S44.E02: Awkwafina / Travis Scott

[WAnglais1]

Nope. Nope. Nope.

It seems like every week there are more and more "not live" bits. And I have no idea who the auto-tune music guest of the week is. 

Pete? Don't get him. Never have. Don't understand why he's so beloved. 

Meh. This week was awful. 

[vb68]

Granted it takes some people a very long time to find their foothold (see poster child Tim Meadows), I thought this show clearly showed that  while he is more confident, the show is eager to cash in and ride Pete's sudden tabloid -ready celebrity stature. Hell they even showed a pic of him and Ariana. It's both understandable but kinda tacky and a little gross. Also a little sad that Pete is completely on board, but talking about everything going on, including his mental health, is more or less his thing.

It was kinda cool to see him step up and basically be a spokesman for the show. (I completely believe he would physically fight Chevy Chase for disrespecting the show and Lorne.)

I was thinking once again how much I miss Taran's signature little victory hop in the goodbyes.  

[peeayebee]

9 hours ago, JZL said:

I hope she can pull out of it.  She's one of the best castmembers ever.  It would be sad to see her stint end as you describe.  Maybe she just needs some new characters.  The aged movie dame sketches are now as well-worn as the character being portrayed. 

I think I need to rewatch some of her earlier work to remind myself of how much I enjoyed her and maybe pinpoint what has changed. 

[ajsnaves]

I have usually enjoyed Pete’s work over the years, but I also am a bit surprised by his prominence. My theory is that Lorne does not want to lose another talented young man to drugs like he did with Belushi and Farley. I wonder if he feels quilty about what happened with those two, so he is going to do everything he can to support Pete in his efforts to keep clean, including keeping him employed. (I am a concerned that he has relapsed lately, but hope it is just his other medical problems.). The problem though is that at what point does supporting Pete turn into enabling Pete?  I don’t think we are there yet, but that is a fine line to walk.  And again, I say this as someone who generally enjoys Pete on the show.

[helenamonster]

12 hours ago, willco said:

I know this info is online somewhere, but maybe someone knows... what do the main players make per episode on SNL these days ? I remember, long ago, I heard a figure of something like $25 K per episode. I can't remember how long ago it was, though. Doesn't really seem like a lot-- and yeah, it is to the average worker, but I mean for someone in showbiz. Especially when you know that other tv players are making 10-20 ( or more, Big Bang Theory, talking to you !) times that per week on other shows ( that aren't live !). I'm just curious.

Taking this answer to the media thread so as not to go too off-topic.

11 hours ago, LuvMyShows said:

I had never thought about it like that, but that explains what's so disappointing about Kate...a lot of her fictional characters sound alike and sort of blur together:: Debette, the alien abduction woman, the bar closing time woman, the cat shop woman, and almost everyone she plays on Weekend Update.  Where I think she's very good, is her impersonations: Justin Beiber, RBG, Angela Merkel, HRC, and Kellyanne Conway are the ones that come to mind.

Something I find interesting about Kate is that her natural speaking voice is very strange (Melissa has this problem too) so it seems like when she's not attempting an accurate impression, her choices for voices become limited. My thought would be if you can do a bunch of different voices for real people, you should be able to come up with some variety for your original characters, but maybe at a certain point you just run out of ideas.

[Tachi Rocinante]

Did Che have too much cough syrup or pot or something?  His delivery was soo slooow.

[possibilities]

13 hours ago, peeayebee said:

I think I need to rewatch some of her earlier work to remind myself of how much I enjoyed her and maybe pinpoint what has changed. 

I wonder if it's that the writing team changed.

[vb68]

For the few times that Pete has mocked complained that Kate doesn't interact with him, it made her hitting him in the face with a pie in the cold open kinda ironic and funny.

Is that the first time they've ever shared a scene? 

[proserpina65]

I didn't find the cold open funny, but that's probably because I was depressed about the reality of it.

[theatremouse]

I don't think having Pete discuss the Kanye thing was in any way related to his relationship or his being a "favorite" of Lorne (even if both those things exist/are true). It seemed to be a very intentional choice to have him do that bit. They called it out at the beginning on purpose. They were anticipating at least some degree of reaction to be "well, hey Kanye's mentally ill, Kanye's had a TBI, cut him some slack". So it was entirely purposeful that they had Pete do the talking, as a means of getting out in front of that and saying, no, look I'm mentally ill, let's not excuse all behavior with "but he's mentally ill". I thought the entire bit worked.

[vb68]

You know, if they can have Matt Damon come out for a sketch, they could have found a way to get Lucy Liu there for the monologue. Granted i have no idea what her schedule was, but I feel like it wouldn't had been hard to work out. And it would had been a great moment.

[helenamonster]

11 hours ago, vb68 said:

You know, if they can have Matt Damon come out for a sketch, they could have found a way to get Lucy Liu there for the monologue. Granted i have no idea what her schedule was, but I feel like it wouldn't had been hard to work out. And it would had been a great moment.

Agreed. Elementary shoots in NYC so she's local at the moment, and even her not being local wouldn't be an excuse since they flew Matt out from LA the day of the show.

Also, she's from Queens just like Awkwafina. It would have been really cool to have her. I can't imagine her saying no if she'd been asked, which gives me the feeling they didn't ask at all.