middle school.
This isn’t that funny. But it’s not surprising it was the lead sketch: in Season 51, SNL has proven it will slot the dumbest, lowbrow sketches up front. That’s because the writers have no respect for the intelligence of the audience.
This is the third consecutive segment that includes Sherman.
Cyclops
Gosling, Day, and Kenan Thompson are cyclops attempting to acquire a treasure guarded by two maidens, played by Padilla and Veronika Slowikowska.
If there wasn’t perhaps the dumbest sketch in the history of the show later in this episode, “Cyclops” would probably be the lowlight the night.
Is it hilariously funny that three Cyclops are so stupid they can’t understand how riddles work? Maybe once. Maybe it’s FUNNY once. But it’s a weak, weak premise for a sketch. It barely qualifies for humor.
Gosling and Day obviously riffed in this sketch, going off-script. The sketch called for them both to approach Padilla to ask to get into the treasure. But both added a few more attempts. That’s obvious by Padilla’s surprised reaction, which elicited laughter from her.
There was a time when the producer of SNL was adamant that the show was built on great writing, performances, and commitment to presenting the sketches as written. Breaking, going off script, ad-libbing, that was for The Carol Burnett Show, a program that Lorne Michaels famously criticized. We’re now at a point where Michaels cares so little, that he allows (or doesn’t realize?) that SNL is painfully unfunny AND unprofessional. This is a show that spends $4 million per episode. The least it can do it TRY.
Otezla
The night’s first pre-tape: a commercial parody. Otezla claims to cure plaque psoriasis, but may actually be sentient. It’s solid, as far as pre-tapes go, though far from the best of the season. Generally, I have enjoyed many of the pre-tapes in Season 51. The writing has been many notches higher than the sketches.
Passing Notes
Here is the nadir of SNL. The only question is if it will serve to be the nadir of SNL 51 or sink to the depths as the lowest point in sketch history for the show.
The sketch features Padilla as a teacher, and Gosling as the principal. Students include Day, Marcello Hernandez, Wickline, and (very briefly) Kam Patterson.
Padilla and Gosling are addressing the class about bullying. It quickly (and rather clumsily) devolves into a setup based on an old improv game called “Blind Lines.” Both Gosling and Padilla read a series of notes being passed in the class. With (supposedly) comedic results.
In “Blind Lines,” members of an improv group do a scene and interject lines from strips of paper that have been provided by either the audience or someone else. The comedy is in the fact the performer has no idea what is on the paper.
Not only did SNL air a sketch with a very clumsily executed version of “Blind Lines,” it made the decision to place an explainer on the screen so the audience knew this was “off-script.” The whole idea is to make Gosling and Padilla break. As far as I can tell, this is the first time in the history of SNL that an explanation was placed on screen to explain a sketch premise.
The execution of this sketch/improv exercise was so bad (at one point Hernandez is just holding a note in the air waiting for Gosling to “catch” him passing it) that it added to the pathetic experience.
The fact this was approved to go on air should be cause for firing head writer Jost, Michaels, and anyone who ever thought this was funny.
I would be shocked if this sketch was not conceived and written by Day. It’s clear that he and Gosling are “Studio 8H BFFs,” in the same way Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Fallon teamed up on several episodes, and how Bad Bunny has cozied up to Hernandez. I would expect that some time last week, Day and Gosling were laughing their heads off at 4 AM at the notion of reading notes neither knew the contents of.
This is the type of stuff you could see from a 9th grade improv group. I actually believe you could see MUCH funnier (and better presented) sketches than this at a talent show in an elementary school.
Weekend Update
The attacks on Trump and his minions were sharper and more dead-on this week. Best joke of the night was when Jost compared Noem to Jessie from Toy Story.
We got one character: Preacher Update played by Kenan. This was essentially Diondre Cole from “What Up With That” rebooted. The jokes are so lame, the delivery by Thompson so bad, there were times when it felt like the live audience had left Studio 8H. James Austin Johnson, who had a quiet night, was much funnier as Thompson’s guitar-strumming sidekick.
The Goo Goo Man
Gosling and Sherman are a couple checking out of a hotel after a weekend getaway. Gosling is upset when he’s charged for two visits from “The Goo Goo Man,” an unseen “performer?” that has something to do with a wizard hat and weird glasses.
Day is the hotel clerk, supported by Thompson, who appears as the manager.
There isn’t much to say here. Of course Gosling breaks several times.
Lies
A pre-tape from Martin Herlihy. This had potential, but careened into predictable territory that was often covered by “Please Don’t Destroy.” Still, overall it was worthy of a passing grade, and stands out as being somewhat clever compared to the crap we see elsewhere in this episode.
Initially I thought Herlihy was going to address the culture of lies our society is now soaked in. As a way to discuss what truth is, and whether anyone can even tell, or even cares. But, it basically became an SNL self-referential bit about Colin Jost being a terrible person. Which we’ve seen many, many times.
Musical Guest: Gorillaz
Gorillaz has always done whatever the hell they want. It’s a band that was founded as a sort of “fuck you” to the music industry’s obsession with appearance. Tonight, this iconoclastic group performed three songs in Studio 8H, one of them from over 25 years ago. And it still worked.
Special guest was Tariq Trotter, who killed it in every way. Honestly, Gorillaz is the only thing that kept this episode from being graded a D-.
Episode Grade: D
In his breakdown of Episode 14, Jon Schneider of Saturday Night Network admitted that “breaking on SNL is polarizing.” He’s correct. Some SNL fans love to see performers giggling their way through a sketch. But others can’t stand it. Obviously, place me in the latter group. I tend to believe Schneider feels the same way, but his channel is invested in hyping the show in a positive way, so I understand why he wouldn’t hate on this practice.
Look, if a sketch’s material is hilarious, it’s understandable if a little breaking occurs. No one blames David Spade and Christina Applegate for laughing at Chris Farley’s performance as Matt Foley. When Rachel Dratch broke character in the first “Debbie Downer,” we could understand: the premise was absurd and the juxtaposition of her dark lines compared to the rest of the sketch were funny.
But, breaking on SNL for the sake of breaking is not humor. It’s what you see from amateurs. Jimmy Fallon did it to draw attention to himself. That’s bad too, and it feels like that’s part of what Gosling (and at times Day) were doing in Season 51, Episode 14.
If you’re going to break in a sketch, it better be a VERY FUNNY SKETCH. And if you break every time you’re in a sketch, well then you don’t belong on national television. Just go to someone’s living roomn an play Mad Libs.
