Following a disastrous season opening episode last week, Saturday Night Live rebounded and delivered some laughs tonight.
Amy Poehler, a comedy pro who was a cast member for eight seasons, was in good form in Studio 8H. Even with some inconsistent material, Poehler showed why she is one of the best sketch performers in the history of SNL.
EPISODE GRADE: C- (Last week: C+)
Cold Open
A congressional hearing was the scene of the cold open.
Opening Monologue
I expected special guests in the monologue, since this is the 50th anniversary of the first episode ever of SNL. And we got the special guests, but not that special.
Poehler scored best here when she explained that caring less about what others think is normal once you reach 50. She quickly followed that by pointing out that SNL “has obviously stopped caring.”
Chevy Chase, the only surviving member of the three people who appeared in the first sketch in the first cold open back on Oct. 4, 1975.
And … Tina Fey, Maya Rudolph, Ego Nwodim, Kristen Wiig, and …
Instead it was the new featured players () who came on stage briefly to stand around Poehler.
The famous Wolverines sketch was the first cold open in SNL history.
Sketches Before Weekend Update
The Rudemans
The first sketch of the evening was “The Rudemans,” a family-centered bit featuring Poehler, Ashley Padilla, Sarah Sherman, Bowen Yang, Mikey Day, and Andrew Dismukes.
There was a time when this type of sketch was a formulaic bit often employed by SNL. Think “The Coneheads,” “The Loud Family,” and “The Whiners.”
Usually these types of sketches have a catch phrase, which in this case is “Anyways, that just happened.”
On a second watch, I laughed harder than when I saw it performed live. Padilla and Dismukes are nice as a couple. Poehler is solid as always, and Sherman sort of reminds me of Gilda Radner when Gilda would play little-old-lady roles.
This is the best sketch of the night, and while it’s a rehash of The Whiners (with Joe Piscopo and Robin Duke) or other similar premises (the theme song intro harkens back to Debbie Downer, etc.), it’s funny, easily funnier than anything we saw in the Bad Bunny episode last week.
Non-Non Alcoholic Beer (pretape)
A pre-taped segment followed called “Non-Non Alcoholic Beer,” featuring Dismukes drinking a beer that is actually alcoholic thanks to the double negative in the name. It was brief, and best forgotten.
Miss Lycus: The Fast Psychic
Here we have Poehler as a rude, blunt psychic who delivers terrible news in machine-gun fashion to the audience of her talk show. The sketch includes Sherman, Jeremy Culhane, James Austin Johnson, Padilla, Ben Marshall, Jane Wickline, Yang, and Marcello Hernandez.
A solid sketch made funnier by the performance of Poehler, who is at her best here, flippantly rolling through her dialogue and elevating otherwise average material.
The Hunting Wives
A send-up of Netflix streaming series that feature the type of “women who shop at Bass Pro Shop.” This is a nice pre-tape and solid at this position in the lineup.
Almost all of the SNL female cast members make an appearance (Chloe Fineman shines). Plus Tommy Brennan and Kam Patterson. There’s also a cameo by Poehler-buddy Aubrey Plaza.
Pregnant Co-Worker
In this workplace sketch, Poehler is a nine-month pregnant woman who interrupts business with her physical baby bump activities. Sherman, Padilla, Brennan, Day, Kenan Thompson, and Marshall (wonderful as a hippy male doula).
This sketch feels a lot like a Will Ferrell thing: the clueless co-worker who doesn’t understand why everyone thinks he’s bizarre.
The baby turns out to be Yang, for some reason dressed in a suit, and ready to get to work. Again, feels a lot like a sketch from the Ferrell era (grown man baby played by Will).
Weekend Update
Colin Jost and Michael Che are still at the desk, whether you like it or not. The WU segment ran an incredible 18 minutes. Which means it accounted for about 33 percent of the non-musical segments of the episode.
