SNL After Party (S49 E2 - Air Date 10/21/23) - "Never Go To Bed Happy"
Host: Bad Bunny
Musical Guest: Bad Bunny
Perhaps it’s time to acknowledge that maybe - just maybe - I am too old and out of touch to stop hosting this shindig. I don’t know much about the musical guests any more, and I use words like shindig.
I am aware of Bad Bunny’s existence, and even know he is very popular. But could I name a single song by him. No. No I could not.
So take this week’s After Party with a grain of salt, and realize that maybe your host is not as looped into the pop culture zeitgeist that once he was.
Cold Open
Mikey Day is Jim Jordan dealing with the loss of his bid to be Speaker of the House. Bowen Yang pops in as George Santos (with a baby and lies); Chloe Fineman is Lauren Boebert calling in as she attends a stage version of Aladin (bet you can guess what else happens!); and JAJ brings back Trump for the first time this season.
The pieces of the machine for the political sketch were there, but the contraption seemed a little creaky. Everything came across as kind of flat and rote. I can’t put my finger on it, but it just didn’t pop. Even JAJ didn’t hit his usual homer with Trump. It was, of course, a brilliant impersonation, but nothing about the sketch was all that funny.
Maybe I was tired or maybe the routine is. Either way, the cold open really set the tone for the show this week.
Monologue
Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio, better known as Bad Bunny, holds the record for number of streams of any musical artist in Spotify’s history. According to Wikipedia, he had 18.5 billion - not a typo - streams in 2022. So he’s a big deal.
At this year’s Grammy Awards, CBS posted closed captions that read “[Singing in Non-English]” and “[Speaking in Non-English]”.
I tell you all this so that you will get the one arguable joke in his monologue, in which a similar caption was posted only to be replaced with “Speaking a Sexier Language”.
Pedro Pascal, a former SNL host himself, popped in to help with the monologue and to support Bad Bunny’s efforts.
I didn’t think there was much to the monologue, but the enthusiastic audience in Studio 8H would clearly disagree with me.
Rap Battle
Bad Bunny is Fuego, a master rap battler facing off against Mikey Day’s Walter White Boy. Fuego is so intimidating that Walter White Boy decides to roast himself before Fuego can do so. He then proceeds to rap his many shortcomings and personal traumas, as Fuego offers support.
It’s a funny concept, with some entertaining rap confessions. But, Mikey Day is no Eminem, so the bit doesn’t hit as strongly as it with a passable rap battler handling the role. Still and all, a funny enough first post-monologue sketch.
Age of Discovery
I want to make a confession. I tend to use the format from the prior week’s episode when writing the current week's. And, let’s face it, so does SNL at this point.
The first video bit almost always seems to pop up right after the first non-cold open sketch. This week was no exception.
In The Age of Discovery, a Spanish language History Channel style show, two explorers (Mikey and cameo support, Fred Armison) present the King (Bad Bunny) and his son (Marcello Hernandez) with various animals and plants they discovered in the New World while looking for a route to China.
The royals do not care for these finds. A turkey is deemed to be a chicken with testicles on its face, while a llama is simply a “horse, but worse.” The royals are ultimately won over by gold and cigars, which they end up enjoying despite their appearing to be - and I quote - “a dookie” (I had to retype that four times because autocorrect kept wanting to change it to “cookie”).
The Age of Discovery was well executed, and good for some laughs.
Telenovela
Bad Bunny and Marcello are stars of a telenovela, and Punkie Johnson is a non-Spanish speaking actress who keeps messing up the scene. And then, for some reason, Mick Jagger shows up, and then the whole business kind of ends. The sketch is a mess, but Punkie is very funny in it. Also, there’s a lot of slapping if you find that to be hilarious.
Please Don’t Destroy: Shrek
Bad Bunny turns in his best performance of the night in this week’s offering from the Please Don’t Destroy gang. In this video, Bad Bunny shows up in the writers’ office dressed in a Shrek costume, pushing a sketch, or even a movie, in which he could play Shrek.
