S49.E07: Adam Driver / Olivia Rodrigo

[formerlyfreedom]

Quote

Host Adam Driver is joined by musical performer Olivia Rodrigo.

Airing Saturday, December 9, 2023.

[Pete Martell]

 

[formerlyfreedom]

I love Adam Driver. He is just a fantastic host, game for anything, and it feels like the cast enjoys working with him.

I don’t usually pay a lot of attention to the musical performances, but Olivia Rodrigo’s first song seemed really well done.

[Kimmmmmm]

Sorry, listening to her is torture for me.

Edited December 10, 2023 by Kimmmmmm

[Phebemarie]

I thought she really struggled to maintain the high notes.  

The cold open was really tone deaf and unfortunate.  

[SHD]

Was that Chloe Troast in the cold open asking the questions? It looked and sounded like an Alicia Silverstone impression.

[Dirge]

Okay I haven't been in love with the show so far but Julia Stiles is *French kiss* perfection. 

[Galileo908]

Cold Open: Interesting choice for Cold Open. Yeah, the president of UPenn resigned a few hours ago over this. Chloe Troast and Kenan did their best in this but...I was not feeling this one. Honestly, what were they thinking with this?

Monologue: "I know Santa watches SNL. He hasn't liked it since Kattan left." Much better than the cold open. I got vibes of Steve Martin's Christmas Wish, in a good way.

Trying For A Baby: This was fun. Bowen and Adam trying so hard to have a baby. Somehow. 

Old Friends: "My old friend is a sex offender" was a wild idea. That it turned out to be an ad for Facebook makes sense. 

Beep Beep: Loved this. Just taking a dumb social observation like "beep beep" and going all serious about it.

ShopTV: 26 bucks for a big chocolate penis. I saw that coming when we saw the big Santa. But damn was I laughing the whole way. 

WU: Gotta love jokes about blurring out Colin's face in January 6th fics, and jokes about Nick Cannon's many kids.

Chloe's Julia Stiles dance didn't do anything for me, even when Julia Stiles showed up.

Baby Plane: This has to be a Sarah Squirm sketch since everyone was commenting on how weird the Adam Driver baby looked. Sarah being pregnant with him for two years was a great reveal.

Elder TikTok Prank Victims: Liked this one. And it was an excuse to see the cast in old person makeup. "I blocked doors with Governor Wallace" was a joke that went over everyone's head. (It's referring to George Wallace of Alabama. hardcore segregationist)

Tiny Ass Bag: "My bag is little and my ass is fat. I'm king of the world." I liked Adam's stilted acting here. Gave me vibes of those old "Chandelier" sketches and ones like it.

Pretty okay, but the man had big shoes to fill after his last two stints. Kate McKinnon closes out 2023 next week.

Aww, Normal Lear tribute card at the end.

Bowen should've been in that last sketch.

[MrWhyt]

kind of meh IMO. only bits that got real laughs out of me were WU, shopping network and plane baby. I like Driver and thought he did good with what he had but what we had wasn't the best. Liked Rodrigo's second song.

Edited December 10, 2023 by MrWhyt

[cpcathy]

I love pre-Christmas SNL episodes, especially with Adam Driver. He’s such a great host. This was lively and silly and I laughed at nearly every sketch. Beep Beep and Tiny Ass Bag were a crackup.

 

 

 

[Dirge]

I thought Tiny Ass Bag belonged much earlier. That, WU and the pranking seniors were about all I laughed at. 

[Blakeston]

I was disappointed by the lack of Please Don't Destroy.

Is it just me, or did the chocolate Santa...not really look that much like a penis? It was only when they held it horizontally that I really saw the resemblance. It was thicker around the middle than the top, which was an odd choice.

I have to wonder if maybe the censors insisted that it not look particularly realistic?

[ebk57]

I thought Tiny Ass Bags was great.  I loved the Norman Lear bumper, and Bowen giving a come-hither look to the camera in the extra long good-nights.  And I love Julia Stiles.  

And that's about it for this show. 

