Cold Open 17/10/20, Town Halls duel ‘SNL’, who sang with Justin Bieber

Issa Rae was supposed to host Saturday Night Live in March, when she released two new films (The photograph, published in February; and Lovebirds, which was pushed and released via Netflix in May) as well as the fourth season of Unsafe, the HBO series that she created and stars in, but you know COVID-19 has shut down its spring SNL opportunity.

But she’s here now, so how did it go?

What’s wrong with the SNL Cold Open for 10/17/20?

Well, first of all, we knew we had to sit down through another open and overly long discussion about the presidential election campaign. The first two weeks of Season 46 kicked off with debate sketches that lasted between 12 and 14 minutes, and this week’s sketch of the town halls of the timed duel broadcast network in just 13 minutes. We’re also still waiting for a sketch of that election or that president that accentuates the ridiculousness of the reality they are supposed to usurp beyond the obvious jokes everyone has already made. Instead of, SNL just continues to hold the mirror up to our surreal politics by using celebrity cameos as if that’s enough to grab our attention.

One thing the two televised town halls offer the show is the ability to use up a large chunk of its 20-member ensemble cast. Chris Redd, Heidi Gardner, Alex Moffat, Melissa Villaseor, Chloe Fineman, Lauren Holt, Ego Nwodim and Kenan Thompson all showed up to ask questions of Trump (Alec Baldwin) or Biden (Jim Carrey), while Mikey Day was George ABC’s Stephanopoulos. , and Kate McKinnon took on the task of NBC’s Savannah Guthrie.

When the cameras went back and forth between the two forums without context, it eventually gained momentum as they finally stopped tackling the settings (which remains the biggest waste of time in these segments), this which also raised the question of why they didn’t. do it from the start.

Guess the series deserves some credit for imagining Carrey’s Biden as the great PBS painted Bob Ross in addition to Mister Rogers, as well as a WrestleMania act between McKinnon’s Guthrie and Baldwin’s Trump, although it could have been again. more daring.

I guess I really guess my frustration is with knowing (sometimes personally) how many great and talented comedians SNL has on her cast and writing crew, but still somehow subjects them to long, dull openings to the episode. Give them a little more freedom to play creatively with this election in the last couple of weeks, I say; no, I beg you!

How the SNL Guest host Issa Rae Do?

Hang on a sec guys. I just noticed something small but weird. The clock time on the video above for Rae’s monologue reads 11:48 a.m., but it didn’t show up until 11:45 a.m. in real time when the episode aired live overnight, so let me know. watch this video again to see if they were sneakily uploaded. his “dress rehearsal” monologue instead. THEY DID!

When the show was broadcast live, Rae greeted his family (which obviously didn’t happen during a dress rehearsal because they wouldn’t have watched), and didn’t receive the enthusiastic applause. of the public that it received. in rehearsal when she mentioned her 2011 webseries, “The bad adventures of the clumsy black girlWhich led to his HBO deal in the first place. In both cases, however, she felt “so scared” that she “was in danger of throwing up,” compared her four years on television in high school, making her SNL her prom, and jokingly suggested: If this show goes wrong, though, blame it on me, Mary J. Blige.

No need to worry about it, though. Not even from the horror show that is Twitter.

Rae performed well throughout his joke monologue about learning the “OhMyGod, hey!” trick celebrity functions to stall while trying to remember who they are, to cover “Drake Watch” for a morning TV show in Montreal, at a fantastic dance pre-recorded with Kyle Mooney, to another talk show segment (SNL always, will always love the talk-show format to pilot the locations and the characters) taking place in Chicago where Rae played a local NAACP official find every possible reason to support incompetent and / or corrupt black political candidates – with the exception of Kanye West.

But the sketch with perhaps the lowest stakes had the biggest impact: a live sketch (aired at 12:03 a.m. EST) in which she has a first date with a lawyer (Redd ) having al fresco dining in Midtown Manhattan during COVID-19 restrictions. The alfresco dining experience means anyone can walk around, and these people include everyone Rae’s character Sharon has been dating and / or having sex recently: this New Yorker (Thompson) who tries to sell roses to the couples on the sidewalk, “Karate Man” (Pete Davidson) and “Robot” (Bowen Yang). There’s even an opportunity for newbie Punkie Johnson to jump in on the action. Therefore, to say. Why and how does Sharon know all of these characters? And why, say it, are all the guys commenting on her “boob meat”? And how many times did they initially tell NBC’s Standards and Practices censor that they would say those words on TV? Somewhere, Patrice O’Neal’s ghost is smiling.

How relevant was the musical guest? And who sang with Justin Bieber?