Guests on Update this week were:
- Sherman as Rhonda LaCenzo: A “real New Yorker” from Long Island discussing the NYC mayoral race. GRADE: B+
- Hernandez and Wickline as Alyssa and Grant, The Couple You Can’t Believe are Together. Best line came from Jane, who explained she is dressing up as Sylvia Plath for Halloween because it’s “the one day of the year you can dress as a slut.” At some point though this premise really just collapses into Marcello as the performer, and Wickline as his wooden dummy.
GRADE: C- - Poehler as herself in a Weekend Update Joke-Off with special guests Fey and Seth Meyers. This one pitted Jost/ Che vs the former WU anchors. This was like seeing a high school theater group exchange dad jokes. Come on, writing staff. You can do better. Can’t you?
GRADE: D+
Weekend Update is way too long. Che and Jost are not strong enough cast members to warrant nearly 20 minutes of screen time with special guests.
Sketches After Weekend Update
Billson & Lieberman
It’s a fake commercial with Dismukes, JAJ, with Brennan, Day, Patterson, Marshall, Wickline, and Poehler, and most of the rest of the cast.
The premise is a takeoff of the law firm commercials we see where the lawyers tout their years of experience. The first commercial is interrupted by a wall-breaking Poehler, as muscle-bound lawyer Lachlan Muschberger(?). That bit is interrupted in turn by Veronika Slowikowska, Padilla, and Fineman as The Drabble Sisters, a trio of female lawyers who break. That trio nails it. Funny.
Later, we see Dracu Law (Sherman), and finally Bowen Yang as Yggdrasil, an injury law-practicing tree of life. Tacked on at the end is Thompson as Zeus, which was clearly just added so Kenan had something to do.
Overall, a clever sketch that increases in absurdity and lands pretty well. Probably the second-best sketch of the night, and pulled off well on-stage, especially considering the number of cast changes and transitions.
Midlife Crisis Mom
Again, Poehler does a good job with average material. Her attitude shines through as the Mom basically acting like a teenager. This is a classic “flip” sketch, where the premise flips the behavior from one character to another (child to parent, in this case)
“You’re so embarrassing. Don’t talk about my body!” Poehler says at the dinner table to her shocked kids.
We get the obligatory appearance of three featured players (Wickline, Patterson, and Marshall) as Poehler’s besties. They may have had lines, but who cares?
This feels like a slightly structured version of an improv game called “Entrances and Exits.” It doesn’t have much beyond Poehler’s performance, which devolves into screaming. Is screaming funny? Not here it isn’t.
Musical Numbers: Role Model
Usually when I see a musical artist resort to stage stunts, it makes me think they’re distracting me from a terrible song. In his first number, Role Model emerges in a reclining pose in a barn loft. He proceeds to climb down a ladder, which seemed like a surefire way to do a face plant on live TV in front of millions.
But the face plant came a few moments later when he danced strangely across the stage singing a tune Hee Haw would have rejected. There’s a special guest: Charli XCX. She dances like a stripper across the barn. So what? This was dreadfully corny and terrible. The song is a huge hit on TikTok. But no one seems to know why. This was clearly a reach by Lorne Michaels or one of his assistants to seem relevant by giving airtime to a marginal musician the kids “heart” on a social media app.
Role Model’s second number was an acoustic guitar piece that played better. Not much better, but at least it wasn’t the trainwreck of the first number. The first appearances has to rank among the 10-12 worst musicla performances in SNL history.
10-to-1 Sketch
Juilliard Masterclass
JAJ hosts a masterclass session at the Juilliard School with guest Poehler and Yang as composers known for creating popular themes for television shows.
We learn that the original version of the “Severance” theme song had lyrics constructed as a rap. Thompson makes one of his few appearances in this episode as a guest composer.
Predictably, the students (played by all of the featured cast members minus Patterson) are dumbfounded at the presentation.
This is a very brief sketch. It feels like it was included because it had parts for many cast members. Not a terrible premise, not a great performance. It felt a bit safe for a 10-to-1 sketch.
