Saturday Night Live recap: Cecily Strong returns, Jack Harlow's Halloween double duty, and Tom Hanks' cameo

Hi all — welcome back for your ready and steady, EZ Bake Oven SNL in Review. You want a quick download for the Jack Harlow episode — well, here it is!

Harlow is the latest rap star to be given a shot at hosting Saturday Night Live. Some rap purists view post-Drake multi-hyphenate artists like Harlow as an affront to the art form. Yet, to an institution like SNL, he's a gateway to young fans. Let's see if his charisma carries over.

Will Heath/NBC Jack Harlow hosts 'Saturday Night Live'

I am joined tonight by former SNL cast member Siobhan Fallon Hogan, whose latest film, the upcoming Shelter in Solitude, will screen at Kevin Smith's first-ever SModCastle Film Festival next month on opening night. She says she finds "rappers to be great actors as they are confident, very at ease and therefore great performers. In both of my films, I cast rappers in roles as well as used their music: Fat Nick is in both, and Miami sensation Robb Bank$ is in Shelter in Solitude, as well as Tophillfreddo. They are all amazing."

Fallon Hogan's experience working with rappers goes back to her Studio 8H days: "MC Hammer was on SNL when I was on he was equally at ease and great. I think that rappers are such fabulous performers that they easily transition to acting."

That's a great table setting for tonight's episode. It begins!

Cold open

It's the PBS Newshour with Judy Woodruff (Heidi Gardner), and SNL is taking aim at the atrocious GOP candidates. First, Kenan Thompson is revisiting his Herschel Walker impression. "Go Halloween!" he says. Mikey Day plays Dr. Oz, who is running for Senate in Pennsylvania. (Shout out Bill Hader's old Dr. Oz sketch.)

And Cecily Strong is back on the show — she's playing Kari Lake. Classic role for Cecily, though that's the role, isn't it? She's phenomenal, but it's so familiar and ripped from the headlines. This entire cold open targets the ridiculous and frankly dangerous stances being espoused in the current election cycle, but it lacks an inspired point of view. I don't need partisan balance, but a few laughs wouldn't hurt. They're crazy and mediocre — we take a few moderately safe potshots within the same tired format the show has embraced for years. Lame.

Monologue

"This is… incredible," effuses Harlow. He's had a big year. People compare him to the goat from Narnia and Justin Timberlake drawn from memory. He takes these insults in strides.

Harlow (surprisingly) talks a lot here — cracking jokes. He goes into the crowd and speaks to an audience member, Michaela. Pretty flat and dreadful.

"People on the Internet like to roast me," he says. Count me among them!

Wedding

My man Clint has the right idea! The best man (Andrew Dismukes) is dressed like the Joker at a wedding. In his defense, it's Halloween night. Dismukes leans into the Kentucky accent heavy — much of the cast is really funny here, including Sarah Sherman's Gamma Judy.

Fun premise — doubt we needed a Jeff Probst cameo to land it, but I love the escalation and the energy. Performances are strong and quick pacing makes it click.

Skechers commercial

A shoe company is taking a stand against anti-Semitism and specifically Kanye West. Of course, they want it both ways. It's "insanely satisfying" they got to say "no" first.

Their employees talk through both sides of their mouths — they're flattered and drawn to the "cool" factor. A lot of corporate hedging, which tracks.

Halloween Red Carpet Show

We are live from the sidewalk! (I wish literally — who remembers The Rocket Report? Let's embrace the NYC setting more. Discord army rise!) Cecily Strong is Tina Lefey, the red-carpet host. Wasted white girl who can't find her Uber (Chloe Fineman) is being interviewed until she gets racist. Devon Walker is playing the Chris Rock slap — or is that the Chris Redd sucker punch? Pretty funny and relatable. Bowen Yang is a member of the Village People who lost his friends so he just looks like a cop.

Harlow is a frat bro with a tampon costume — fitting role for him. He has a strong Lil Dicky vibe. This is like a dark Brandon version of the "Bring It on Down to Wrappinville" Timberlake character.

Another good sketch that utilizes Harlow's limited skills well.

AA confession

Jesse (Harlow) has never shared in his addiction group before, but tonight he speaks: he has the perfect idea for a Pixar movie. "I drank recently," he slips in during his long spiel about his treatment. Everyone is spilling their guts out and, in a way, he is too. Great stuff.

The characters speculate about which suitcase Jason Bateman would voice, and inquire whether the gym bag character would be named "Jim." Funny spoof of Pixar movies.

The plot thickens. Cecily Strong's character busts out a spot-on parody of the obligatory Pixar Oscar bait song. (She sounds like Cathy Anne, doesn't she?)

Could this be the next Mulaney sing-along stand-in?

The group asks: who would play the everyman protagonist's suitcase? The Woody? "Tom H" emerges — it's amazing that in 2022 Tom Hanks would cameo in Jack Harlow's episode. My lordy.

