The Best Saturday Night Live Sketches From This Weekend
Saturday Night Live finished its unusual 45th season with a third socially distanced episode, this one “hosted” by former cast member Kristen Wiig and featuring Boyz II Men as the musical guest. It’s perhaps fitting that this is going to be the last new episode of SNL for a while, because even as the show seems to really be getting a handle on the remote, prerecorded, and Zoom-heavy format, the novelty is starting to wear off. There’s a frustration brewing underneath almost all these sketches, which makes for good comedy, but the vibe is, perhaps, not quite sustainable. Plus, Saturday Night Live without the whole “live” element just doesn’t feel right. Season 46 is supposed to premiere in the fall, so we’ll all have to wait and see what that first episode—as well as the rest of the coronavirus-plagued world—looks like.
In the meantime, here are the five best sketches from Saturday’s episode. There’s a topical opener featuring Alec Baldwin’s Donald Trump impression, one killer Phoebe Waller-Bridge impression, an inspiring song, something upsetting, and a weird, honestly touching ending sketch.
Trump Graduation Speech Cold Open
Baldwin returns to SNL for the first time in a while to bust out his Trump impression once again; this time, the president delivers an unwanted commencement speech to a virtually gathered group of graduating seniors. Your mileage may vary on whether or not Baldwin’s Trump is effective, but here he gets some momentum going towards the end of his speech, as he instructs his rapidly shrinking audience to “surround yourself with the worst people you can find, that way you’ll always shine” and to “never wear sunscreen.” Kate McKinnon’s the highlight, though, as the exhausted principal who is overseeing the ceremony. “The bad news,” she tells the students, “is that you’re all about to pay full price for fancy colleges when they’re all just University of Phoenix Online with worse tech support.”
Another Masterclass Quarantine Edition
The highlight of this segment is Chloe Fineman’s spot-on Phoebe Waller-Bridge impression, as she nails the Fleabag star’s cheeky attitude in her commercial for a journal-writing class. Her journal filled with “naughty little secrets” is “a bit sticky.” The other two impressions aren’t quite as good, but Melissa Villaseñor does a solid John Mulaney and Fineman's Brittney Spears is just shy of being too mean to the embattled, gym-burning icon.
Let Kids Drink
If you’ve been drinking a glass or two more than usual to help get through quarantine, you’re not alone, and what this sketch argues is: what if you were even less alone? Pretty much the whole cast and several beverage-wielding children gather for this song, which wants to make lockdown parenting easier by letting kids hit the sauce, too. (“Let kids drink! Just like mom and dad / If they got a little buzz on, would it really be so bad?”) Josh Gad appears in a cameo that’s sure to make some PR people at Disney happy.
Eleanor’s House
Aidy Bryant stars as the host of a fictional children’s TV show who accidentally summons trashy imaginary burnouts who bring all their “Michigan ATV friends” to her imaginary birthday party. It’s pretty funny, but also all of the imaginary characters were animated using a CGI style that really captures uncanny valley creepiness. I hate it. Great sketch.
Dreams
The season ended with a heartfelt and surreal sketch which saw Cecily Strong drifting off to sleep and dreaming about life back in pre-pandemic New York City. The rest of the cast joins, too, and although there are lots of strange touches to their dreams (Pete Davidson is watching a Yankees game with Rudy Giuliani and Babe Ruth while Chloe Fineman forgoes fancy Italian restaurants to hit up Popeye’s) it’s a sweetly sad reminder of the normalcy we’re all missing.
Ramy Youssef is a Muslim American stand-up comic with his own raunchy HBO special, a Golden Globe-winning TV show, and a new production deal with A24. And it turns out that the road to his barrier-shattering success all started with a surprise case of Bell's palsy.
Originally Appeared on GQ
