As it is Easter weekend, Saturday Night Live begins with a message from the Easter Bunny (Bowen Young). Almost immediately, the “weirdest” holiday hero turns things around at a random set of public figures.
Dr. Anthony Fauchy (Kate McKinnon) compares Covid’s case to Jesus (“They’ve risen again!”), While Marjorie Taylor Green (Cecily Strong) worries that “between pastels and jelly, this holiday has become a little too LGBQRST for me. ”. New York City Mayor Eric Adams (Chris Red) boasts he caught the shooter on the Brooklyn subway, even though “it took 30 hours and the suspect surrendered” while Elon Musk (Mikey Day) tried to buy the holiday. Britney Spears (Chloe Feynman) makes a lot of spin, and Jared Leto (Kyle Mooney) begs people not to watch his horrible new movie Morbius.
Finally, former President Donald Trump (James Austin Johnson) interrupts the procedure to walk for Reese’s eggs (“I like Reese, I’m a very good friend of Reese …”), Cap’n Crunch (He was very rude with me on Count Chokula’s 500th birthday) and Little Caesar (“I told him to say ‘Pizza! Pizza!'” He said it once, and I said we should say it twice! “)
Leaving aside Trump of Austin and Adams of Red, these are among the worst, most disgusting and laziest impressions in the repertoire of the cast. The writing sinks to coincide on several fronts, from the hypocrisy of Musk’s mockery (however slight) less than a year after the show gave him its entire platform, to the softening of Taylor Green, portraying her as a harmless con man, to trying to done in both directions, pointing out how useless New York law enforcement is, while reiterating their theme of “growing crime.”
In tonight’s episode, Lizo plays a double role as host and musical guest. The singer and songwriter promises to “break the record for the number of times a bitch is told live on TV” before discussing her recent conversation with Ted about the history of twerking (“I’m like if Einstein could slap my ass” ), suppresses rumors of her love life (“They Think I’m Gathering One Direction Members Like Infinity Stones”) and encouraging audiences to love themselves to fulfill their dreams. The last moment really makes a moan – it should be a comedy show, not an affirmative post on Instagram – but Lizo shows a good sense of comics. She also seems serious about her previous promise, with Bitch Count numbering eight at the end of the monologue.
Guess That is a game show in which athletes must answer questions about fast shooting. Things started normally until Lizo’s contestant asked a question and hijacked the show, refusing to admit she was wrong, accusing the host of making her gaslight and trying to oust him as “Mayor of Game Town.” This last gambit won the support of her fellow racer.
It’s a welcome twist on the game’s usual narrative and a promising start to the episode itself, but it immediately throws itself into the next sketch, the latest in Tik Tok’s incorrigibly horrific scrolls. Instead of inventing something original, the show simply recreates – read: steals – the latest viral videos from the social media platform. Everyone involved should be ashamed to call themselves comedians.
Somehow this is followed by an even worse sketch. We return to Interscope Records Studios in the spring of 2008, where the Black Eyed Peas recorded songs for their latest album. Their producers helped them come up with lyrics for several singles, including the absurdly simplistic Boom Boom Pow, the extremely random Tonight party anthem, and the extremely problematic Let’s Get Retarded, which would later be changed to Let’s Get It Started.
The problems with this sketch are numerous: from the lack of narrative cohesion (the producers worry about the confusing lyrics of the song in one second, and then in delight in the next), to the constant breaking of Lizzo, to the cowardly attempt to have it in both directions. centering jokes around the insult Let’s Get Retarded, without actually saying the insulting lyrics (thus the burden is entirely on the audience). Besides all this, this sketch talks about how completely stuck in the past the show is. Not that SNL should refrain from joking with older pop culture – one of his biggest sketches focused on the 24-year-old Blue Oyster Cult – but it doesn’t bring anything original or fresh to the table. He simply returns to obvious observations and tired impressions 14 years after the sale.
The writer’s mind seems to be stuck in the middle of his life, because the next sketch opens the first meeting of the couple (Lizo, Day), interrupted by a community of dancing old people “from the ads of Six Flags”, part of the pop cultural ephemeral appeared in 2004
This is followed by a new segment Please do not destroy. Ben, Martin and John try to help Lisa break through a case of a writer’s blockade by devising a “black woman’s anthem” for her to sing on the show. All they can think of are sad “white boy anthems,” the Soprano theme, one of Lizzo’s old songs, and a song about Martin’s friend who looks like SpongeBob. They are about to give up when Lizo realizes that the sketch they originally planned to present to her – about a horny zoo – is actually a great song. As it becomes clearer, the more PDD segments rely on guest stars, the less they work, and this is the most forgettable so far.
At the Weekend Update, the show continues to have its cake and eat it, while mocking / kissing Elon Musk’s ass, as Michael Che says of his failed attempt to buy Twitter to reduce the rules of free speech, “this is how much do white guys want to use the N-word? ”Colin Yost asks why someone who builds electric cars [and] I’m going to Mars “would even waste time on such a trivial application. (Megan Markle’s side dig will surely win Jost a lot of angry comments on the platform tomorrow). In case it was no longer very clear what kind of anti-establishment bonafies the show once had, they are long gone.
In the end, Yost welcomed this edition to the only guest of Update, his personal driver, Cesar Perez (Melissa Villanesor), who wants to try out some of his stand-up material. Perez launches a series of jokes about his nerdy, lizard-like and masturbation-obsessed nephew Carlito, only to succumb immediately to remorse. His tearful apologies create a gentle amusing dispatch of the Latin American specific brand of Catholic wine. However, this segment of characters is attracted by several extremely dated jokes – this time through constant references to The Mind of Mencia.
The update is signed in honor of the late great alumnus Gilbert Gottfried, who died earlier this week.
Then two party organizers in ancient Egypt do a dress rehearsal for an orgy, which they organize for their crazy God-King (he eventually turns out to be a small child). Hedonistic hired acts include “sensual woman and her gentle boy”, glittering fire eater, “old woman with rotten teeth, laughing”, trio of good-looking swingers, well-gifted hesitant fan, goat quarrel (with real goat) and “puki imp” who is older than he advertises. It feels like half-formed as a start, and the constant breaking of the cast doesn’t help things. However, the live goat is quite coquettish.
Lizo then auditioned for the first chair in the DeVry University Symphony Orchestra. Her musical skills are unprecedented, but she can only perform while spinning. That is all. Given Lizo’s association with the dance movement, it makes sense for the show to build a sketch around it, but they could certainly come up with something better than that.
The last sketch of the evening sees a group of friends celebrating one of their own (Andrew Dismox) about leaving work to cash in on their investment. Their moral support quickly eroded after it was revealed that the investment was his Beanie Babies collection. It makes sense for the episode to end with another tired premise, centered around a cultural phenomenon for several years – decades, in this case – behind us.
Her constant smashing aside, Lizo became an adequate host, but everything around her – from the awful cold, to the really awful middle ground, to the constant stream of extremely dated references to pop culture – was unbearable. It was the worst episode of the season and probably the worst since Musk hosted it almost a year ago. (It is appropriate that he be present so strongly in tonight’s show).
It is good that the show is off as a reminder of the month, although it is doubtful that the holiday will be very useful. At this point, Saturday Night Live needs not only a course adjustment, but a real hard search for the soul.
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