Horror Movie Trailer

This captures the real anxiety well-meaning (but ultimately foolish) liberals and progressives feel about voting for Joe Biden again in 2024. But if it's not BIden, then who? Beto and Hillary

They even nail the font these modern horror movies like Smile and Barbarian utilize. Clever! Compare this to the god-awful cold open — it's like night and day. I don't agree with the premise, but it's a pretty funny gut check on why Democratic voters trip over themselves.

Bartenders

Friends order drinks at a trendy restaurant, Casita, for tacos. Bartenders Duke and Earl (Bowen Yang and Harlow) emerge to pour the cocktails. After some highly amusing, borderline classic sketches, this does not quite hold up as much.

First performance

Is Chet Hanks friends with Jack Harlow? Why is Tom introducing Jack? (Wait, IS Jack actually Chet Hanks? That's the only explanation…)

We get a snippet from "Lil Secret" before he jumps into "First Class," which heavily samples the 2006 Fergie song "Glamorous". This was a huge hit earlier this year — and I get it. But it's hard not to roll your eyes at Harlow's solipsism or the sense he's a plant, the way he lifts blatantly from Drake. He's like a placeholder for Mac Miller (RIP), but none of the evolving talent or musical curiosity.

Weekend Update

Colin Jost starts off things with jokes about former host Elon Musk. This is a particularly biting segment — jokes about John Fetterman, Kanye West, and the attack on Paul Pelosi. (There's a funny joke about Goodwill no longer accepting Yeezy merchandise.)

Wow! Another cameo — Drunk Uncle is back! "This is Halloween, Halloween / Marjorie Taylor Greene!" Former cast member Bobby Moynihan recently released his first children's book, "Not All Sheep Are Boring!" We haven't seen Drunk Uncle in nearly seven years, so this is a fun surprise. I am just shocked people stepped up for Jack Harlow of all people. This character transports me back to a different era of SNL — apparently, Drunk Uncle agrees, calling out Seth [Meyers] at one point. I believe Jost co-created Drunk Uncle back in the day when he was a lowly writer, incidentally.

Cell Block 666 (The return!)

Several friends go check out a haunted house. We get to see Michael Myers and Annabelle.

Suddenly, the return: David S Pumpkins. Should have seen this coming! Bobby is here, Tom — boom! (Funny — the David S. Pumpkins Halloween Special came out five years ago yesterday.) Great make-up job on Freddy Krueger by the way kudos there.

This is essentially a shot-for-shot remake of the original, so obviously diminishing returns. The crowd loves it though, and the energy is still there. Personally, I was always a bit impressed the show refrained from bringing this one back, ignoring the Kevin Roberts retread with Larry David. Why not bring this back but switch up the premise a little bit? It's been so long, they could've been slightly innovative. It's just condescending to the fans, like they couldn't handle any playbook changes if this needed to happen. Demand more.

Second performance

I think this is the closing track off Come Home the Kids Miss You. He's reflecting on fame here, but still the same guy. Trite — but at least an attempt to be an actual song.

The View

Ego Nwodim is playing Whoopi Goldberg, with Sarah Sherman as Joy Behar and a couple members of the b-team. They welcome Jack Harlow to the show. He compliments Whoopi quietly, seductively. "No, I am a dead woman walking," she pushes back. Apparently, that is the gist here, folks. Weak.

Love Sherman's blatantly silly take on Behar, and her back-and-forth with Goldberg.

Final thoughts:

-What a recovery. After a prototypically weak cold open and monologue, the show fired off several really sharp, hilarious sketches. Best episode of the season so far.

-Well, what did YOU think? Jump in, let your voice be heard. Vote or die! 

-I will say, I've heard a lot of feedback regarding the Megan Thee Stallion episode. I have to say, compared to this (which explicitly caters to UMC liberals, millennials, and Gen Z Harlow fans) it's disappointing to see some parts of the base can't hang when the show focuses on a more diverse constituency.

-One critique: it's the Halloween show; I wanted some Sarah Sherman weirdness. The cameos and callbacks overwhelmed that possibility I guess — at least we got the Dismukes Joker showcase.

-Thank you to Siobhan Fallon Hogan for her comments tonight. Her son Peter shared with me: "All the artists I've worked with are in different genres of hip-hop, so it's hard to compare. I think Jack Harlow is doing everything correct right now career-wise. He's having fun with it too. He works with a bunch of different types of artists and gets crazy brand deals. He reminds me of Lil Yachty's career so far in the business aspect. Music wise he's mad talented. Right now he's doing his thing pleasing the lady audience with his type of sound he's rockin but I'm jacking that 'What's Poppin (Remix)' style over that stuff."

-One more from Peter: "I love working with hip-hop artists because they are already a character to begin with and usually a natural. I remember Fat Nick compared acting to the same thing as performing on stage. Because you are putting on an act then, just in a different way. My artist, tophillfreddo, agreed with that statement. I also remember Robb Bank$ on the set of Shelter in Solitude just going off the fact that T-1000 (Robert Patrick) said he 'killed it'. That was all he needed to hear. So really it's the fact that these guys already have a great amount of confidence and are ready for that next step in their career."

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