SNL After Party (S49 E1 - Air Date 10/14/23) - "It Does Not Hold Up"

 Host: Pete Davidson
Musical Guest: Ice Spice

It’s been six months since the last SNL episode, due to the recently resolved writer’s strike. That strike put the brakes on former cast member’s return to Studio 8H as show host. With the strike over, Pete headlined the first post-strike show.

In addition, there were a few roster changes. James Austin Johnson and Sarah Sherman (quite rightfully on both counts) got called up from the triple-A featuring category to regular cast member slots, and newcomer Chloe Troast grabs a featured slot.

The question on everyone’s minds is this. Did Pete and the cast strike out or hit a home run? We’ve removed the cobwebs from the After Party venue so we can get together and talk about just that.

Cold Open – Pete

In light of ongoing tragic events in the Middle East, the show wisely chose to open by having host Pete Davidson sincerely address the situation. Davidson’s father was a firefighter who died during 9/11, and Pete did a good job of setting the appropriate tone of explaining why SNL was even on in light of the current horrors in the world. He told a story about how his mother accidentally gave him a DVD of Eddie Murphy’s Delirious after his father’s death. The DVD made him feel better and his mom let him keep it. The point being that “Sometimes, comedy is really the only way forward through tragedy.”

There’s a lot of truth there, and Pete really did a great job of guiding us through that journey.

Monologue

Pete’s monologue was an abrupt tonal shift from the cold open. The show wisely chose to let him do a straight up stand-up monologue instead of some other bit - like a musical number or fake audience questions about his dating life or some such nonsense. The material was funny and inappropriate, which Pete seems always able to pull off because of his undeniable self-deprecating charm. (Notice I’ve been calling him Pete this whole time instead of Davidson?).

His jokes ranged from uncomfortably watching Game of Thrones with his sister, to insults he received from high school coaches to commentary on Staten Island. (“The only island with a reputation worse than Epstein’s”). He wraps up with a longer story about a former girlfriend that is funny, kind of sweet, tragic, and grossly inappropriate. And he delivers it really well. The show was off to a strong start!

FOX NFL Sunday

Well. All good things must come to the end. This was a one note sketch about the mania surrounding Taylor Swift dating Kansas City Tight End Travis Kelce. Funny for a minute, particularly Keenan’s line about the New York Jets being “cursed by a warlock a thousand years ago” and Devon Walker’s entertaining Michael Strahan imitation.

Other than that, the single joke of the commentators actually being “Swifties” outlives it’s welcome well before the sketch ends with a cameo by Travis Kelce no less.

There was a funny idea here, but not one sufficient to sustain a nearly five minute sketch. Particularly not one that should have fueled the first sketch of the night.

I’m Just Pete

Pete does a parody of the “I’m Just Ken” video from The Barbie Movie. It’s a smart and clever riff on Pete’s bouts with mental illness, addiction and his knack for remaining in the public eye for his various relationships.

A lot of effort and artistry went into this piece, and it paid off. Pete has a lot to say if you pay attention.

Wired Autocomplete Interview

Well.

The cast of a new Marvel show is interviewed using Google autocomplete questions. The joke…and the only joke…in the sketch is that Pete’s character keeps getting asked questions about a bout of diarrhea he had on a plan.

It’s as juvenile as it sounds. And as funny as it sounds. Humor is in the eye of the beholder after all.

Secretary

And here we get a curveball. Heidi Gardner has a terrific time playing a secretary straight out of a screwball comedy. She like to complete sentences to show her competence, and also does absurdly inappropriate things. One highlight is when Brian Austin Johnson is introduced to her and promptly says “I think I’m done meeting you.”

Heidi really shows her acting chops her, along with her talent for physical comedy. It’s an odd sketch, to be sure, but kudos for giving Heidi room to do some strong character work.

Please Don’t Destroy Video: The Original Princes of Comedy

The lads meet with Pete and watch some of his teenage stand-up videos. This seques to when the PDD guys were elementary school Def Comedy comics. The juxtaposition of grade school white guys working their material at the Apollo works out really well, delivering a piece that is ridiculous, inappropriate, and, above all, very funny. A dig at John Mulaney (delivered by Mulaney) is priceless.

