SNL After Party (S50 E7 Air Date 11/16/24) - "I've Embarrassed Myself and My Homeland"

Host: Charli XCX
Musical Guest: Charli XCX

Can a Brat Summer warm up the hearts of SNL fans after last week’s debacle?

Let’s head to the After Party to see if Charli xcx pulled it off doing double duty as host and musical guest.

Cold Open

Is Dana Carvey officially a cast member this season?

He returns along with James Austin Johnson in a sketch featuring this week’s meeting between President elect Trump ad President Biden.

Carvey’s Biden has kind of over stayed its welcome, and this cold open didn’t help.

As Trump and Biden talk, Trump notes “I forgot how boring President is.”

They then discuss his cabinet nominees saying “We’ve got Elon and Matt Gaetz. That’s an Alien vs. Predator.”

Sarah Sherman comes out as Gaetz, and is creepily funny. But then Alec Baldwin, who people on SNL seem to think we really want to keep seeing in 2024. This time he’s RFK, Junior, who feels “strongly about a woman’s right to choose…To choose to give her child polio.”

It’s topical. It’s political. It’s expected. But, man, I think it’s time to let the cast take over.

This one wasn’t a homer, but I will say it was a single. So, that’s something.

Monologue

Charli XCX was very comfortable with her monologue. She noted a lot of audience members would not know who she was, but comforted them by noting “There’s nothing wrong with being straight.”

She then stated “I want to thank someone who has been there for me the whole time. Autotune.”

The English dance-pop star riffed on her “Brat Summer” hit by explaining to drop in guest Kyle Mooney why he is not, in fact.

I do miss Kyle.

This was a perfectly fine monologue, and at least it wasn’t just mysogynistic stand-up.

Babymoon

This was an eco-friendly episode, as there was a good bit of recycling this week.

In this sketch, Chloe Fineman is soon to be mom whose friends sing a song during her baby shower. Turns out, the song is basically about Domingo (Marcello Hernandez), who she had a fling and, it would seem, a baby with. The song is to the tune of Chappell Roan’s “Hot to Go”.

This is pretty much the same theme as the wedding toast sketch during Ariana Grande’s hosting gig.

If you liked that. You’ll like this. But the novelty is not there anymore.

Wicked Auditions

Next up was a pre-taped segment that is a time-honored (i.e also recycled) SNL bit. It’s celebrities audition for movie roles, this time it was for Wicked.

I don’t know. Maybe it’s my age, but the modern celebrity imitations don’t amuse me as much as they did when it was movie stars as opposed to musicians being impersonated.

Granted, there were plenty of both. We got a Jojo Siwa and an Adele. A Bernie Sanders and an Al Pacino. A Bad Bunny and a Sydney Sweeney. And many more.

The bit, while amusing, just didn’t feel as funny to me as usual, but I am willing to admit maybe I am aging out of finding the newer impressions funny.

Thanksgiving Baking Championships

Well…they hit the trifecta. Three repeat sketches in a row.

The third one was a parody of cake baking shows, where multiple contestants made horrible (and sometimes sexual and/or gross) cakes.

The bit - despite an appearance from Kyle Mooney - felt tired and not funny.

If this had been the first time up, maybe it would have scored, but this time it just felt stale.

Digital Short

Andy Samberg (who appears to have joined Dana Carvey as a cast member this season) along with Charli XCX perform a musical number about how they enjoy calling the police on their white neighbors.

This sketch worked at getting laughs while making a point.

Banger Boyz

Andrew Dismukes, Marcello Hernandez and Emil Wakim host a (fictional) podcast, Banger Boyz that recently had Trump as a guest. The bit here is that Trump calls in and names the dopes to cabinet position, while the show’s producer (Charli XCX) reads goofy sponsor copy.

It was as good as much a brocast typically is. Also, I just made up the term brocast.

Weekend Update

The material was a little tighter this week. Jost and Che talked about the cabinet pick, noting that when Gaetz was asked to be A.G. “he said the same thing he does when he sees a teenage girl, ‘I’ll do it!’”

As for RFK, Jr., they said “I say we give him a shot” while showing a vaccination graphic.

The Tyson/Paul fight got some time with the quip that the two boxers “teamed up to defeat everyone watching.”

But, it was the desk guests that really shined this week. Bowen Yang appeared as “Tiger King” star Joe Exotic, who had to constantly fight off a puppet tiger paw. And Sarah Sherman delighted us as the widow of Peanut the Squirrel (an internet squirrel star who was killed based on a neighbor’s complaint). Sarah’s physical comedy and wacky flirtation with Jost really sold this delightful bit.

Acting Class

Hernandez teaches a class on acting in commercials. Charli XCX is a student (and is wife). The joke is he is bad.

That’s really it.

It Girl Thanksgiving

I’ll be honest here. I do not have any idea what this sketch was trying to accomplish. But I recognize it was not for me.

But, even so. It just seemed like a mess.

Shrek: The Musical

This one just made me sad. It’s the tired old bit of makeup from a character being in incriminating places on another character.

This time, the makeup is from the guy playing Shrek on Broadway.

Didn’t we do this joke with clowns in, like, fourth grade?

The Goodbye Wave

Best Sketch: I’m going to split this up with Bowen and Sarah for their appearances on Update. Both were funny and full of energy, creating a high point in the middle of the show.

Worst Sketch: It Girl Thanksgiving narrowly edges out Shrek. Neither was funny, but the Thanksgiving sketch was so scatter-shot and pointless, I have to go with it.

Random Notes:

- We were promised a Please Don’t Destroy video at the beginning of the show. It was cut for time. It could have replaced either of the final two sketches and improved the show a great deal.

In fairness, we did get a weird Please Don’t Destroy commercial for Allstate (a real commercial) that was amusing enough. Still, the actual piece they filmed was pretty funny.

- Julia Fox introduced Charli XCX for her first number (“360”). Fox is referenced in the song.

This episode was a marked improvement from last week’s show, but it was still no great shakes.

Charli XCX was actually very likable and did a good job with what she was given to do, but the show was overall an average effort.

Not bad. But certainly not brat.

Grade: C

As always, we grade SNL episodes in comparison to other SNL episodes. Not TV in general.

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