January 19, 2019 – Rachel Brosnahan / Greta Van Fleet (S44 E10)

by Carson

DEAL OR NO DEAL
Donald Trump (Alec Baldwin) does Deal Or No Deal with government shutdown

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— Alright, so they’re trying something a little different with their Trump cold open. Credit there, I guess.
— Weird choice to insert Kenan’s Steve Harvey impression in place of Howie Mandel. Really, NO ONE could do a Mandel? Or is Kenan’s Harvey really THAT precious to the show? Other than the Tracy Morgan Family Feud sketch, I can’t recall a Harvey sketch that really stands out to me (OK, to be fair, I had completely forgotten about Chance The Rapper’s 2017 edition. Now, I’m not going to shy away from the fact that it completely escaped my memory, but I will say that a recent re-watch confirms that Anthony’s review is pretty bang-on. It’s a good one)..
— Oh my gosh, the government shutdown—another blip on the radar of Trump-era calamities. Totally forgot about this.
— Kate is aggressively doing the camera glare with her Nancy Pelosi impression. This is a tick of Kate’s I could live without. The camera making a cut to “Kenan reacts” only underlines the limitations of this trope.
— I still dig Alex’s Chuck Schumer.
— The sponsorship portion makes me long for Jack Handey’s fake sponsors.
— Ugh, I hate the “interrupting a person when they’re about to curse” gag. It always seems so cheesy to me.
— Melissa does a terrific AOC.
— Pete makes his first appearance in the wake of his 2018 breakdown. More on that later.
— I appreciate that there was a little more clarity in the writing here, though I wouldn’t suggest anything was particularly hilarious. It trudged along inoffensively enough.
STARS: **½

MONOLOGUE
host, CES, KET, AIB musically resolve to have fun, but worries intrude

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— Cecily jumps in and we’re off to the races with…a musical monologue. *sigh*
— Ah, the “interrupted by socio-political insecurities” bit is not really that great. I think playing off the humor of fear and despair yields diminishing returns. Think of SNL during the Bush years. Whatever heat the anxiety of the moment had created was gone before the end of Bush’s second term. The Trump era just quadrupled the speed of fatigue. This feels fatigued.
— Fun walk-on by Kyle.
— The comedic conceit is pretty leaden and the forced charm is, at this point of the era, nigh-unbearable.
STARS: *

ACTION 9 NEWS AT FIVE
news report features name-change candidates affected by earthquake

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— Ha, I enjoyed Kate’s anchor’s cheeky attempt at a joke. Mikey pointing out its inappropriateness is very “Mikey explains.”
— Oh man, with that belaboured setup, we’ve got a funny names sketch—the lowest rung of the sketch comedy ladder. Your mileage may vary. Unfortunately, mine doesn’t.
— Brosnahan reads off a list of unfunny names that concludes with “Morgan Mindy,” which Pete follows up by saying “Nanu nanu” in the background. Pete’s entire delivery here is weirdly off-putting and I swear on my life that reference had to be explained to him before he performed it. Then again, why are we even doing Mork & Mindy references in 2019?
— I’m much preferring the game of Kate trying to insert punny comments.
— The “A. Hitler” switch-up is decent.
— The N-word bit didn’t really fly with the audience.
— OK, Kate’s character being named “Carol Kumdungeon” actually worked for me. Not a pun, just a funny name.
— So yeah, this is actually bottom of the barrel stuff, but points to the writers for including a couple table scraps of decent comedy.
STARS: **

LEAVE ME ALURN
prospect of cremains dissuades unwanted male attention

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— This is quite the premise. Feels like a bit of a stretch, but like so many filmed pieces, the execution is overcoming the material.
— Ha, loved Alex’s response to all the women having urns.
— The back spikes add-on was a bit heavy-handed, but I think the premise there is stronger than the urn.
STARS: ***