Not as many twists as usual from Please Don’t Destroy, but they aren’t really needed here after the premise is revealed.

I’ve missed these guys.

Weekend Update

A solid return from the Update Desk. Che and Colin avoided jokes about the Middle East, but did mock all the “experts” on social media. They saved their truly inappropriate material for when Che made Colin read some racist jokes. By all rights, this bit should not work. It’s been done. It really is racist material. It really is offensive. But somehow they two make it work without feeling like the show is punching down. This is another testament to the unlikely chemistry between the co-anchors.

The desk guests were a mixed bag this week. Bowen Yang appeared as Christopher Columbus letting us know it’s okay to remove his statues and bragging about all the things he’s “discovered”, including electricity, TexMex food, Jazz, and musical guest Ice Spice.

Funny enough, but they could have discovered an ending more quickly.

The second guest was Kenan as Deion Sanders, NFL legend and currently coach of the University of Colorado Buffalos’ football team. For years now, anytime Kenan just shows up and has fun, so do we. This week was no exception. Kenan’s rapid fire responses to lists of teams with better records thrown at him by Colin was just plain giddy.

USS Asperon

 I don’t even know what to say about this overproduced and underwritten sketch. Bowen Yang is former crew member of a starship who visits his old workplace as the vessel is under attack.

The joke is that Yang just natters away with the crew while the ship is close to being destroyed. It feels almost like a premise was sketched out but that the script simply said “Bowen improvs for a while.”

This was a painful to watch sketch that should have been jettisoned into space long before Yang’s character was.

Beach

During a beach outing, Andrew Dismukes is buried in the sand and demands a funny picture be taken of him, despite the fact that Pete Davidson has just learned that his family bean farm has been destroyed.

That is it. That is the entire joke here. This one joke pony may have worked if the visual had been more over the top. But it wasn’t, so the bit fell flat (even if the sand mermaid was not). This one tanked.

Glamgina

All the female cast members pop in for a bizarro sketch that seems like it is a commercial (maybe?) for makeup for “your second face”. Newly minted regular cast member Sarah Sherman stars in this sketch as a patient trying to impress her gynecologist. It feels like Sarah may well have also had a large role in writing this sketch based on how over the top odd it is.

Other cast members drop in with non-sequiturs and deadpan delivered lines.

The complete weirdness of this sketch elevates it.

Roadhouse Bar

I thought Glamgina was the 11:50 sketch, but they snuck in one after it. In the final sketch of the night, Kenan is approached by two shady characters (Michael Longfellow and Pete Davidson) at a bar who extoll the ability to make big money selling pictures of feet.

The humor in this curious sketch comes mainly from funny drink orders and repetition of the amounts the two used to make at the factory, and how much they make now. By the time the sketch ends with an ad for the Cheesecake Factory, you won’t care whether any of it made sense. You either enjoyed the curious ride or you didn’t.

The Goodbye Wave

Best Sketch: I hate to sound like a broken record, but I have to give this one to the Please Don’t Destroy guys, edging out the I’m Just Pete videos. I’m Just Pete was impressive and very well done, but if we are judging based on actual laughs out loud (as opposed to liar “LOL”s that people say online (do they still do that, by the way? I don’t know. I am out of touch, as my reviews of this show would indicate), then we have to give it to the Original Princes of Comedy.

Worst Sketch: USS Asperon. By 12 parsecs.

Random Notes:

- Taylor Swift popped up to introduce musical guest Ice Spice. Obviously she was there with Travis Kelce, which would have made the crew from the opening sketch happy.

- Newcomer Chloe Troast didn’t get much to do. Hopefully she will get a chance to make an impression soon.

- I may be wrong, but I didn’t catch any Biden or Trump references outside of one fairly innocuous joke on Update. Is this even SNL? I’m not complaining at all, but this is not typical for the show. Are they avoiding the whole circus on purpose for now?

Pete Davidson was a very good host. He was used well, and made a positive impression. The sketches were a mixed bag this week, but there seemed to be fewer solid ones than usual. But, hey, there’s been a long break and I have faith that after gang warms back up we will get some stronger episodes. The willingness to go weird is admirable and should fuel some shows that are full of fresh content.

Grade: C-

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