I won’t go into details about where this leads, but it is the typical almost non-sequitur comedy style that we’ve come to expect from Please Don’t Destroy. Funny, odd, and even a touch of heart….but not too much of one.
Bad Bunny Musical Set 1
The cameos continue fast and furious as Lady Gaga pops in to introduce the first set, in which Bad Bunny performs in front of a rocking horse.
Weekend Update
The news takes some good hits at politicians on both sides of the aisle, starting with a montage of Biden repeating a monosyllabic response to the situation in the Middle East.
The sillier news items of the week got bigger laughs, including an item about a kangaroo that attempted to drown a dog. The punchline to that elicited one of the few actual laughs from me this week. (See below clip at around 2:02).
Che and Colin were only joined by one guest this week - I guess the show had to shave off time to support all the cameos.
Ego Nwodim dropped by as Jada Pinkett Smith. Ego didn’t really try to do an impersonation, but she and the material were solid.
Protective Mom
Well, Pedro Pascal was there. So why not re-do without much changes a sketch he did when he hosted?
Marcello brings home a date to meet his mother, who is Pascal in drag. This time, mom is joined by his aunt. (Bad Bunny). Half the joke is of the “Hey, dudes in dresses” school, while the other half is insulting the date in a combination of broken English and Spanish.
New cast member Chloe Troast is given nothing funny to do as the girlfriend, and the sketch ends the same way as it did last time Pedro Pascal showed up in a dress.
The Right Track
As long as we’re recycling premises, they might as well do another video where an emotional scene is taking place while chaos erupts in the background. They did this last season with the Waffle House sketch with Jenna Ortega hosted. This week, they inexplicably do a parody of the 2006 Will Smith vehicle, The Pursuit of Happyness, replacing the Waffle House with a subway car as Devon Walker and James Austin Johnson perform a straight dramatic scene. Nothing new to see here.
Bad Bunny 2
Pedro Pascal introduces the second musical set which features Bad Bunny apparently in a Last Supper scenario in which all the Apostles are replaced by Deadpool.
The Convent
I am beginning to think 1970’s BBC produced this week’s episode because here’s another sketch that puts men in women’s clothing in the service of trying to get a laugh. Molly Kearney is a Mother Superior who questions the nuns about a man being present disguised as a sister so that he can sleep with the rest of the members of the convent. And standing right there is Bad Bunny in a habit. There’s some kinda funny lines, and then a shocking twist. It is not Bad Bunny who is the offender it is none other than….Mick Jagger who comes out in nun’s garb and does his Jagger thing. If nothing else, he amps up the creepiness of the whole thing, and gave me an opportunity to ponder the bigger issues of faith, morality, and why Mick Jagger is doing this.
Burt’s Bees
A business meeting at Burt’s Bees is derailed as an employee keeps talking about his daughter and her impending wedding. The sketch was not particularly funny, but Bad Bunny did turn in a good performance here as the proud father. So, that’s something.
The Goodbye Wave
Best Sketch: The Age of Discovery was well done and funny. Marcello as the Prince was particularly good here.
Worst Sketch: The Convent. This sketch amped up the “Yipes” factor pretty high.
Random Notes:
- Maybe, just maybe, they should have just had Pedro Pascal host and let Bad Bunny stay in his musical lane. With so many cameos, it was apparent that SNL had little faith in Bad Bunny’s hosting chops. Pascal was practically co-host as it was.
- Is Chloe Troast a good add to the cast? Beats me. Hopefully she will be given a chance to do something funny next week.
- Speaking of which, this episode gave a lot of cast members very little to do. Bowen, the two Chloes, Heidi, Kenan, and Sarah (I’m probably missing some) didn’t do much of anything this week. This cast is enormous.
This week’s episode just felt like it got past quality control. A lot just fell flat. Was it the host? The writing? Weird vibes because of the eclipse? Who knows.
Whatever it was, we got a weak episode with a lot of cameos.
And, seriously, why was Mick Jagger there at all?
Grade: D+
If you enjoy our content, please consider supporting us on Patreon.