“I eat noodles on stream”
Cold Open: Republican Debate
1 Star
It’s the Republican debate. We got Molly as Chris Christie, Heidi as Nikki Haley, one of the PDD guys as Ron DeSantis, Ego as someone else (I stopped paying attention to politics a while ago), and Devon as Tim Scott. They parrot some stuff that actually happened at the debate before freezing so Trump can take center stage to mock them all. Nothing against JAJ’s impression and I’m sure some people still get some enjoyment out of this but I’m not one of them. I don’t find anything funny about Trump nor do I get amusement from someone pretending to be him. I’m tired of this lump of shit on my TV in any form. I thought about going 2 Stars because I smiled at the meta humor pointing out that DeSantis doesn’t stand a chance because they cast the PDD guy instead of stunt casting Paul Rudd but then the sketch started to feel endless so I dropped it back down. We’re starting off on the wrong foot.
Timothée Chalamet Monologue
Timothée is happy the actor’s strike is over so he can freely plug his new movie Wonka by singing a Pure Imagination inspired song. But then Marco comes out and is like “We had two ideas for this monologue and couldn’t decide which one to go with so let’s do the other one now” and they rap about having baby faces. Then Punkie comes out with a pink wig (Nicki Minaj? I’m so lost) followed by Kenan who raps about his baby face. I’m more than willing to admit that I’m just an old fart who doesn’t get it but what the fuck am I watching right now?
50 Years Of Hip Hop At The Hip Hop Museum
Timothée brings back his beloved character $mokecheddathaassgetta from his previous hosting stint. I don’t really remember the first one other than I didn’t like it so the sketch is already starting at a negative. I didn’t laugh at all at this. I thought about adding a star just for sparing us a Pete Davidson cameo but then I’d have to add a star to every sketch this season.
The Woman In Me: Audio Book Auditions
It’s a celebrity impression roll call sketch let’s just go to the rundown. Heidi as Allison Janney: not bad. Chloe as Timothée Chalamet: fine but I’ve seen it before. Timothée as Martin Scorsese: a big old whiff. Mikey as Steve-O: pretty fun. Sarah as John Mulaney: fun but reminiscent of Melissa Villasenor. Molly as the Kevin James meme: cute. Chloe as Natasha Lyonne: meh. Bowen as Fred Schneider: played out. Chloe as Julia Fox: I don’t know who this is. Ego as Jada Pinkett Smith: just saw it and not that good. Kenan as Neil DeGrasse Tyson: seen it too much. JAJ as Werner Herzog: I’ve seen better. Punkie as Ice Spice: come on now. Chloe #2 as Maggie Smith: meh. Michael as Bill Hader: a big old huh?. On the whole this was weak and I would have liked a few less from Chloe and more random ones. Also this felt like the longest sketch ever.
Gym Call
Heidi calls her gym and Mikey and Timothée are dumb muscle heads. This was a big old bag of nothing but the performances were a little fun.
Is it disrespectful to stop putting l’accent aigu on Timothée‘s name? I keep having to cut and paste é. Like, I want to refer to you by your correct name but at the same time if your name isn’t pronounced how it’s spelled you could just change the spelling. Say goodbye to Timothée and say hello to Timothee.
Giant Horse
Oh good, it’s another sequel sketch from the previous Timothee episode. I didn’t like Tiny Horse, I know everyone did and we all fell in love. I didn’t hate it, I just found it forgettable. But people seemed to love it, at least judging by the hoots and hollars coming from the studio audience. Other than the creative imagery I didn’t get much from this.
boygenius
“Not Strong Enough”
Weekend Update
Sleep Study
1 Star
All right, I get it, I’m not welcome here. I have no idea what the hell any of this is. Sarah is having nightmares about Troye Sivan dancing, then Bowen dances, then boygenius show up and they dance. I can’t remember a sketch that felt so alien to me. I don’t understand any of these references. It doesn’t help that the sketch painfully spells out what it’s referencing so an outsider can at least follow along. I would argue if you have to put CliffsNotes into your sketch you should probably go back to the drawing board. This didn’t even feel like SNL, I can’t imagine any other era doing something like this. Even in the pop culture era of the mid-2000’s they never had a sketch where they gushed over a teeny bopper or a current trend. Wait, they sometimes did, the show’s always been pretty shameless. It’s the campiness that sticks out as unique to this era, it just feels different. What I would love is a picture-in-picture with just a shot of Lorne reacting to this sketch.