[buttersister]

I give Adam Driver points for going all in on everything. The baby on a plane sketch was the only thing I laughed at, though.
 

Writing is as weak as ever. You guys shouldn’t prank old people. They remember when snl writers were funny
 

Santa says this one was for you, John Oliver.

Edited December 10, 2023 by buttersister

[JeanJean]

I missed the first 20 minutes but I thought this episode was okay, although not great. It had a fun energy throughout, though.

I liked the Bowen and Adam trying to have a baby sketch, and the pranking the elderly sketch. I thought the latter had a very unique premise. 

I just am not a fan of Olivia Roderigo's lyrics, although I did like the "selling me for parts" line. 

[Slade347]

I enjoyed Driver's monologue, the Old Friends short, the chocolate home shopping sketch and Baby Plane. WU wasn't at its best, but it still had some great stuff, my favorites being when Che pulled out the popcorn and Jost being blurred out on January 6th. I like Julia Stiles, but I don't think I've seen that film, so the joke was lost on me.

Driver is a good host, gives his all and seems up for anything. I don't think it's on him that this was mostly just an okay episode. He should join the five timers club soon enough.

Olivia Rodrigo is probably my favorite of the hugely popcorn female singers that dominate the music scene these days. I enjoyed both of her performances.

 

 

[Pete Martell]

2 hours ago, SHD said:

Was that Chloe Troast in the cold open asking the questions? It looked and sounded like an Alicia Silverstone impression.

This is one of the oddest SNL stories I've heard in a good long while. 

Apparently (there was talk about this on Twitter and later on the Saturday Night Network podcast), Cecily Strong played this role (Elise Stefanik) in dress rehearsal. 

There is no word of why she wasn't on the live show. I've seen fans speculate SNL decided to save her first cameo for Kate's upcoming episode. Or that she backed out because of the subject matter or how incredibly questionable the writing was. Or that Lorne pulled her out because he didn't want her to get a negative response. 

Whatever the reason, I felt very bad for Chloe Troast. Yes, it's her job, and I could say hey, look at the faith they have in her to give her this big part in only six episodes. But the circumstances, and the timing, and the likely hate she's going to get that had nothing to do with her and she was pushed into last minute...oof. 

[Pete Martell]

I didn't pay any attention to Olivia Rodrigo's songs (I tried to watch the second performance but it just felt like a lot of silly posturing) but I saw that she is apparently a fan of one of Julia Stiles' biggest movies (10 Things I Hate About You). I noticed they were talking on the stage at the goodnights. I'm happy for her if she got to meet an idol.

I haven't seen Julia Stiles in anything in a long time (I know she was in Hustlers, the movie JLo hosted for in season 45 around this time), but I remember her SNL episode from 2001. She was a very likeable host. She even came back to cameo. She said years later that she wished she could have hosted again. I was never expecting her to be on this show again, but I was happy to see her. This is the type of surprise cameo I want...not Alec Baldwin. I am not into Chloe Fineman's work on SNL but I preferred this experiment away from the desk to more of her impressions or characters (she's at her best in support parts - she was great in the Old Friend pre-tape tonight).

As for Adam Driver, I think he is a genius SNL host, one of the best they've ever had. He's so good that a part of me was nervous about him hosting again because of high expectations. His season 44 episode had so much content exploiting Pete Davidson's relationship with Ariana Grande that it's still something I wouldn't want to rewatch.  

Adam's first three episodes did have a big "event" sketch for him that I'm not sure this episode had, but other than how forgettable the prank PSA and bag sketches at the end were, I thought he was well-used through the episode. The baby sketch was one of those pieces I can see very few other hosts pulling off. He made all the emotions and reactions oddly believable, endearing and insane all at once. And the "beep beep" sketch with Adam and Andrew Dismukes facing off (Andrew helped write the Del Taco sketch from Adam's last episode so I was glad to see them together). Even the home shopping sketch, which was just a rewritten version of the same sketch a few years ago with Jerrod Carmichael, he helped to sell (although my favorite part of that was the callers, especially Kenan). Or the sketch where he and Bowen were partners, which could have been lazy gay jokes but instead turned into an interesting character piece. Of course, Adam helps make anything better, but I do think there was a lot of decent writing in place for him too.

