I had no idea who Jack Harlow was before he hosted Saturday Night Live and I came away pleasantly surprised. He had surprisingly good timing, even though he had a propensity to pause just a beat too long before delivering a punchline. That said, somehow, magically, when he did that, often times the joke worked really well. Lots of Cecily Strong in this episode, which was a delight. Not too much from the new cast members but Molly Kearney has a quality where you laugh at them on sight, like Kenan. Sarah Sherman going all in on the grandmother in the Joker sketch demonstrates why she’s such such a gifted physical comedian. All in all a pleasantly good episode. Jump over to our friends at Pajiba for detailed write ups on individual sketches.
Let’s get to the stats.
A word on Laughstatting:
Everyone has a different sense of humor, so the things that I laugh at will most likely not be the exact same things you laugh at. The goal of this exercise is not to convince anyone, but to say “here’s what worked for me” and hopefully, if our tastes are similar enough, maybe it worked for you too and the overall stats for the season will have some value. It also strangely works if you have polar opposite taste to me, because you’ll know the episodes that were a hit for me might not land with you.
I try to be very generous with my rankings in the hopes that eventually a more clear picture of the cast and season will shape itself and contribute to some additional insight. And we get charts.
Errybody likes charts.
PBS NewsHour-Republican Momentum Cold Open
Concept: Familiar
Execution: Average
S – Kenan Thompson: “And that’s where I don’t know.”
S – Cecily Strong: “Constantly in soft focus.”
s – Cecily Strong: “Arizona, the Florida of the west.”
s – Cecily Strong: “I’ve sent back over 2000 salads.”
S – Kenan Thompson: “Can you pass it to me, please. I’m open.”
Monologue
S – Jack Harlow: “I look like if you tried to draw Justin Timberlake from memory.”
s – Jack Harlow: “Jack Harlow looks like the guy who rips the tickets in half at the movie theater.”
s – Jack Harlow: “Basically it’s just this and The Office.”
s – Jack Harlow: smiling when he leaves the stage
Joker Wedding
Concept: Paper thin
Execution: Excellent
s – Andrew Dismukes: “You’re gettin married on Halloween night, I thought I could dress like Joker.”
l – Jack Harlow: “We gettin married on Halloween Night. We gotta respect that some people gonna show up dressed like Joker.”
S – Jack Harlow: “We’re lucky we only got one Joker.”
s – Jack Harlow: “This place coulda been crawlin with Jokers!”
l – Sarah Sherman: standing up
l – Sarah Sherman: “You are a skunk and an alcoholic.”
L – Sarah Sherman: “But I’ll be damned if you don’t look exactly like Joker.”
l – Jeff Probst reveal
S – Jeff Probst snuffing out Dooney’s torch
Skechers Commercial
Concept: Timely but difficult to pull off
Execution: Decent
s – Punkie Johnson: “Now?”
s – Cecily Strong: “Bye. Buh-bye. Uh…door.”
l – Cecily Strong: “I’m proud to work for Skechers. I mean, when’s the last time I’ve said that?”
Halloween Red Carpet Show
Concept: Creative
Execution: Good
s – Cecily Strong: “A wasted white girl who can’t find her Uber.”
S – Cecily Strong: “Uh-oh! Things are getting racist here!”
l – Jack Harlow: “Like, women who are smart are disgusted by me, but.”
s – Molly Kearney: reveal with hair
s – Mikey Day: “It’s an impossibly drunk Dora the Explorer.”
S – Molly Kearney: leaving
S – Cecily Strong: “If the guy behind me is dressed as Dahmer or is an actual pervert.”
l – Michael Longfellow: close up with creepy smile
AA Meeting
Concept: Outside the box and brilliant
Execution: Fucking outstanding
l – Jack Harlow: “I have the perfect idea for a Pixar movie.”
