'SNL' Highlights: Seth Meyers Hosts; New Cast Member Ego Nwodim Is a 'Thirsty Cop'

By Dustin Rowles | TV | October 14, 2018 |

By Dustin Rowles | TV | October 14, 2018 |

Cold Open — Did Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump make fun of Alec Baldwin? Aside from that moment — more inscrutable than funny — there’s nothing to be done here. YOU CANNOT PARODY KANYE’S MEETING WITH TRUMP. It is immune from parody. There is literally no way to exaggerate that. It’s like dividing by zero. It does not compute. I absolutely understand why SNL had to go there, but it doesn’t make it less pointless. (Watch here) (Score: 2 out of 10)

Seth Meyers Monologue — Seth Meyers immediately turns things around with a … story about Trump and Kanye (trust me, though, it’s great … and surprising). It’s mostly a straight-up Seth Meyers being Seth Meyers monologue, and that’s all it needed to be. I wish the entire episode were just Seth Meyers standing on stage and telling stories. (Score: 7 out of 10)

South of Mason Q&A with the director — Post-screening Q&A’s with directors are notoriously awkward and awful, and no one ever asks any good questions, and every question ends up being about the questioner and not the movie, and this is exactly what this sketch is about. Unfortunately, it’s also not that great. (Watch here) (Score: 4 out of 10)

Beta Force — It’s an ad for a supplement to counteract another supplement that turns middle-aged men into raging psychos. It’s an amusing pre-taped segment, but the highlight is definitely, bald, roided-out porno-railing Seth Meyers. (Score: 5 out of 10)

Thirsty Cops — Ego Nwodim makes her SNL debut (welcome!) alongside Leslie Jones as two cops who pull over Seth Meyers because he’s “fine as hell.” You know how Leslie Jones basically harasses Colin Jost every time she’s on “Update”? This is like that, only she and Nwodim (and McKinnon) are cops. It’s not bad — in fact, it’s the best sketch of the night — but I really just enjoy their enthusiasm for harassing Meyers. (Score: 6.5 out of 10)

A Frightening Tale — Sitting around the campfire, Seth Meyers plays a guy telling the most terrifying story ever, about having coffee with an “aspiring filmmaker” (GASP!) who talks about himself and film for two and a half agonizing hours. It’s a total Mooney sketch, but it’s not the worst, and it knows exactly when to end. (Score: 5.5 out of 10)

Prison Cosby — Meyers plays Bill Cosby’s cellmate in prison. He is loving the Jell-O. It’s a pretty pedestrian sketch — hitting all of Cosby’s greatest hits — but Kenan’s enthusiasm for playing Cliff Huxtable is hella infectious. (Score: 6 out of 10)

Weekend Update — After two unusually strong “Updates,” Che and Jost return to form, which is to say: “Update” sucks this week. Seth Meyers does show up at the end to do “Really?” (WITHOUT POEHLER? FOR SHAME!), and while Meyers is very good here, it mostly serves to highlight how much better he is at “Update” than Chost, who are bad at “Update” and really bad at “Really?” Really! (Score: 4 out of 10)

I’m just embedding “Really?!” this week (that’s how bad it was), but you can watch Part I, Part 2, and Heidi Gardner’s GOOP Staffer.

Bayou Benny — A liberal panel show set in Cajun Country … and let’s never speak of it again. A funny accent does not a sketch make, Beck Bennett. (Watch here) (Score: 2 out of 10)

Cuba — A couple shows up late for dinner with friends and tells them all about their exotic trip to Cuba. The sketch is bad — the joke is mostly about how this obnoxious couple keeps calling it Cooba — but Seth’s wig is amazing (Don’t click it, Mat. You will regret it. (Watch here) (Score: 3 out of 10)

Trees — Chris Redd and Pete Davidson perform a rap song about trees that was probably meant to air in the first half hour but was so bad that it got edited down and pushed to the end of the episode. (This was a hunch I had during the live show, but it proves to be true, as the video embed is twice as long as what aired on the show.) (Watch here) (Score: 2 out of 10)

There’s another sketch, too, but I like Seth Meyers way too much to show it to you.