Final Thoughts
With Poehler at the helm it’s natural that this would feel like an episode hosted by your mom. We saw a lot of silly, harmless, non-edgy material.
Two sections of the show that can often be counted on to lift the quality: Weekend Update and musical performances; were not successful this week. A big swing-and-miss there.
We saw a lot of the repertory and featured cast members this week. Ashley Padilla, Andrew Dismukes, and Jeremy Culhane seemed to be everywhere. It felt a like strong episode for Padilla, who can become a face of the show in Season 51.
Sarah Sherman was funny in the opening sketch and the lawyer sketch as a vampire. She also had the best guest performance on Update. If I had to pick a Performer of the Show, it would go to Sarah.
The 17-member cast is already proving troublesome. There’s really no reason to have such a big cast, as we said before the season began.
Several times in SN51 EP 02 it felt like the show was bending over backwards to cram as many cast members as possible into a sketch or pretape.
And that’s the problem: the sketches and comedy bits should be funny, not forced in a way because you need to be sure many cast members get screen time. Three sketches (Fast Psychic, the Lawyers, and Juilliard Masterclass) were overrun with cast members, often for very quick, brief glimpses. This episode may have set an SNL record for most single-line appearances by cast members.
Why bring five new featured players to the performer roster when you know you can’t possibly get that many people on-screen in a meaningful way?
It feels as if Lorne Michaels is trying to cover his ass by hiring lots of “funny” people, in hopes a few of them work out.
The roster has a number of talented sketch performers: Padilla, Culhane, Dismukes, Sherman, Day, and Fineman, for example. That group of six alone form a solid core of sketch work. However, you need to find screen time for Yang, Thompson, and James Austin Johnson, the other holdovers with sketch experience.
But where does that leave Patterson and Wickline, two featured players who have either (1) not shown they can fit into sketch work OR (2) have clearly shown they are terrible at sketches (Jane).
Based on their appearances so far in Season 51, it seems Culhane is a pro and potentially could be a breakout star. Slowikowska and Brennan have done good work in sketches, which bodes well for their future. Ben Marshall, who also became a featured player for SN51, has his writing chops to fall back on.
SNL works best when you have 7-10 cast members doing the lifting. This current group doesn’t have a clear core of superb cast members. We’re at a point in the history of the show that is almost unprecedented: there is no clear “new guard” yet; and the “old guard” is “okay” but unspectacular.
As much as Sherman emerged in this episode, there still isn’t a veteran cast member you could call a star. Bowen Yang has never felt big enough, Mike Day is a star writer, but a forgettable sketch performer, and Fineman is better suited for impressions.
It’s clear the show is grooming Dismukes to be the male lead, and Padilla as the heir apparent female lead. That could work, but where is the great sketch performer who serves as the glue?
It’s time to talk about Kenan Thompson. Much is made about him being the longest-running cast member in SNL history. But, some observers have elevated Kenan to legend status, and I think that’s grossly misguided. Kenan is hanging around, let’s just say it. He appears in two quick cameos late in sketches in Episode 2. He doesn’t seem to have the game show host role any more. He hasn’t appeared in Weekend Update in a while, and has never had a great WU character. His place could easily be filled by Hernandez or Padilla, who have strong enough personalities.
SNL is suffering because the producers insist on a bloated cast of has-beens or unknown entities. A tighter, smaller cast would allow Dismukes, Padilla, Sherman, Culhane, Yang, Hernandez, Day, and Slowikowska to form the repertory cast to do almost all of the sketch work. Brennan feels like he could slide into that position quickly too.
But right now, the producers and writers are obligated to drop Wickline, Patterson, Marshall, Fineman, JAJ, and Thompson into sketches, which lessens the quality.
To borrow a football metaphor: SNL is playing too much of the junior varsity with a solid, but basically mediocre varsity team. If it committed to fewer cast members, the show could find a smaller repertory cast that might be much funnier.
