Saturday Night Live recap: Matt Damon returns to host last new episode of 2018
Cold Open
There were a few good lines in the skit — turns out Hillary’s emails “were all Bed, Bath & Beyond coupons”; Trump calls his in-this-version ex-wife Melania “still smocking hot”; and Mueller speaks of the grandson he’s been able to spend time with, because “I don’t have to investigate some idiot for treason.” But the gags about what-would-have-been for Mike Pence, Kellyanne Conaway, the Trump boys, a Syrian immigrant who could have fixed Trump’s hair, etc., were generally DOA.
Monologue
Best Sketch(es)…and Music
Yeah, I’m a sucker for holiday entertainment, but the Christmas-themed skits and music truly were good. First, let’s talk about Miley Cyrus’ cover of John Lennon’s “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)”… with Sean Ono Lennon (and Cyrus’ co-musical guest, Mark Ronson) accompanying her! Did I say Damon’s monologue was heartfelt? Miley tore into the song like she was exorcising the nation of two years’ worth of despair and torment, tinged with a primal scream of hope. That had heart.
As for the sketches, the ones that were really about Christmas — as opposed to the neighbors-fighting-over-Weezer and guys-in-a-bar skits (both busts) that were vaguely set at Christmastime — were clever and fun. Easily the best: the one in which cast members portrayed ornaments relegated to the back of the Christmas tree — a.k.a. “the ornaments that are only seen by the wall,” as one of them says. It all begins with Drunk Santa (he holds a mug of beer) being deemed tacky and moved to the back of the tree, where he finds himself in the company of other ornaments that haven’t held up well, like a Rudy “America’s Mayor” Giuliani from 2001; a souvenir from Cleveland; a Harry Potter whose Quidditch broom broke (so he looks like “the cover of a Harry Potter porno”); something a kid made in kindergarten; and the onetime tree-topper angel now partially melted by a lightbulb. Damon played another of the rejects: a “For Your Consideration” promotional Good Will Hunting ornament — that has sound powered by a 20-year-old battery and “Happy Holidays from the Weinstein Company” stamped on the back. The premise was like the Island of Misfit Toys but for ornaments (or that Twilight Zone with the dolls at the bottom of a barrel), but this was actually original holiday humor, which can be hard to find this time of year (see above re: It’s a Wonderful Life spoofs).
Another first-half sketch, “Best Christmas Ever,” was able to mock us all for perhaps over-sentimentalizing our holidays, as a couple (Damon and Cecily Strong) reminisce about the wonderful day they just had while flashbacks show them losing their minds dealing with screaming, overexcited kids and their hard-to-assemble toys and putting up with tactless, farting, MAGA-hat-wearing relatives.
Even the lesser holiday skits were entertaining enough. Sure, the “Happy Christmas, Britain” show with Theresa May (Kate McKinnon) seemed like it was written at the last minute, but the quartet of dancing bobbies and Damon as former prime minister David Cameron made it worthwhile. And “Christmas at the Carnegie Lounge” retread some familiar ground for SNL — they’ve been sending up cheesy lounge acts since the beginning, haven’t they? — but it did treat us to Strong’s version of Barbra Streisand’s version of “Jingle Bells.”
Weekend Update
We finally got to meet Tommy! You know Tommy — the boyfriend of Angel, the boxer’s girlfriend in every boxing movie ever, who’s “takin’ the kids to my sister’s.” Heidi Gardner was back as this recurring Weekend Update character, and while she mostly just threatened to take the kids to her sister’s, Damon’s late arrival as Tommy was the high point of a weak Update.
The less said about the traveling-correspondent bit “Where’s Wes?” the better (especially since, isn’t this a riff on something Matt Lauer used to do on Today?!), and the Trump/Cohen jokes were okay but nothing special. And the finale, in which Colin Jost and Michael Che read jokes — supposedly without seeing them previously — that the other had written, had no great payoff. We get it: Jost is super-white, and Che, as a black comedian, can make jokes that the likes of Jost can’t/shouldn’t. Seth Meyers does a variation on this premise regularly on his show, so really, not fresh.
Special Nod for Hard Work
Goes first to Damon, who appeared in every sketch. That included a cute “Westminster Daddy Show” skit where he did that half-prancing, half-trotting thing show dogs do, and an Oscar-host audition segment in which he impersonated Chris Hemsworth and Matthew McConaughey (SNL cast members unloaded a slew of celebrity impressions for this one).
The other MVP has to be Miley Cyrus’ double-sided tape, or whatever it was that prevented a wardrobe malfunction. For both her songs, she wore an open jacket, with nothing underneath.
No new SNL shows till 2019!
