SNL Season 41: Ep.19

SNL began its final stretch of the season with Brie Larson. How did it go? Onto the review.

Cold Open: Church Chat - This was a pleasant surprise, as Dana Carvey appeared as the "Church Lady". The Church Lady went on to discuss some topical events (such as "Lemonade"), and then interviewed Ted Cruz (Taran Killam) and Trump (Darrell Hammond). The actual interview portion of this cold open could have been better, but it was just nice seeing Church Chat make a return (plus we got to see a possessed demonic Ted Cruz). (7.0)

Monologue: Being Mother's Day weekend, this monologue was like an abridged version of the Reese Witherspoon episode where we saw pretty much all of the cast members' mothers. The monologues have been pretty shoddy recently, so this was alright in comparison. (6.3)

New Barbie (ad): This was one of SNL's better political takes recently. It was one of those Mattel ads, introducing "President Barbie", and trying to tell the kids that they could be anything they wanted. It turns out the new barbie isn't as much of a hit to the kids. This could be painted as some people no longer thinking its a big deal to get a female president, especially coming off of the heights reached with Obama. But that's just one potential view on it. (8.4)  

Near-Death Experience: The Ryan Gosling abduction skit made a return, this time dealing with near-death experiences. Brie Larson was able to hold it more together than Gosling did, but of course its Kate McKinnon who just makes this work. She's able to get to Bobby Moynihan and Aidy Bryant, who can't seem to even look at her without breaking. You could make the case that this version was better than the original. (8.2)




Baby Shower: The women of SNL were featured in this sketch about Brie Larson's baby shower, but more importantly, about "the cut" (the short, up-do that a lot of mothers have). The premise was that you don't know when, or where, but eventually you'll get it. It really played off like a Twlight Zone episode. It may have run long, but it was a pretty good premise for a sketch. (7.0)


(Alicia Keys): (6.4)


Weekend Update: Colin Jost and Michael Che got into some pretty edgy material this week.
The first guest saw fan favorite "Laura Parsons" (Vanessa Bayer). Just her inflection in saying the worst things as a kid actor is hilarious.

Laura Parsons

Sasheer Zamata made an appearance, talking about Larry Wilmore's WHCD address and the "n"-word. She was making some good points, but it felt like the timing was off with her lines.

Pete Davidson was also on, discussing Mother's Day, and how his mother got on twitter to defend him from online trolls. (7.7)

Game Of Thrones: Jon Snow: SNL lampooned Game Of Thrones and the total non-surprise that were the events surrounding Jon Snow. Now, I don't watch Game Of Thrones, but I pretty much got the idea, via social media responses. Probably dumb given what was in the sketch, but lets just say it was about how it took them forever to get around to the obvious. (8.0)

Quiz Whiz 2018: This was another good political sketch. It didn't mock any moment in particular, but was set in 2018, asking the question to a pair of contestants (Taran, Brie) on who the GOP runner-up was, and no one could get Ted Cruz's name despite a number of lifelines. The turning point came towards the end where it was revealed that Brie was actually playing Heidi Cruz, and then they sang a song dedicated to President Trump. SNL is going to need more political sketches like this with the way the election is going. Its tough to lampoon anything particular right now. (8.5)

Quiz Whiz 2018

Kickstarter (short): This saw Kyle Mooney and Beck Bennett return with a kickstarter ad based on a prior Kyle character. In terms of mocking kickstarters, I guess this was on point, but it just wasn't my thing. (4.9)

(Alicia Keys): (6.5)

Dead Bopz Ad: Another impressions sketch, but with old-school musical artists. This was interesting at times, as artists like Leslie Gore and Tupac tried to take on current songs.(6.0)

SNL had a fairly strong return for its season end stretch. I'd been worried that this season was going to end on a bad note given the fairly poor April stretch, but this show revived the season. Brie Larson really brought it, she really seemed like a natural.

Overall Score - 7.08

Ariana Grande - 7.95
Tracy Morgan - 7.94

Larry David - 7.73
Elizabeth Banks - 7.53

Adam Driver - 7.22

Chris Hemsworth - 7.20
Amy Schumer - 7.18

Matthew McConaughey - 7.13

Brie Larson - 7.08

Tina Fey/Amy Poehler - 7.03
Ryan Gosling - 6.92

Peter Dinklage - 6.80

Melissa McCarthy - 6.78

Julia Louis Dreyfus - 6.51

Russell Crowe - 6.38
Miley Cyrus - 6.07

Ronda Rousey - 5.78

Jonah Hill - 5.13
Donald Trump - 4.92