SNL After Party (S49 E7- Air Date 12/09/23) - "Wokeness Killed Han Solo"

 Host: Adam Driver
Musical Guest: Olivia Rodrigo

With nary a Star War to promote, Adam Driver returns to host SNL for the fourth time. The five-timer jacket is imminent!

Does Driver have the chops to host without relying on the force?

Happily, he clearly does, even if this episode is a real mixed bag.

Cold Open

The show kicks off with a sketch on the Congressional hearings about antisemitic speech in college campuses. Chloe Troast does her best character work to date as NY GOP representative Elise Stefanik. Troast is brilliantly over the top as she questions (or shouts at) prestigious college leaders who can’t directly answer questions about whether talk of violence on campus is improper.

Both the woke and unwoke get skewered here. And, despite the smartness of the sketch, it doesn’t really generate a ton of laughs. Kenan Thompson’s appearance at the end as the President of Phoenix University gives the sketch a boost, but the cold open this week really doesn’t fire on all cylinders.

Monologue

Adam Driver is unbelievably comfortable onstage. His delivery is easy, and his comic timing is on point.

For his monologue, Driver plays piano (it appears like it’s really him doing so, but I am easily fooled) while address Santa with his wish list. He points out Santa watches SNL, even though he hasn’t liked it “since Kattan left”. (For the younger set, that’s Chris Kattan, who often played Mr. Peepers, a monkey that comically ate fruit. The late 90’s. What can I tell ya).

Driver delivers some deadpan menace and a lot of really funny material here as well as most stand-ups would.

This was a strong monologue with a hint of Steve Martin’s classic Christmas Wish bit.

We’re Trying

Three couples sit in a ski lodge, when the topic of babies comes up. Chloe Fineman and Michael Longfellow announce they are trying to have a second child, which their friends are glad to hear.

This prompts Bowen Yang and Adam Driver to announce they too are trying. An absurd conversation follows, with heightening levels of ridiculousness. It’s like a less offensive version of the “Loretta” sequence in Monty Python’s Life of Brian. And it is genuinely funny.

Ego Nwodim adds the tag at the end when she shows up and announces she’s expecting. But the punch on that….oh, just watch it.

Old Friends

In this pre-taped segment, Chloe Fineman and Mikey Day return to Mikey’s childhood home. After seeing a photo of one of Mikey’s old friends, Chloe presses Mikey to reach out to him, which he does.

The sweet nostalgic segment takes a hard left turn when Mikey texts his friend, Keith (Adam Driver). They briefly reminisce and then agree to meet at a bar - which Keith has to make sure is more than 1000 feet from a school.

This leads to a series of unfortunate revelations about Keith, and his new found friend Big Filthy (Devon Walker).

At the end, we learn that the whole piece is supposed to be an ad. I won’t ruin the joke here, but it’s a great bow to the segment.

Beep Beep

This one starts off feeling like a bad improv game turned into a sketch, where two mustachioed men at a Christmas party (Adam Driver and Andrew Dismukes) get into a “beep beep” battle to see who can place a dish on a table first. You know what I mean. They both do that “Excuse me, beep beep” thing.

Fortunately the sketch improves as the incident escalates into threats of violence with some great reactions and histrionics from the other part guests. Finally Kenan shows up a third “beep beep” guy who threatens to turn his “beep beep” into a “bang bang”.

Shop TV

Look, SNL has always had some sophomoric comedy, but this one is more middle schooloric. I am aware that is not a word.

Here Adam Driver is a chocolatier appearing on a home shopping show with hosts Heidi Gardner and Mikey Day. He’s selling chocolate Santa’s that when taken out of their wrapper look like, well, not Santa.

This phallic-centric sketch is one note and aims for (and admittedly gets cheap laughs. But, to paraphrase the Criterion Collection re-release of Billy Madison, we are all dumber for having watched that.

And, no, I’m not including this video. Why? Because I’m a prude, I guess.