This was the second-best episode of the season for me, after Nate Bargatze's, which probably shows how uneven the other episodes have been but is still good enough for me as after how exhausted they seemed with Emma Stone last week I thought this might have been a snooze, or an outright dud. 

I do wish they'd shortened Update and put on a few more sketches, as so many of the jokes went right over me. I don't think their hearts are in it anymore, and it's getting harder for me to watch Che tell odd jokes, then burst out laughing at them, or at the audience not responding. 

Amazingly, for the first time in what seems like a year (the last I remember is one from Austin Butler's episode, although I may be wrong), SNL's Youtube account uploaded two cut sketches. I would have put both in the episode (I think the film panel sketch wasn't put in because of a technical error in dress rehearsal - the other I would guess might be because of the dark humor).

 

[baldryanr]

3 hours ago, Pete Martell said:

There is no word of why she wasn't on the live show. I've seen fans speculate SNL decided to save her first cameo for Kate's upcoming episode. Or that she backed out because of the subject matter or how incredibly questionable the writing was. Or that Lorne pulled her out because he didn't want her to get a negative response. 

If it's the latter two then Lorne's a prick for tossing a newbie into such a crappy sketch.  They really couldn't have come up with anything better?  The GOP debate was this week, Hunter Biden was indicted, or do something non-political. 

[SomeTameGazelle]

56 minutes ago, Pete Martell said:

I haven't seen Julia Stiles in anything in a long time (I know she was in Hustlers, the movie JLo hosted for in season 45 around this time), but I remember her SNL episode from 2001. She was a very likeable host. She even came back to cameo. She said years later that she wished she could have hosted again. I was never expecting her to be on this show again, but I was happy to see her. This is the type of surprise cameo I want...not Alec Baldwin. I am not into Chloe Fineman's work on SNL but I preferred this experiment away from the desk to more of her impressions or characters (she's at her best in support parts - she was great in the Old Friend pre-tape tonight).

The premise of what Chloe was trying to do here was baffling to me until Julia Stiles showed up. It's probably not fair to compare because Chloe was dancing and explaining the ridiculous plot of the movie (which I admit I haven't seen) for quite a while but when Julia started dancing her moves were so much smoother that I started to believe that maybe the movie had not been so ridiculous after all and it was unfair of Chloe to slander her like that.

1 hour ago, Pete Martell said:

As for Adam Driver, I think he is a genius SNL host, one of the best they've ever had.

He commits to both the absurdity and the characterization, which I love.

Maybe some of the bits went on a little bit too long but on the whole I thought Adam elevated most sketches. And we seemed to have a good range of cast members as well.

1 hour ago, Pete Martell said:

Even the home shopping sketch, which was just a rewritten version of the same sketch a few years ago with Jerrod Carmichael, he helped to sell

I knew as soon as I saw the Santa where it was going and that we had seen it before, but I didn't remember when or who had been the host.

 

5 hours ago, JeanJean said:

the pranking the elderly sketch.

The only reason that made any sense to me was because Adam had referred to the concept in his monologue.

 

 

[rwlevin]

36 minutes ago, SomeTameGazelle said:

The premise of what Chloe was trying to do here was baffling to me until Julia Stiles showed up. It's probably not fair to compare because Chloe was dancing and explaining the ridiculous plot of the movie (which I admit I haven't seen) for quite a while but when Julia started dancing her moves were so much smoother that I started to believe that maybe the movie had not been so ridiculous after all and it was unfair of Chloe to slander her like that.

Oh no, that dance in the original was ridiculous. I remember watching and thinking, this is supposed to be good? Why is she so stilted? I don’t get it.

[Ottis]

Better than recent episodes, because they went for some silly. "Beep Beep" was fun. And the "old friend who is a sex predator" was pretty good, especially when they brought in "Big Filthy." 

The "Trying to get pregnant" skit started strong and then meandered away from a point. Were they supposed to be dumb about biology, or were they so woke they couldn't talk normally about it? 

