SNL Season 43: Larry David

 

SNL came back after a couple weeks off with Larry David. Onto the review

Paul Manafort's House Cold Open: SNL is having a political cold open problem, particularly when it comes to Baldwin's Trump. It just feels sort of stale at the moment. He was perfect as candidate Trump, but its gotten away from him. This cold open was fairly run of the mill, with the best bit coming from Cecily's Melania on the plane with a fake Trump. (6.3)


Monologue: Larry David went with some edgy stuff in his stand-up monologue. Some of it worked, some didn't, but you could tell the live audience was somewhat uncomfortable. (7.5)

The Price Is Right - Celebrity Edition: This might have been the first sketch this season that completely fell flat. It was basically just a bunch of celebrity impersonations, with a throwaway Bernie Sanders from Larry. (4.5)


Press Conference: (6.5)

Career Retrospective: I thought this sketch was fairly clever. It looked back on an ad executive's PSAs from the past.....and how problematic they looked in the present day. I kind of wish this had gone on a bit longer, as it was just hitting its stride. (7.4)
The Baby Step (short): (7.2)

(Miley Cyrus): (7.5)

Weekend Update: Update came out firing this week. Michael Che especially shined this week.


Mikey Day and Alex Moffat are quickly turning Donald Jr and Eric Trump into classic Update characters. They just play it up so well (Alex particularly).

Heidi Gardner had a breakout moment with her character Angel (the girlfriend from every boxing movie ever). She just owned this, getting upset at good news.

Leslie Jones had a delightful moment with some members of the world champion Houston Astros.
 (9.0)


Fresh Takes: (6.7)

New Wife: (6.6)

(Miley Cyrus): (7.3)

Beers (short): We finally got a Kyle Mooney and Beck Bennett short, one from their 90s-esque sitcom series. This worked really well, especially Larry David as "Cousin CJ" with the alcohol problem. An example of deadpan humor that worked especially well. (9.2)



This was kind of an odd episode. I think it had some of the more memorable moments of the season so far (especially in weekend update), but felt sort of disconnected overall. (7.14)

Ryan Gosling: 7.63

Kumali Nanjiani: 7.48 

Larry David: 7.14

Gal Gadot: 7.08