S – Molly Kearney: “I’m sorry….so the suitcases all have personalities?”
s – Jack Harlow: “I actually mocked up some artwork.”
l – Jack Harlow: “I literally wrote that in a Google Doc.”
s – Jack Harlow: “It literally is.”
S – Jack Harlow: “You’re in the movie.”
s – Jack Harlow: “No, but get this.”
S – Kenan Thompson: “Oh, I hate that bag!”
L – Jack Harlow: “I drank recently, by the way.”
l – Bowen Yang: “What?”
S – Jack Harlow: smiling almost breaking “anyway”
S – Kenan Thompson: “I love that bag now.”
S – Cecily Strong: “What about the song” and reveal + voice + look
s – Cecily Strong: keyboard rolling in
S – Bowen Yang: joining in the song
S – Kenan Thompson: “Everybody’s gotta” singing
S – Tom Hanks: entrance
s – Tom Hanks: “That really snags my zippers!”
L – Jack Harlow: Suitcase reveal
Horror Movie Trailer
Concept: Smart but painful
Execution: Very good
s – Punkie Johnson: using calculator to add 2
l – Chloe Fineman: slap “Wake up!”
Bartenders
Concept: Nearly impossible to pull off
Execution: Clunky
s – Bowen Yang: fumbling the toss
s – Jack Harlow: “I’m Earl the twirl the jazz.”
s – Bowen Yang: messy shake & pour
l – Kenan Thompson: “Yeah and you missed the glasses. A lot.”
S – Bowen Yang: “We don’t bend to lesbian TikTok.”
s – Jack Harlow: “Okay, wowwww.”
Weekend Update
s – Colin Jost: “Beating out the next highest offer of zero dollars.”
s – Michael Che: “Which is also what Walker says when he takes off the condom.”
S – Michael Che: “Wait, we can do NDA’s? Said Catholioc school priests.”
S – Michael Che: groaning over Jost’s Nougats and Pretzels joke
s – Colin Jost: “Student’s math scores dropped by almost 10%. Wow, so almost half.”
s – Colin Jost: “For now, said beavers.”
s – Colin Jost: “Not to be outdone, Spirit airlines is offering a free bag of carrots if you sit in the bathroom.”
L – Michael Che: “This replaces the old method of detecting semen: slipping on it.”
s – Bobby Moynihan: “ugh.”
l – Bobby Moynihan: “Excuse me can you instacart me some mochi.”
S – Bobby Moynihan: “I’m sorry can you minecraft my metaverse please?”
S – Bobby Moynihan: “TOM WAS TOO GOOD FOR GISELE!”
L – Bobby Moynihan: “TikTok dance. Okay dokey TikTok dance.”
l – Bobby Moynihan: “Itsa me-a Chrissa Pratta. Barf. Not my Mario.”
l – Bobby Moynihan: singing Eddie Money
s – Bobby Moynihan: singing Billy Joel
S – Colin Jost: “Yeah, I don’t think that’s anyone.”
S – Bobby Moynihan: “That kind of talk doesn’t fly anymore, Seth.”
l – Bobby Moynihan: realizing it’s not Seth Myers
David Pumpkins Returns
Concept: Familiar
Execution: Okay
s – Ego Nwodim: “I can’t with that little bitch.”
S – Tom Hanks: first David Pumpkins reveal
l – Andrew Dismukes: “No, who are you man?”
s – Bobby Moynihan: breaking
s – James Austin Johnson: smiling as Freddy Kreuger
S – Andrew Dismukes: “I can’t, he’s most of this ride.”
The View – Jack Harlow
Concept: Ambitious
Execution: Better than expected
s – Ego Nwodim: “I have been closed for business since before you were born.”
s – Jack Harlow: “I’m looking forward to the grand re-opening.”
S – Ego Nwodim: “Okay. I don’t know what you’re trying to do to me but it is working.”
s – Jack Harlow: “I hope you’re not afraid of snakes.”
S – Jack Harlow: “Whoopi, I’ve met a lot of fours but today I met a ten.”
Stats