The Santa chocolate is SNL's latest attempt to recreate Schwetty Balls. They had all the pieces, but for some reason they chose to have the hosts be appalled and try to block it instead of have everyone act unaware of the resemblance and take it further and further. If they had done the latter, they might have had a classic skit on their hands. 

The airplane baby sketch was promising as well, but I thought they should have played it more as "what a baby thinks and we can actually hear say on a plane" instead of "look, a weird baby." 

Still, I appreciate that SNL got weird in this one. Definitely made me engage more.

I've never been an Adam Driver fan, he is basically a NYC hipster doofus that could be the most miscast role in Star Wars history (part of the reason why his prior SW Undercover Boss skit worked so well) and always seems to be the same guy. But he seemed more mature here, and more settled. I kind of liked him as host this time aorund.

I didn't understand the Julia Stiles dance thing at all, but I love Julia Stiles.

[cdnalor]

9 hours ago, Blakeston said:

I have to wonder if maybe the censors insisted that it not look particularly realistic?

The close ups of the phallic chocolate had me wondering what kind of negotiations went on between Lorne and the network as to how many details they could include, i.e. size of the ridge, veins, etc.  That could be a sketch in itself.

Edited December 10, 2023 by cdnalor
typos

[lou ann b]

I wasn't all that crazy about the CO either, but Chloe T certainly gave it her all with confidence, mad respect to her. I've been very impressed with her since she joined the show. Adam is a great host, and on the shallow side, he was looking good last night.

[driver18]

53 minutes ago, Ottis said:

I've never been an Adam Driver fan, he is basically a NYC hipster doofus that could be the most miscast role in Star Wars history (part of the reason why his prior SW Undercover Boss skit worked so well) and always seems to be the same guy. But he seemed more mature here, and more settled. I kind of liked him as host this time aorund.

Adam Driver grew up in Indiana, was a lance corporal in the marines, and is a fairly low-key guy. Sure, he lives in NY with his wife and children, but from all accounts he's far from being a "NY hipster doofus."  Because you didn't like him in SW, I think that misinformed you on who he is.

I want as high after the fact on his last two appearances, but over time the highlight sketches have cast a sheen on those outings. Rewatched them all a month ago coincidentally, and I actually enjoyed this one overall from [monologue] start to finish. I thought the Baby Plane and Beep Beep were the standouts, but I really enjoyed the whole thing.

I think in time, this one is going to age pretty well too.

Edited December 10, 2023 by driver18

[SoMuchTV]

9 hours ago, buttersister said:

Santa says this one was for you, John Oliver.

Haha, at first I thought that was alluding to SNL competing for the same awards as JO's show, and this show was such a dud that it would give Last Week Tonight a leg up.  Then I remembered John's famous (at least to his viewers) "crush" on Adam Driver.  Well played.

[Ottis]

12 minutes ago, driver18 said:

Adam Driver grew up in Indiana, was a lance corporal in the marines, and is a fairly low-key guy. Sure, he lives in NY with his wife and children, but from all accounts he's far from being a "NY hipster doofus."  Because you didn't like him in SW, I think that misinformed you on who he is.

I want as high after the fact on his last two appearances, but over time the highlight sketches have cast a sheen on those outings. Rewatched them all a month ago coincidentally, and I actually enjoyed this one overall from [monologue] start to finish. I thought the Baby Plane and Beep Beep were the standouts, but I really enjoyed the whole thing.

I think in time, this one is going to age pretty well too.

I didn’t like him in “Girls” either, where he was … a NY hipster doofus. Not sure what his actual background has to do with how he comes across on the screen. For me, all of his performances have come across as entitled and sulky. Last night he seemed more mature and settled. 

[Blakeston]

I thought Adam did a fantastic job with the voices he used in the chocolatier sketch and the tiny bag sketch. He did more with those bits than most hosts would have.

[peeayebee]

 

10 hours ago, Blakeston said:

I was disappointed by the lack of Please Don't Destroy.

Not that I hate them, but I didn't even notice they were absent.