MILLENNIAL MILLIONS
Baby Boomers prevent contestants’ financial security

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— I tire of game show parodies, but this premise has some teeth to it.
— Lots of air time for Pete tonight.
— Great stupid song by Aidy explaining Baby Boomers.
— I love that the challenge is that the Millennial has to listen to the Boomer complain without saying anything.
— Kenan’s Gen-X comments are kind of allowing the writers to have things both ways. That said, some of his comments are quite funny.
— This is a minor quibble, but an issue with this era is that SNL sometimes makes its point a little too obtusely. I think that’s what’s keeping this very good sketch from being top-tier.
— Pretty quick ending to this. I don’t think it hurt anything, but I could have tolerated another beat or two.
— A strong piece with some nice digs at the generational divide.
STARS: ****

THE RAUNCHIEST MISS RITA
the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (host) mentors (LEJ)

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— Our inevitable Marvelous Mrs. Maisel parody of the night.
— It’s Leslie as an anachronistic Def Jam style comic. The conceit and the execution are exactly what you’d expect, complete with strategically placed bleeps to let you know how wildly raunchy Miss Rita is. It’s all a bit of a snooze.
— Weird seeing Aidy play Alex Borstein. This is the second time an SNL cast member has played a MadTV alumni after Chris played Jordan Peele in the Sterling K. Brown episode.
— Leslie drops the stock one-liner: “I bet your dick is so small you piss on your nuts.” They bleeped “piss” which kind of surprises me.
— The ending with Kenan’s Cosby was pretty ho-hum, which I guess is in keeping with the rest of the piece.
— This was about as perfunctory a Leslie sketch as you’re going to get. In that way, she’s in her element here, I guess. But none of the beats really made me laugh. Even her supposed “raunchiness” was a lot of bleeped “mothafuckaaaas,” which is nothing much.
STARS: **

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Black Smoke Rising”

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— Blue: What the hell is Josh Kiszka wearing?
— That is NOT the voice I expected to come out of this man. No wonder everyone compares Greta Van Fleet to Led Zeppelin.
— Nice guitar tone.
— Josh’s low notes at the end of the “woah-oh-oh-oh-yeah” phrase makes me curious to hear him sing a song entirely in that register, instead of relying on his identity as Knockoff Robert Plant.
— This is actually a pretty strong chorus—I like the introduction of the major chord to give it that uplifting, hopeful feeling.
— Josh might sound like Robert Plant, but he sure ain’t acting like him. His stage presence is rather awkward. It can be difficult to hit the right notes while moving around, so at least he’s concentrating on his vocal performance, but I’d like to see him use the space a bit more.
— That “wave the microphone near your mouth” thing that Josh is doing is a valid technique to cause vocal distortion, especially if you want to be more “organic” and not rely on added effects. However, that doesn’t mean I’m not laughing watching him do it.
— As if they couldn’t get more Zeppelinesque, the first couple notes of Jake Kiszka’s guitar solo sounded like the first few notes of the solo in “Stairway to Heaven.”
— More unintended laughs from Jake & Sam Kiszka strutting around the stage. They’re sure having fun.
— Ending seemed a little hesitant.
STARS: ***

WEEKEND UPDATE
battle-toughened Elizabeth Warren (KAM) will fight to become president

plot elements of The Mule left PED & John Mulaney [real] incredulous

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— Colin’s opening run on the government shutdown was exceedingly mild, but Michael had some funny comments (“That speech sucked”).
— There’s a pretty distinct contrast between Colin and Michael here. Michael is delivering some fun rants, while Colin is just delivering warmed-over Seth Meyers jokes.
— YAS KWEEN! It’s Kate’s Elizabeth Warren!
— OK, sarcasm aside, Kate can still bring the energy. It’s all very “Kate” but she hits the back of the room better than anyone else.
— “America, you will do everything you possibly can to not vote for a woman for president. All I am asking is that you let me be that woman.”
— Ha, Colin’s “Super Blood Wolf Moon” joke is great.
— I love how Michael throws Colin under the bus. Also, his Fleshlight joke is amazing.
— Uh-oh, here comes the now-infamous Pete Davidson/John Mulaney two-hander following Pete’s suicide threat.
— Pete already seems somewhat…off…in his performance here. I think having to address his recent troubles would be difficult—even if he’s doing it in a more sideways manner—but there’s a heightened manic agitation to his giggly performance here.
— Introducing Mulaney as the bastion of sobriety has, uh, not aged great.
— Yikes, Pete is really giving a self-consciously jittery performance.
— Some OK lines here about Andy Garcia and Pete smuggling drugs up his ass, but the rhythm of this piece is a bit much for me.
— Pete’s performance here is just incredibly distracting and disconcerting. This seems like the very height of the “Pete’s just not that into the show” era. We await another low point later this season.
— Overall, a decent Update with some strong individual jokes, but the Pete/Mulaney piece really left a bad taste in my mouth.
STARS: **½

