Ariana Grande keeps it low key — but can’t keep from calling out Bowen Yang’s ‘toad chode’

Ariana Grande is a very good SNL host. Last night was a reminder of how buried beneath her safely manicured persona is an entertainer who is an amazing impressionist and someone who has great comedic timing. (This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who remembers Grande’s Nickelodeon days of Victorious and Sam & Cat.)

It’s impressive how effortless Grande makes hosting SNL look when she’s at the center of every sketch. I loved Nate Bargatze’s episode last week (and would still rate it as the overall strongest of the season so far), but more often than not, Bargatze was playing a character who things happened to. Think of “Sábado Gigante,” for example. His character was at the center of that storm. With the exception of maybe “Castrati,” Grande’s characters were a driving force in almost every sketch this episode.

After SNL’s celebrity cameos took a turn for the worse last week, I had hoped that Lorne Michaels might recalibrate. He did not. Even worse, those celebrity cameos got loose this episode, breaking out of the cold open and infecting multiple other sketches.

I’m guilty of cheering on Andy Samberg bringing back the Digital Shorts for “Sushi Glory Hole” last weekend, but at least that move was worth it. That one was a Criterion-level Digital Short.

The work we got from our collection of ringers this week wasn’t worth it.

Samberg and Maya Rudolph taking over “Castrati” was unnecessary and stole two major roles from the actual cast. (I don’t think we saw Ashley Padilla all episode.) But Dana Carvey appearing as Jennifer Coolidge was even worse. With no joke beyond “Hey, it’s Dana Carvey as Jennifer Coolidge,” he ruined what was shaping up to be a wonderful sketch between Chloe Fineman and Grande.

Maybe it’s just me, but I would think some sense of fairness would keep Carvey from popping into that sketch. It’s not like Carvey ever had to worry about Lorne Michaels’ old buddies hijacking a Church Lady sketch.

There’s a moment toward the end of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse when Miles Morales, the young Spider-Man of his universe, tells Peter B. Parker, an aging Spider-Man, “you gotta go home, man.”

Watching Carvey ruin the Coolidge sketch or Rudolph and Samberg take the lead roles in “Castrati,” I could help but think of that line.

“You gotta go home, man.”

Let this generation of SNL cast members have their moment. This is their universe now.

This episode also had to work through several timing and technical issues. It started ten minutes late due to a college football game running long. Then there was the bizarre moment where the post-commercial break card for Stevie Nicks’ second performance lingered for a whopping 55 seconds before the show cut back to commercial. A sound board reportedly broke, forcing SNL to go back to break. Nicks got her second song in, but the episode’s timing was thrown off enough so that the final live sketch (allegedly a return of Kenan Thompson’s Reese De’What) had to be scrapped and replaced with the pretaped “The Hotel Detective” sketch from dress rehearsal.

Please Don’t Destroy was also missing again this week. The trio is now 0-for-3 in Season 50 — a pretty wild absence for the team that SNL had been positioning as the successors to the Lonely Island. If you’ve been listening to The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast, you’ve heard about how that group’s work became so integral to SNL, Michaels added a laminated card to his show board for the Digital Shorts, the idea being that they would be a part of every episode. Please Don’t Destroy definitely does not have a laminated card.

COLD OPEN

Family Feud Election 2024

SNL isn’t even trying any more when it comes to these political cold opens.

We’re just three episodes into this season, and the show is already trotting out Family Feud to kick things off. This isn’t working. The celebrity cameos aren’t working. I’d like to think that Lorne Michaels might realize that and change gears before the election, but it’s obviously more likely that show limps through the election before quietly sending Maya Rudolph and all her celebrity friends away again just like we saw Alec Baldwin and Jim Carrey disappear after the 2o20 election.

But here we are. We need to grind through these cold opens as the clock ticks down until the election. Which means after Chloe Fineman reprised her Kaitlan Collins portrayal from the season premiere, we jumped to Kenan Thompson as Steve Harvey for an episode of Family Feud: Election Edition.

While the Democratic side was predictable — Rudolph as Kamala Harris, Samberg as Doug Emhoff, Jim Gaffigan as Tim Walz and Carvey as Joe Biden — the Republican side at least brought back Mikey Day as Donald Trump Jr. (Sorry, no Alex Moffat return to play Eric Trump.)

• Joe Bi-dud: Look, I’m against all of these celebrity cameos, but the worst of them all is now Dana Carvey as Joe Biden. The portrayal was weirdly the highlight of the season premiere’s cold open, but it turns out Carvey didn’t have anything to add to that impression beyond those few lines. Please end this.
• I really don’t care: SNL teased at a Melania Trump appearance, but it turned out her podium was empty. The show would’ve either had to bring Cecily Strong back or turned to its cast.
• “Neck to nuts”: It turns out Harvey and Trump wear the same length ties.

THE MONOLOGUE

It took three episodes, but Season 50 of SNL finally had a great monologue.

After Jean Smart’s dud of a monologue and Nate Bargatze’s standup monologue, Ariana Grande gave us a monologue heavy on the singing with a side of impressions.