5 hours ago, Pete Martell said:

it's getting harder for me to watch Che tell odd jokes, then burst out laughing at them, or at the audience not responding. 

It's always been hard for me to watch Che do this. 

45 minutes ago, driver18 said:

Adam Driver grew up in Indiana, was a lance corporal in the marines, and is a fairly low-key guy. Sure, he lives in NY with his wife and children, but from all accounts he's far from being a "NY hipster doofus."  Because you didn't like him in SW, I think that misinformed you on who he is.

Is your username just a coincidence?

I thought this was a pretty good show. Adam is so good. He creates characters and is different in each sketch. So many of the sketches wouldn't have worked with someone else.

Maybe if he'd been in the CO it would have been better. Sheesh. That was bad. 

Loved the monologue. "I turned 40 this year so I'd like five pairs of chinos." 

I liked the cabin with the gay couple. "For now, for us..." cracked me up as they kept repeating it. 

Old Friends was good, too. And I loved Beep Beep. 

Shop TV was fine. It's understandable why they didn't make the chocolate look more realistically like a penis. I suppose they could have had the two hosts be oblivious to how phallic it looked, and when encouraged to take a bite they could say something like they're on a diet. But I thought it worked fine. Loved when they flicked the balls away. Oh, and that nativity scene? I'm going to guess that that's a real thing, not created by the prop dept.

WU was ok. I didn't like that with the Hunter Biden tax evasion bit they didn't mention that he has paid back the taxes, plus interest. That easily could have been said parenthetically. Also, I'm so tired of their Biden-aging jokes. He doesn't finish a sentence? Whatever. 

I hadn't heard of CosMc's. What is that really? I'll have to google. But Che saying it was a Cosby McDonald's was pretty funny.

I enjoyed Marcello's bit. I didn't enjoy Chloe's dance thing. I didn't get excited by Julia Stiles' appearance. That seemed pretty random.

LOVED the baby on the plane sketch. Adam was perfect. "The Peppa Pig device? That is the ONLY thing I want."  :D Really well done.

I don't do TikTok, though I watch a video now and again when I come across a link, so the pranking thing was news to me. And not funny.

The Tiny Ass Bag was well done, and the props were cute, but it was just so-so to me.

I was in the kitchen during Olivia's first song, and I thought she sounded bad. I FF'd thru the second one.

All in all, I think this was a good one, due to Adam.

ETA: Here's CosMcs's menu.

Edited December 10, 2023 by peeayebee

[Irlandesa]

9 hours ago, Slade347 said:

I like Julia Stiles, but I don't think I've seen that film, so the joke was lost on me.

I saw the movie but I felt like the "joke" was just an excuse to get Julia Stiles in for a cameo as all they really did is a mild recap of the actual plot of the movie which was always a bit silly. 

Julia was recently in a show called The Lake on Amazon Prime about a family feud over a lakehouse.  I quite liked it.  She was also in this international show on Ovation called Rivera which was a collossal mess from what I saw of it but had amazing scenery.

Overall, I wanted to like this episode more than I did.  I felt like the ideas for funny skits were they but they never quite got to the funny part. 

Beep beep was the closest but for some reason, seeing Keenan packing heat killed it for me. 

And the tiktok skit didn't really feel like a skit.  Yeah, you shouldn't be pranking people.  And the pranks they showed felt very real to the kind of stupid "pranks" tiktokers pull.  It was more documentary than joke in my head.

 

[peeayebee]

13 minutes ago, Irlandesa said:

Beep beep was the closest but for some reason, seeing Keenan packing heat killed it for me. 

Yeah, I wish they hadn't done that.

[SG429]

11 minutes ago, peeayebee said:

Yeah, I wish they hadn't done that.

Food fight would have been my lowbrow option for a closer.

[Crashcourse]

Although I doubt there are that many black guys watching SNL, I thought the chocolate penis joke was offensive and disgusting.  

 

[peeayebee]

I didn't even think of that.

I watched the two cut sketches. I thought they were funny. Adam was great in both of them, and they were pretty well done, except for Kenan (as the judge) saying one of his lines too early.