Justin Bieber is so identified with SNL At this point, he might as well be related to Alec Baldwin. Wait. What is that? You don’t say. Oh, said Twitter.

Bieber, at 26, had already appeared on four previous episodes (including 2014 when he hosted and performed as a musical guest), and as recently as February! But the Biebs have kept busy during the pandemic, releasing two new songs last month, and he’s performed them both. “Holy” with Chance The Rapper first.

And then later, leaving his dressing room with “Lonely” with Benny Blanco on keyboards. And also yodeling!

Which sketch will we share?

You don’t have to be called a virtue signaler to understand why this 5 Hour Energy parody called “5 Hour Empathy” could be broadcast everywhere.

The commercial spoof with an interactive voiceover from Thompson wonders why Beck Bennett’s basic white won’t try the drink that will give him a better grasp of systemic racism and structural oppression. You are not afraid, are you? Alas, Bennett and his partner (played by Heidi Gardner) will try to talk, walk or jump through a window to drink this magical elixir. There is nothing more than that. But that might be enough for the message to preach to his choir.

Who stopped by the weekend update?

Have you ever noticed that Weekend Update anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che tend to make more jokes on the same topics they’ve covered in the open? Seems exaggerated. They too, especially this season so far, seem surprised that some of their jokes have aired, and it was the co-writers who chose them! Anyway. Enough on them.

We are treated to Update’s first appearance of the season from Trump’s sons Eric and Don Jr. (Moffat and Day). This Eric wears a mask, even though he doesn’t know what to do with it. SNLThe Trump Brothers cast generates more effective and consistent laughs than their celebrity counterparts, in part because they’re not so concerned with lowering their gaze or voice as much as they like to be blunderers. This act is reinforced by the emergence this week of their half-sister Tiffany (Fineman), who is still celebrating her birthday.

New segment alert? “Aidy in America!” It sounds promising, but it’s a bit complicated. We see Aidy Bryant in a cow pasture, unable to find undecided voters and not even knowing where she is. Here is the little. Short and sweet. It would have been sweeter and funnier if they had repeated and stepped up the bit later in the same show.

Gardner also stopped, stuck in the 1980s as Carla, a “cocaine bride,” to talk about the damage to New York’s nightlife seven months after the pandemic ended. Oh, how I miss Stefon. Stefon would have adapted and told us where to go. Carla, on the other hand, stands up and twists, asking Jost: Colin is going to dance with me, won’t you baby? Jost’s response? I don’t want to be involved with this. Does anybody? It wasn’t until the end, when Gardner broke the character, that she revealed what we were already guessing. It was “done by David O. Russell”.

Which sketch filled the 10-to-1 slot?

Can we just pretend the skit that airs at midnight 52 in the morning never happened? It starts with an advertisement for a restaurant named Jack Flatts thanking customers for their patience during the pandemic, for getting turned away metaphorically and literally by bearded white men asking for the restaurant to reopen, or else they’ll kidnap the governor … you know, like the plot the FBI foiled this week against Michigan government Gretchen Whitmer. While this sketch gives newbies Andrew Dismukes and Lauren Holt something to do, it’s not something they’ll likely be promoting on their social media.

Instead, let’s focus on what the show aired in the last block before Good Nights. This is a more traditional bogus advertisement, poking fun at all of us who bought things during the pandemic, hoping to take up new hobbies with all our new free time, for us. finding themselves disinterested and seeking to resell them. Enter eBay! Now with the ‘PreBay’ service, which intercepts your questionable purchase even before you open it, then decide to return / resell it.

Two funny notes about this skit: Features the voiceover of Cecily Strong, whose absence has been felt this season. Additionally, it reads the following disclaimer at the end: This advertisement does not apply to you if you are working or have children.

Who was the MVP of the episodes?

Yang had to put on makeup twice (including the dress rehearsal) to go from a French-Canadian news anchor to a Times Square robot. Redd and Gardner, meanwhile, get Aces for their efforts on several sketches and videos. But these are the two appearances of Chloe Fineman in the episode that will linger the most with viewers. Fineman nailed his two imitations; first, as the Florida woman at Trump’s NBC town hall who thought the president looked good when he smiled (though she still votes for Biden); later, as Tiffany Trump brought even more to the Trump Family Update Office segment.

Sean L. McCarthy works the beat of comedy for his own digital newspaper, Comic cartoon; before that, for real newspapers. Based in New York but will travel anywhere for the scoop: Ice cream or news. He also tweets @thecomicscomic and half-hour episode podcasts with comedians revealing origin stories: Comics comic book presents the last things first.

Watch SNL Season 46 Episode 3 on YouTube