SNL Season 42 - Tom Hanks

SNL closed out their opening 4 week stretch with Tom Hanks. Would he give the show a much needed jolt? onto the review

Third Debate Cold Open: The last of the debates, at last. The last 2 debates had just gotten so ridiculous that's it been tough for SNL to cover them, though they've done their best to basically just stay on script with the actual debates themselves. I thought they might do more with the "no, you're the puppet" line from Trump, but maybe that would have been too predictable. All in all this was pretty alright. (7.3)

Monologue: This week's monologue seemed more thought out than last week's. Hanks gave America a "dad chat", trying to talk to calm us down from the election. While amusing, it also felt honest and sincere. Felt like needed given the closing stretch of the campaign. (8.3)

Black Jeopardy: This took a turn from previous iterations of this sketch. Sasheer Zamata and Leslie Jones played contestants...along with Doug (Hanks) sporting a "Make America Great Again" hat. At first I was curious where they were going with this. But then Doug starts answering the questions correctly, showing  commonality with the other contestants in their economic struggle. Things are going swimmingly until the final jeopardy final question "lives that matter". This political sketch perfectly showed the similarities and differences between the political system. In a divided and partisan campaign, this hit all the right points. (9.0)

Halloween Block Party Song: (6.2)



Funny New Comedy(short/ad): This took on shows like "Transparent" with dark and/or serious topics, but which play off as labeled half hour sitcoms. I could legit see this parody show "Broken" as an actual HBO or Showtime sitcom....that would win tons of awards. (8.4)

Funny New Comedy

Haunted Elevator: Beck Bennett and Kate McKinnon were on a haunted ride and met some curious and spooky characters.....including none other than David "S" Pumpkins (Hanks). How did we ever live in a world without Pumpkins? This was from the same writers as Kevin Roberts last season. It was pretty easy to tell, but just as brilliant. This is just something that needs to be witnessed. (9.4)

Lady Gaga: "A-Yo" (8.0)

Weekend Update: Jost and Che got back on track, doing their usual riff on the election. 

The first guest saw Leslie Jones discussing her website/personal accounts being hacked over the summer, along with the other trolling she had to face online. This was a better vehicle to deal with this issue overall than that "Mr Robot" sketch.

Cecily Strong then did her thing as "That girl at a party that you avoid having a conversation with". At times this character can get a little old, though it worked with the election underway. (8.7)



Cockpit: (6.0)



A Girl's Halloween (short): (7.4)



Lady Gaga: "Million Reasons" - Lady Gaga can just bring it. Her performance here was near perfection. (9.5)

America's Funniest Pets w/ Tom Hanks: Who would have thought that we would gotten these 2 characters back, as Cecily and Kate play french hosts who help out on an American pet clips show....with their own unique analysis. We first saw them in the Adam Driver episode last year. (8.2)

Funniest Pets

This was a much improved show from last week where it just seemed that the energy had seeped out. Tom Hanks just brought a lot of pep to the show, as he usually does. He's one of those incredibly reliable hosts. 

SNL continues its creativity, beyond just the cold opens in covering this election. From "Day off" to now "Black Jeopardy". They're less about mocking or parody and actually trying to find a connection to elements of this wild presidential election. (8.03)

Tom Hanks: 8.03

Lin Manuel Miranda: 7.74

Margot Robbie: 7.38

Emily Blunt: 7.07