[Nellise]

This was a frustrating episode. They had decent ideas and Adam pushed them as much as he could to make them entertaining, but the writing didn't know how to make the premises very funny.

 

[Tachi Rocinante]

13 hours ago, Galileo908 said:

Cold Open: Interesting choice for Cold Open. Yeah, the president of UPenn resigned a few hours ago over this. Chloe Troast and Kenan did their best in this but...I was not feeling this one. Honestly, what were they thinking with this?

Yes, the university tools were mostly tone deaf and clueless, but my take was that Stefanik was ranting as if she were talking to skinheads at a Holocaust denier rally, which wasn't too far off base for some of her actual behavior.

[Valny]

14 hours ago, Phebemarie said:

I thought she really struggled to maintain the high notes.  

The cold open was really tone deaf and unfortunate.  

I was thinking the same when I heard her hit the high notes. I've seen her hit them before in live performances(and an acoustic one) so I was kind of surprised she didn't as usual. Maybe nerves or her voice just was having an off day. 
Didn't like the cold open either. it just wasn't funny, it was flat.  But I did love Baby plane. Adam Driver's facial expressions were hysterical.   

I missed Julia Stiles,turned it off before it was over so I have to go back and find the skit

[Kimmmmmm]

14 hours ago, Kimmmmmm said:

Sorry, listening to her is torture for me.

I mean, I think she's a talented songwriter and very pretty, but her voice grates... to me..  a lot.

[Phebemarie]

I wonder if she was sick or recovering from something that affected her voice.  I thought the second song might have been lip synched because of how wobbly her first performance was in places.  

[Joimiaroxeu]

SNL sure went in on Stefanik.

There was a news story this week about another trans man who is pregnant. That may have inspired the "trying for a baby" sketch.

Long lost childhood friend Keith, omg. It just kept getting worse and worse.

Saying beep beep does not automatically grant right-of-way at the holiday buffet table. Not unless you're bringing yams and packing heat. Good to know.

I screamed when they unwrapped the dildo chocolate bar. Wow. Odell couldn't hardly deal either.

Olivia Rodrigo was the first musical guest this season I've recognized. Interesting acoustic version of Vampire.

WU:
Oof, RFK Jr. Epstein keeps ruining people from beyond the grave.
Marcello was adorable. But Colin, "The salon do be sounding kinda fire."? No. No blaccent for you.

Chloe was right about Save the Last Dance but I was thinking that bit was quite a far reach back for a premise to crap on. Does Julia Stiles have new movie coming out?

Baby Plane seems like a good idea until you consider what would happen if the plane crashed. On top of all the innocent souls lost, no airline would survive that kind of horrific PR. Or the lawsuits.

Olivia Rodrigo hit a few iffy notes in her second song. She made it work though. And I didn't realize how tiny she is.

I can't stand those tiny-assed bags, for real. What's the point? They're just something else for you to lose, along with your one mitochondrion and a small bit of cocaine. Dassit.

Adam continued to be game, and rose above weak material. He'll have earned his Five Timers jacket the next time he hosts.

Quote

She was also in this international show on Ovation called Rivera which was a collossal mess from what I saw of it but had amazing scenery.

Her character also had a ridiculously expensive couture wardrobe. It sort of made sense within the context of the series but the character's clothes were practically their own storyline. I often wondered whether the whole thing was an excuse for product placement.

[driver18]

4 hours ago, Ottis said:

I didn’t like him in “Girls” either, where he was … a NY hipster doofus. Not sure what his actual background has to do with how he comes across on the screen. For me, all of his performances have come across as entitled and sulky. Last night he seemed more mature and settled. 

He wasn't a NY hipster doofus in Girls. And you didn't say he came across as such onscreen. You said he was one, thus my giving his actual background. Driver has given many varied performances, ironically a couple in which he did portray NY hipsters, but they make up just a portion of his work. 

 

4 hours ago, peeayebee said:

Is your username just a coincidence?

LOL! No, it is not. 2018 is when I became a huge fan of his.

