![]() ![]() The show came together to do something similar in the episode’s last segment, a tribute to late music supervisor Hal Willner. It’s hard to imagine being in Che’s position, grieving a loved one and yet understanding the need to find humor even within the context of that sadness, but he located the right balance in humiliating Jost and his “I’m Martha’s grandbaby” sendoff. Kate McKinnon Reprises Her Ruth Bader Ginsburg Impression on 'SNL' Remote Episodeīut I still ended the segment laughing and tearing up because of Michael Che’s effective use/acknowledgement of his late grandmother, who died earlier this week from COVID-19 complications, to get Colin Jost to do a particularly embarrassing joke swap. There are many ways to make this awkwardness work. ![]() We’ve seen most of the late-night hosts make some sort of return in the past couple weeks and they’ve had different strategies for handling the lack of feedback, from John Oliver’s hermetically sealed silence to Desus and Mero using writer-producer Julia Young as an oddly effective one-woman giggle factory. Mostly, “Weekend Update” was crushingly unfunny, made all the more so by the strange decision to have designated laughers cackling via Zoom at the limp punchlines. Yes, Tiger King came up again in a vocal cameo from Alec Baldwin’s Donald Trump in a “Weekend Update” segment that swung a wild creative pendulum. I was relieved that Donatello of the Middle Aged Mutant Ninja Turtles only had a benign cyst instead of a tumor and I was relieved that Chloe Fineman’s eerie Carole Baskin impression was the show’s most extended riff on Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness. Like nearly everybody else who has done more than one office meeting on a streaming platform - plus one Seder - I found recognizable and relatable humor in the sketch highlighting more than a few familiar Zoom faux pas. I liked the makeshift production values of Kate McKinnon’s RBG workout sketch, with its hand-drawn butcher paper signs and a cameo from her cat. 'SNL' Debuts Remotely Produced Sketches Amid Era of Social Distancing I’m still trying to figure out the perspective in teenage movie critic Bailey Gismert’s (Heidi Gardner) plug for frequent SNL host Louis C.K.’s new comedy special. Alex Moffat as a British sportscaster and Mikey Day as a gamer getting roasted on Twitch felt thin. Whatever humor there’s been in Larry David’s Bernie Sanders impression failed to come through in this context, or at least was dwarfed by the much funnier “Stay at Home” video David made as himself two weeks ago. How we ended up with an episode featuring not one, but two lo-fi Pete Davidson musical numbers - the second far superior to the first - is beyond me. Ultimately, if we’re being perfectly honest and candid, there were more than one or two stinkers. There’ll be some good stuff, maybe one or two stinkers.” Will it be weird to see sketches without big sets and costumes? Sure. Getting his own “Why start now?” moment, Hanks articulated the episode’s mission statement: “Is it going to look a little different than what you’re used to? Yes. Hanks referred to his own coronavirus recovery as the “celebrity canary in the coal mine,” and it’s truly impossible to put a number on how many lives he and his wife Rita Wilson saved through the visibility of their shared Australian diagnosis. They weren’t able to weave him into any sketches, but he introduced musical guest Chris Martin, closed the show and established a tone that straddled “business as usual” - does this even count as his 10th hosting stint? - and an unavoidable reminder of, well, everything. Tom Hanks, shooting in what my colleague Michael O’Connell very accurately described as his “second or third kitchen,” was the perfect semi-host for the evening.
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