‘SNL’ should be thankful for Charli XCX hosting
The triple-threat (she sings, drinks and smokes!) was a fantastic host, but the show’s Thanksgiving episode was still haunted by Dana Carvey and Alec Baldwin.
I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to get this edition of Deep SNL Thoughts out today since we’re doing some early Thanksgiving-ing/celebrating a nephew’s first birthday this weekend, but I managed to catch up on Charli XCX’s episode of SNL on my phone during some downtime today.
While I normally take notes while watching SNL, I wasn’t able to do that for this episode, so this will be a skinnier edition of Deep SNL Thoughts than usual. A Not-as-Deep SNL Thoughts, if you will.
First off, fantastic hosting job by Charli XCX. I was worried about this episode, mainly because so much of the promotion for it was focused on the whole “Brat” angle — an angle that feels different now post the presidential election than it did over the summer. In terms of not just host energy but also sketch writing, this weekend’s episode blew last weekend’s Bill Burr episode of the water.
That's not to say that this episode didn’t have its downfalls. It feels like SNL wants to move away from the Trump/Biden stuff, but it can’t since Dana Carvey won’t go home. (You gotta go home, man.) And, yes, I know that Andy Samberg was a big part of this episode with a new Digital Short, but I can’t fault that. Samberg is pretty much always great. Digital Shorts revolutionized SNL. Carvey’s Joe Biden is just sad at this point.
On a broader note, it was interesting watching SNL via YouTube this morning and afternoon. When I’m doing Deep SNL Thoughts, I pretty much always watch the show from beginning to end. This gives me a pretty good sense of an episode’s energy — how it evolved, where the bumps were, what felt out of place. Watching an episode out of order robs the experience of that narrative. So, yeah, I thought Charli XCX was a great host. Hopefully that was the case for people watching the show live too.
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COLD OPEN
Trump and Biden Meeting
Going into last week’s Bill Burr episode, a lot of SNL fans were wary of what the show would do post-election. Was that the end of Maya Rudolph as Kamala Harris and Dana Carvey as Joe Biden? Well, it looks like pretty much all the celebrity ringers that Lorne Michaels brought in for the election realized that it was time to go home.
Except Dana Carvey.
Carvey didn’t play Biden last weekend, instead rolling out a pretty dismal Elon Musk impression, but the SNL veteran was back as Biden for this week’s cold open.
Does anyone still think this portrayal of Biden is still good? It worked so well in the season premiere before we all realized that Carvey only had one note for the bit.
- Baldwin strikes again: I was thrilled to see that SNL went with Sarah Sherman — an actual cast member — to play Matt Gaetz during the cold open. That feeling quickly wore off when Alec Baldwin followed her, playing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The man couldn’t even be bothered to put a wig on to play Kennedy? Lazy, lazy stuff. Also, if you have Kyle Mooney in the building and don’t have him play Kennedy? I really question the decisions being made over at Studio 8H these days.
THE MONOLOGUE
This was a quick monologue. I have to respect when a host knows that their strength is elsewhere in an episode and they don’t get bogged down here.