Edited December 10, 2023 by driver18

[heatherchandler]

9 hours ago, Irlandesa said:

Beep beep was the closest but for some reason, seeing Keenan packing heat killed it for me. 

I thought that was hilarious!  The premise is like pretend road rage and the gun is the level to which it escalates.

15 hours ago, Pete Martell said:

I didn't pay any attention to Olivia Rodrigo's songs (I tried to watch the second performance but it just felt like a lot of silly posturing) but I saw that she is apparently a fan of one of Julia Stiles' biggest movies (10 Things I Hate About You). I noticed they were talking on the stage at the goodnights. I'm happy for her if she got to meet an idol.

I haven't seen Julia Stiles in anything in a long time (I know she was in Hustlers, the movie JLo hosted for in season 45 around this time), but I remember her SNL episode from 2001. She was a very likeable host. She even came back to cameo. She said years later that she wished she could have hosted again. I was never expecting her to be on this show again, but I was happy to see her. This is the type of surprise cameo I want...not Alec Baldwin. I am not into Chloe Fineman's work on SNL but I preferred this experiment away from the desk to more of her impressions or characters (she's at her best in support parts - she was great in the Old Friend pre-tape tonight).

As for Adam Driver, I think he is a genius SNL host, one of the best they've ever had. He's so good that a part of me was nervous about him hosting again because of high expectations. His season 44 episode had so much content exploiting Pete Davidson's relationship with Ariana Grande that it's still something I wouldn't want to rewatch.  

Adam's first three episodes did have a big "event" sketch for him that I'm not sure this episode had, but other than how forgettable the prank PSA and bag sketches at the end were, I thought he was well-used through the episode. The baby sketch was one of those pieces I can see very few other hosts pulling off. He made all the emotions and reactions oddly believable, endearing and insane all at once. And the "beep beep" sketch with Adam and Andrew Dismukes facing off (Andrew helped write the Del Taco sketch from Adam's last episode so I was glad to see them together). Even the home shopping sketch, which was just a rewritten version of the same sketch a few years ago with Jerrod Carmichael, he helped to sell (although my favorite part of that was the callers, especially Kenan). Or the sketch where he and Bowen were partners, which could have been lazy gay jokes but instead turned into an interesting character piece. Of course, Adam helps make anything better, but I do think there was a lot of decent writing in place for him too.

This was the second-best episode of the season for me, after Nate Bargatze's, which probably shows how uneven the other episodes have been but is still good enough for me as after how exhausted they seemed with Emma Stone last week I thought this might have been a snooze, or an outright dud. 

I do wish they'd shortened Update and put on a few more sketches, as so many of the jokes went right over me. I don't think their hearts are in it anymore, and it's getting harder for me to watch Che tell odd jokes, then burst out laughing at them, or at the audience not responding. 

Amazingly, for the first time in what seems like a year (the last I remember is one from Austin Butler's episode, although I may be wrong), SNL's Youtube account uploaded two cut sketches. I would have put both in the episode (I think the film panel sketch wasn't put in because of a technical error in dress rehearsal - the other I would guess might be because of the dark humor).

 

I wish they used both or either of these instead of maybe the plane baby.  

This week was actually funny!  Adam Driver is so good.

Oh and the awful, unfunny cold open??  Wtf was that?  I see it’s being mocked on social media.  Snl had been doing well mocking both political sides lately, which is good imo.

[possibilities]

I thought it was a good show.

Things I loved:

the gingerbread joke in the monologue
Olivia R's sparkly dress for the first song 
Adam's sweater in the tiny bag sketch

--

Really liked OR's 2nd song-- good for her!

--

I laughed at a lot of things I didn't want to laugh at, almost every sketch actually, so I have decided that means either the show is objectively funny or I'm a collapsed curmudgeon.

[Kimmmmmm]

5 hours ago, Phebemarie said:

I wonder if she was sick or recovering from something that affected her voice.  I thought the second song might have been lip synched because of how wobbly her first performance was in places.  

From the little I've heard on the radio, she always sounds like that.