Weekend Update

The current events jokes were solid if not A-list this week. Colin and Che took shots at both sides of the political spectrum. President and Hunter Biden received some lampooning right off the bat. In discussing Hunter’s potential sentence if he’s convicted for tax evasion, Colin noted that if he serves the entire time, it will mark the first time a Biden has finished a sentence.

Mitch McConnell and JFK, Junior take some hints, and Colin gets smacked with a solid joke about him being relieved that the January 6 videos may be blurred. There were a few duds, but Che’s reaction to jokes that don’t land make those instances worthwhile.

This week, Marcello Hernandez dropped by the desk to basically do some of his standup material under the guise of discussing depression in men. This was a “growing up with women” routine. I wasn’t moved to laughter by it, but the Studio 8H audience disagreed with my take, giving Hernandez loud cheers and applause. The guy is definitely charismatic, but, man, this is some well worn territory.

The other guest to drop by was Chloe Fineman to offer a sexy Christmas gift idea. Her idea for this was to reenact Julia Stiles’ dance from Save The Last Dance. Which was released in 2001. Chloe’s dance was funny, and not even arguably sexy (Che’s comments notwithstanding).

At the end of the bit, Stiles joins Chloe. And I will say this. I have seriously underestimated how much nostalgia apparently exists for Julia Stiles.

Airplane Baby

Sarah Sherman is traveling with her 11-month old baby on a plane. However, the baby is Adam Driver. Or rather, it’s Adam Driver’s head poking out the top of a puppet baby body. He also speaks like an adult, but reacting to things like a baby.

It’s a wonderful, bizarre and hilarious sketch. Adam Driver throws his entire Oscar-nominated abilities into this piece, which really pays off. The oddness, hilarious material, and fantastic performances come together in a funny, original sketch.

Elder PSA

Older folks in a taped segment complain about being the butt of pranks in TikTok videos. Several cast members and Driver appear, but Kenan and Punkie Johnson shine as elders who do not enjoy having blankets thrown over them in stores or being tricked into sound like an owl.

This was a nice bit of silliness near the end of the show.

Tiny Ass Bags

A store sells bags which are comically small. And that’s it.

The Goodbye Wave

Best Sketch: Airplane Baby. This was an instant classic. Everyone involved just did such a perfect job on this sketch. I am glad I wasn’t drinking anything while I watched it, or, like Driver’s baby, I might have spit it up. But due to laughing. Not to being a baby.

Worst Sketch: I really want to say the Shop TV sketch just to punish it for its uncouthness. But, I begrudgingly recognize it was funny. I’m going to go with the Cold Open. It just didn’t work this week. I think it was trying so hard to make some interesting points that it may have forgotten to be more funny than clever.

Random Notes:

- Like Emma Stone before him, Adam Driver shows us that talented actors can also be great comedy sketch performers. He was terrific in every sketch he appeared in.

- SNL showed respect to the late Normal Lear with a bumper card. In addition to practically inventing modern television sit-coms, Lear hosted SNL back in 1976.

- Musical guest Olivia Rodrigo wowed the audience with two very different songs. With Vampire she performed a simple vocal and piano number that the audience seemed to connect with. In her second set, she performed All-American B- - - - in a near performance art piece set at a tea-party where she had too much sugar, demolished some cakes, and ended up covered in red cake frosting that quite intentionally looked like blood.
The former Disney star is obviously not aiming at my demographic - but I respect the artistry that went into this piece.

- What’s this! No Please Don’t Destroy video! Someone check on the boys and make sure they are okay.

- Is it just me, or is James Austin Johnson getting less of a spotlight now that he’s been promoted to regular cast member than he was when he was a featured player?

Driver is a great host. The show had some strong sketches, but they were surrounded by some weaker ones this time around. Still, all in all, this was an entertaining episode, and I look forward to Driver returning to collect his membership card to the Five-Timer Club.

Grade: B-

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