TABITHA
videos show men react accordingly when shamed like dogs

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— I know it’s a daytime talk show parody, but I couldn’t help but find it funny that the audience actually sincerely applauded when Leslie announced that her fake book made the New York Times Bestseller list.
— Funny enough concept of equating men and dogs, especially with the male cast members actually taking on canine qualities (ie, Kenan standing in the corner, Mikey shamefully avoiding eye-contact).
— Decent escalation with Cecily scolding Beck for having a secret family.
— This moved by pretty quick but played its concept out decently. Not exactly a laugh-out-loud piece, but a sturdy filler.
STARS: ***

KOOL-AID
taking Gillette’s lead, Kool-Aid promotes social responsibility

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— Great visuals for the old Kool-Aid ad. There’s something about it that reminds me of Brigsby Bear, Kyle’s excellent film.
— Pretty clever angle to take on those hectoring Gilette ads.
— The sight of Beck running in his red jumpsuit with his stained lips all puffed out is really funny.
— Hilarious inclusion of Colin.
— Ha, now Michael’s getting in on the fun. Figures, he wrote the sketch.
— The piece didn’t quite explode of the screen the way I’d hoped, but this was a very solid parody.
STARS: ****

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “You’re The One”

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— Blue: Jake has switched over to an acoustic… looks like Greta Van Fleet are adhering to the “one upbeat rocker and one sensitive, lowkey song to display our versatility” rule of SNL.
— Huh, this acoustic number is actually more upbeat than I thought it might be.
— Oh my god, I feel bad for constantly laughing at this band but Josh’s scream came out of nowhere and killed me.
— Nice display of mic-sharing between Jake and Josh, although Jake’s vocals really aren’t audible.
— Man, I promise I’ll stop making fun of this band soon, but… Josh’s wordless high vocals sound like a theremin.
— The use of an organ on this song is really bringing the 70’s rock vibe, and I appreciate that.
— I like the high, fast strums of the acoustic guitar on the outro.
— So, if Greta Van Fleet are intended to kickstart the revival of rock music… I understand why folks are saying this, and I’m honestly glad that this band is out there doing their thing, and that they’ve got an audience for what they do. But I don’t know if this will kickstart anything. I genuinely don’t think their music is bad—I’ve just heard it a hundred and one times, and I would prefer to see innovation over obvious derivation. (Or maybe I just don’t care much for Led Zeppelin, anyway.)
STARS: ***

KEN’S INSTAGRAM
(host) & other Barbie interns suggest captions for Ken’s Instagram

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— The return of the clueless Barbie interns. These are sturdy little joke machines. SNL usually does quite well with depicting stupid people (save for the Trump stuff).
— When the interns incorrectly guess which Instagram account they would be providing input on despite Kenan and Cecily making it abundantly clear, I love that Pete quickly adds a guess of Cecily’s character’s name. The audience didn’t laugh, but it was a terrific delivery.
— Funny wallet/cellphone confusion.
— I’m never quite as crazy about the overly intense characters that the hosts are required to play. This one is really no different.
— I wouldn’t say this sputtered or anything, but the whole of the sketch was merely OK.
STARS: **½

GOODNIGHTS

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IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— Like so many post-Christmas break episodes, this was a whole lot of nothing. Rachel Brosnahan was often sidelined in these largely innocuous sketches and was merely fine when given a chance to get out of first gear. The off-stage drama surrounding Pete Davidson at this time also influences some of this energy, capping off with a really troubling Update feature.

MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS

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RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
Millennial Millions
Kool-Aid
Tabitha
Leave Me Alurn
Deal Or No Deal
Ken’s Instagram
Weekend Update
The Raunchiest Miss Rita
Action 9 News At Five
Monologue

TOMORROW
John tackles James McAvoy/Meek Mill