Edited December 11, 2023 by Kimmmmmm

[peeayebee]

6 hours ago, driver18 said:

LOL! No, it is not. 2018 is when I became a huge fan of his.

Were driver1 thru -17 taken? :D

One thing I liked in the CO -- the ONLY thing I liked -- was Kenan as the President of the University of Phoenix online. That was pretty good.

[Arkay]

I’ve seen every SNL since the first season.

Sometimes something is funny to me, sometimes something is not.

Like it is for everyone.

 

But some things really are not to joke about; no amount of comedy can make them ok.

One of them is taking a very real problem like violence against Jews and turning it around so that the “joke” is on one of the few people who is trying to get this under control.

The other is the other very real problem of old people getting pranked.

 

I can never find those funny. There’s too much else to make fun of, nobody has to minimize terrorism or painful things harming the elderly.

 

I do like Adam Driver and he inhabits all his roles very well, but the writing was subpar, as it often is.

[Pete Martell]

1 hour ago, Arkay said:

I’ve seen every SNL since the first season.

Sometimes something is funny to me, sometimes something is not.

Like it is for everyone.

 

But some things really are not to joke about; no amount of comedy can make them ok.

One of them is taking a very real problem like violence against Jews and turning it around so that the “joke” is on one of the few people who is trying to get this under control.

The other is the other very real problem of old people getting pranked.

 

I can never find those funny. There’s too much else to make fun of, nobody has to minimize terrorism or painful things harming the elderly.

 

I do like Adam Driver and he inhabits all his roles very well, but the writing was subpar, as it often is.

The elderly prank pre-tape had a strange tone which came across as someone possibly realizing during the process that the joke wasn't actually there. Moments that on paper I would have thought might be mocking, like the old man who pees his pants, or the old woman who is lied to by her grandkids about their sexuality, or the grandmother who thinks she's going to have dinner with Jesus, were taken seriously in the footage. I've seen a few people say they should have ended with the seniors pranking the teens. That would have been a little trite, but at least had the comedy elements. I am not sure what was going on here, although at least some of the lesser used cast members got to do dramatic work.

I don't think SNL has ever had a uniform vision, which is a good thing, but when the show isn't properly supervised (which I think has been the case for a while now), you get very perplexing pieces like this pre-tape or the cold open (in my opinion). I don't even want to get into the topic at hand, other than saying it's so far out of the depth of what SNL could cover even in most of its best years. I don't know how that cold open got on the air...if there is any humor, it wasn't going to be found in another version of "both sides are nutty."

[proserpina65]

Well that was an exceedingly unfunny episode.  The only time I laughed was during the tiny little bags sketch when they said the tiny little suitcase would hold a normal amount of cocaine.

Oops, excuse me, tiny ass bags.

On 12/9/2023 at 11:18 PM, Kimmmmmm said:

Sorry, listening to her is torture for me.

Me, too, which is why I muted her first performance (was watching the show live at that point) and fast-forwarded through her second.

On 12/10/2023 at 10:26 AM, driver18 said:

Adam Driver grew up in Indiana, was a lance corporal in the marines, and is a fairly low-key guy. Sure, he lives in NY with his wife and children, but from all accounts he's far from being a "NY hipster doofus."  Because you didn't like him in SW, I think that misinformed you on who he is.

I do not get his appeal at all, but he's definitely not a hipster doofus.

On 12/10/2023 at 1:30 PM, Nellise said:

This was a frustrating episode. They had decent ideas and Adam pushed them as much as he could to make them entertaining, but the writing didn't know how to make the premises very funny.

 

He did seem game for anything so I definitely think the writing was the problem.

On 12/10/2023 at 2:40 PM, Joimiaroxeu said:

Oof, RFK Jr. Epstein keeps ruining people from beyond the grave.

RFK Jr. has ruined himself with no need for help from anyone else.

 

Edited December 11, 2023 by proserpina65

[DEL901]

Why Cecily didn’t appear

 

https://www.tmz.com/2023/12/11/cecily-strong-uncomfortable-snl-skit-genocide-jews-university-president-hearing-elise-stefanik/

[possibilities]

I feel bad for Chloe.