Master Impressionists Gone Wild

This week, Ariana Grande is back hosting for the second time, with the legendary Stevie Nicks as the musical guest. Ariana’s first hosting gig was in March 2016, and while I’ll admit I’m not well-versed on her career, I recently re-watched that episode. I was blown away by her impressions of Brittney Spears, Shakira, Celine Dion, and Whitney Houston in this sketch. I found her to be talented and versatile performer, and I think that in this week’s show she was even better. I’d guess that knowing that, the writers gave her more opportunities to demonstrate her range and comedic timing. The episode felt fresh and it seems like they are trying different things, and it worked.

Let’s Play the Feud

The election-themed cold open is a given right now, but they took it in a different direction this week. It starts out with Chloe Fineman as CNN anchor, Kaitlan Collins introducing the follow-up presidential debate, which goes to the Family Feud theme song, and Keenan Thompson as Steve Harvey, opening with quip about how he’s hosted every show on TV for the past 20 years as an alibi for the Diddy parties.

We have the Harris side against the Trump side, and it was the spin on this campaign that we all needed! The regular roster of cameos is lined up on the Harris side – Andy Samberg as Doug Emhoff, Jim Gaffigan as Tim Walz, and Dana Carvey as Joe Biden, who calls Steve “Regis” and later “Conan” and generally doesn’t know where he is.

On the Trump side, James Austin Johnson plays Trump, there’s an empty space for the absent Melania, Mikey Day is Donald Trump, Jr, and Bowen Yang as JD Vance, who has one of the best lines in the sketch when he declines to give an answer by saying, “I’ve been told not to speak.”
Trump does his “signature weave” where he talks about lots of different things and ends it with a comment on immigration.

Maya’s Harris impression is getting better every week, and Johnson’s Trump has always been uncanny, and I feel like the writing has become a perfect reflection of his frequent, disjointed diatribes.

The Monologue

Another musical monologue this week, as Ariana sings a song about how she’s keeping it low key and just hosting, and is not the musical guest. She works in a few spot-on vocal impressions including Brittney Spears, Miley Cyrus, and Gwen Stefani in a singing monologue that wasn’t low-key at all. It was entertaining – a highlight being when Bowen comes out dressed as Glinda from Wicked ,but quickly leaves disappointed and drinking from his flask-wand, as Ariana tells him the Wicked sketch was cut.

I Don’t…and I Can’t

The first sketch takes place at a wedding with Chloe Fineman and Andrew Dismukes as the bride and groom. It starts out with the best man and maid of honor toasts. The characters are very basic and I’m assuming (er, hoping) this was intended to poke fun at the akward performance moments that have become far too common at weddings. The bridesmaids announce that they wrote a song about their bachelorette trip. They’re all singing badly, making the scenario more accurate, even Ariana sings badly on purpose. The song is really about the bride cheating on the groom and just wasn’t funny at all. Feeling a little concerned that if this is the strongest sketch, we’re in for a pretty bad show. This turned out to be the weakest sketch in my opinion, and I’m surprised that they put this one upfront. So on to bigger and better.

My Best Friend’s House

This is what I’m talking about! Next was a pre-tape “Midnight Matinee” titled “My Best Friend’s House.” Ariana is singing about the “smell of her best friend’s house” complete with singing pillows, books, and furniture. It’s very bright and wholesome, not really funny yet, and I was wondering where it might be going, kind of expecting a weird turn to happen at some point. Mikey Day plays the dad, who loves crossword puzzles and the song mentions the smell of candles, their dad’s cooking, and her parents are divorced, so they have the best snacks. Cuttig to Ariana outside the house, about to walk in, when she’s stopped by the police and things take a hilariously dark turn. Heidi Gardner plays a news reporter covering the story of the “Crossword Killer” with Mikey Day’s picture on screen. He’s killed at least 14 people, and the house is filled with human remains.

Ariana continues the song with “I guess I may have missed some pretty big red flags.” Replaying the first part of the sketch, there are all sorts of insane things happening that weren’t apparent the first time. The candles and other things to cover up the smell, the stew he was cooking has a hand in it, the snacks in the refrigerator distracted her from the human head wrapped in plastic, and she just noticed that there are drains in the living room. I was cracking up at this twist, and maybe it’s just my love of dark humor, but this was probably my favorite sketch of the night.

Mom Gets a Little Competitive

In the next sketch, Michael Longfellow plays a son who has brought his boyfriend, Josh, played by Bowen, home to meet his family. They’re starting a game of charades, and they warn Josh that their mom, played by Ariana, is “a teensy bit competitive.” When Bowen wins the first round, he jokingly says “in your face, Diane! “, and her competitive side comes out as she hurls brutal insults at him and threatens to shoot him. The tension escalates into a physical fight where Diane breaks a bottle over Josh’s head. He picks her up, they cut away, and switch to a doll that he’s swinging around. Diane tells Josh she’s happy that he stood up to her because her son is weak and she doesn’t respect him. They apologize and it ends with them making out. Ariana was fantastic, and the insults and physical comedy were great, making for another solid sketch!

Weekend Update

I thoroughly enjoyed weekend update. The chemistry between Colin Jost and Michael Che is undeniable, and I feel like this season they are having so much fun with Update. The segment kicked off with a story about a Trump rally in California, where Trump points out a guy who apparently looks like Abe Lincoln, and tells him to stand up. Then Colin says “Given the recent history at your rallies, do you really want Abe Lincoln and you to be standing?”
They continue to lean into off-color jokes, and I’m not sure, but this week might have been a record number of boos and mixed reactions from the audience.

The update guests were really good this week, starting with Ego Nwodim as an overworked Amazon employee who falls asleep with her eyes open, awakens in a frenzy and says she’s disoriented to wake up and not be driving. Ego is great at doing this sort of overzealous, yet clueless character. I’d love to see her do more Update bits like this one.

Closing out the segment, were James Austin Johnson and Sarah Sherman as Noel and Liam Gallagher, discussing the upcoming Oasis reunion tour. As they discuss whether or not they will be able to get along a year from now, they fight and pick at each other like little kids, all while using exaggerated British accents. in an effort to find common ground, they only seem to agree on cartoons and the best and worst Sex and the City characters. I love the silliness of this bit and overall, this week’s Update was just really fun!

Oh Gosh…wow!

One of the last sketches of the night was with Jennifer Coolidge in a Maybelline commercial, with Chloe doing her impression and Ariana on the other side of the mirror doing her impression. I’m so glad they did this, I love Jennifer Coolidge, and I’ve seen Ariana do the impression on Jimmy Fallon and it’s crazy good! They’re talking about going on a date that night, and also trying to say the name of the lip product in unison, a name that seemed to change every time they said it. The surprise twist came when they open up a third mirror and Dana Carvey is behind it, also impersonating Jennifer Coolidge. Honestly, Dana‘s impression was pretty bad, but it was hilarious to watch him try, and kind of nice to see him not nailing an impression. This was so good, it probably could have been the first sketch instead of the bridesmaids. Though they seemed to be having so much fun with it, which made it an awesome way to wrap up the show.

Final Thoughts

This was a solid episode and while not every sketch was a winner, a few other really good ones made up for it. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention musical guest and absolute legend, Stevie Nicks whose last performance on SNL was in 1983. She sang “The Lighthouse” and “Edge of Seventeen” and was amazing. It’s rare to have someone of her status as a musical guest, and I hope a few more of the younger viewers now know who Stevie Nicks is! Next week, Michael Keaton hosts, with Billie Eilish. Thanks for reading!