Please Don’t Destroy
Jumper
3 Stars
The PDD boys try to stop Timmy from jumping by listening to his horrible music. His band’s name is Hamas. Sweet Sassy Molassey! We finally got the first laugh of the show! Good lord, that took a long time. There’s been some slight smirks and some subtle nods of recognition but I genuinely forgot what it felt like to spontaneously laugh because I legitimately thought something was funny. All that to say this isn’t even that great compared to their other shorts. But it’s a hell of a lot better than anything I’ve seen so far.
boygenius return with “Satanist”
Little Orphan Cassidy
5 Stars
Chloe #2 gets her first showcase as she sings her orphan troubles to the moon. Through hilarious song we learn that she’s 27, a flat earther, caused COVID, writes monster porn, and has plans to kill her adoptive parents with her boyfriend Puddy. The second Chloe started singing I was hooked. I was immediately engrossed. I loved this and ironically I’m watching this just recently after it was announced that she wouldn’t be returning for another season. I’m sitting here thinking I just watched a Star Is Born moment and come to find out she just got canned. For all I know she stinks it up the rest of the year but this has me wanting more. In fact, until otherwise noted she will henceforth be Chloe and Chloe Fineman will be Chloe #2.
Calm Sleep Story
4 Stars
Andrew (Hey, where you been? The show’s finally starting to cook just in time for 1am) and Punkie direct Timothee in an audio recording session for a sleep story about doggy doo doo. This sketch makes very little sense but it made me laugh. Much like the Troye Sivan sketch, I have no idea what’s going on here but I don’t feel like I needed to do prerequisite reading to get on board with the premise. I can just enjoy a silly ride.
I didn’t understand the random Alec Baldwin cameo at all. My theory is he was supposed to be in something else that got cut and they threw him in this last minute. First time we’re seeing him since Trump and other stuff.
FINAL ANALYSIS
“I eat the booty with a bib”
2.2 Stars
MVP
Chloe Troast
The Woman In Me: Audio Book Auditions, Little Orphan Cassidy
Best Sketch
Little Orphan Cassidy
Worst Sketch
Sleep Study
How I Would Have Lorne Michaels-ed It
I know this is a me thing but the Trump cold open got me in the wrong mood. If you just shorten that by like 2 minutes it may not of soured me so much. Then the monologue confounded me and the lead-off sketch had me wanting to just take a mulligan on the whole show. I hated the first 3/4 of this episode only to really enjoy the last two sketches. It would have been nice to put one of the only 2 good sketches in the first half but I definitely like having them back to back. Maybe it’s best to end on a high note. I would also allow only one repeat from Timothee’s previous episode. You can have Tiny Horse or Hip Hop, not both. Let’s put the audition sketch in the back half and move PDD before Update where I could have used a chuckle.
Host Analysis
Did the crowd seem to love him? Yes. Did I give a rat’s ass? Nope. I thought he was fun in the gym sketch and in the last two sketches but really didn’t like him in anything else. I was also bugged by the retreads from his last episode. Are we really nostalgic for 3 years ago? Also we should probably save $mokecheddathaassgetta for his 5-Timer’s monologue.
Final Thoughts
The first half felt like The Best Of Timothee Chalamet DVD. I’m totally aware this episode was not for me. It’s not the first time they’ve catered to the screaming crowd. Today’s Timothee Chalamet is yesterday’s Josh Hartnett. Not every episode needs to be for me, especially since the Bargatze episode was a lot for me, but I doubt the Timothee crowd is gonna stick around. Or maybe they will. Maybe this is what the show is now. I tend to feel this way more often than I did with the Bargatze episode when it comes to modern day SNL. Damn it, I gotta give this one a stamp of “It was better in my day”. On the positive side we got a real breakout moment from Chloe. I’ve yet to really notice her but she scored in a big way when I really needed it. Also Andrew continues to get some solid Forte-like pieces on air. Other than that, someone out there must like this. There must be someone who was clamoring for a Tiny Horse 2 while they were scrolling through Troye Sivan TikToks on their phones with Timothee wallpaper, but that ain’t me.
Up Next
Jason Momoa returns to host. I haven’t seen his first episode since watching it live so my memory could be faulty but I remember not enjoying him.
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