SNL Recap: John Krasinski/Machine Gun Kelly
While I would not call myself a Saturday Night Live obsessive, I was on my high school’s improv team (because, of course I was), so I’ve been aware of the show for at least the past decade of my life.
The SNL of my teen years was, in my opinion, one of the golden ages of SNL, with heavy hitters like Amy Poehler, Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, Andy Samberg, Kristin Wiig, and Vanessa Bayer in the height of their tenures on the show. I wasn’t a religious watcher of the show, but with the advent of YouTube it was so easy to watch the highlights reel each weekend and stay relatively up to date. That being said, I did write an APUSH paper on the impact of SNL on the 2008 presidential election, so… maybe I was a little obsessed? Who’s to say, really?
Over the past five years or so, I’ve become a more regular SNL watcher, even as the show has struggled to find it’s footing in an era where the show has lost a lot of stars, the industry has reckoned with abusive workplace culture and a glaring lack of diversity, and a lot of the topical events have seemed too depressing to joke about. Of course, there have been some great episodes and memorable moments, but I think the show is truly beginning to hit it’s stride again as the writers figure out how to best showcase the newer cast members. That being said, I am more disappointed each week by how poorly they showcase Melissa Villasenor, because she’s a gem and they are failing her.
Anyway! Let’s move on to my thoughts and opinions on this week’s episode, hosted by John Krasinski.
This week’s cold open featured Kate McKinnon, a national treasure who I once saw on the subway, playing herself interviewing various public figures trying to figure out “What Still Works?” From Marjorie Taylor-Greene to Tom Brady, McKinnon makes her way through a series of current events since the show’s winter hiatus began at the end of December. I really enjoyed this cold open, mostly because Kate McKinnon is perfect in every sketch she is in, but also because it acknowledged that truth is stranger than fiction, and there is no joke the SNL writers can come up with that is adequate enough to satirize the fact that an elected United States representative actually thinks Jews control the weather with space lasers.
Post cold open was a disappointing monologue from host John Krasinski that was more or less a riff on Steve Carrell’s monologue when he hosted in 2018. Maybe it’s because I never got into The Office, but I don’t really find it funny when an entire host monologue is about a show that’s been off the air for nine years. I know people really love it and it’s still on streaming platforms (fun fact, based on hours it was the most streamed show of 2020, but it’s also an unfair metric because it has many hours of content to be watched), but I checked out almost immediately as soon as Jim and Pam jokes started being made.
The rest of the night was, as usual, filled with various hits and misses. I personally enjoyed the sketch “Blue Georgia,” showing how the state has changed now that they’re in “Stacey Abram’s country” and helped elect a Democratic president and flip the Senate, as well as the final sketch of the evening in which Kyle Mooney plays a rat who lives under John Krasinski’s hat and controls him while he has sex. I also shockingly enjoyed “The Loser,” in which John Krasinski plays a jock who, in an attempt to stand up for his dweeby younger brother, played by SNL newcomer Andrew Dismukes, but mostly ends up deepening his embarrassment. I wish I could tell you the use of the phrase “inverted foreskin” didn’t make me laugh so hard my stomach hurt, but alas dear reader, it did.
My favorite sketch of the evening though had to be “The Twins,” featuring Kate McKinnon and Mikey Day as John Krasinski’s terrifying twin children who won’t stay out of his zoom call to discuss the GameStop stock situation on a live news show. I personally don’t fully understand the GameStop stock thing (or, as described by Pete Davidson in the cold open and everyone on the internet “stonks”), but I do think hedge fund managers probably have demon offspring, and Kate McKinnon and Mikey Day really lived that truth in a way I appreciated.
Overall, I thought this episode was a step in the right direction. It was no Timothee Chalamet (best episode of the season so far, in my opinion), but I am starting to see the writers figure out where each cast member’s strengths lie. For example, Bowen Yang as Fran Lebowitz and Kyle Mooney as Martin Scorsese was a stroke of genius.
As for the musical guest, I literally don’t care. I go to the bathroom during the musical guest unless for whatever reason I am particularly invested in their performance (which has never happened), and before this week I didn’t know who Machine Gun Kelly was outside of the fact that Pete Davidson played him sometimes on SNL. Sorry!
Anyway, I am VERY excited for Dan Levy to host this weekend, because I am still deep in a Schitt’s Creek rabbit hole and I don’t see myself climbing out of it anytime soon, despite the fact that I now have a long list of Golden Globe nominations to get through. Oh well! Stay tuned for my thoughts on all of those things and more! Who knows, really?