Saturday Night Live Season 42 Episode 5 Benedict Cumberbatch Recap

Saturday Night Live is back this week and Doctor Strange himself took over as Benedict Cumberbatch hosted with Solange Knowles as musical guest.

The episode before the election was going to be a huge one for Saturday Night Live and they pulled out all the stops with host Benedict Cumberbatch.

Cold Open

We were all wondering what was going to happen without a debate opening and we weren’t disappointed. The Erin Burnett report focused on the two candidates giving one final plea before the election. And it continued to call out how insane it is that everyone focuses on Clinton’s emails when Trump’s terrible behavior continues to be ignored.

Every time someone came up to Trump, he would kiss whatever man walked up to him but Erin would ignore it to bring the conversation back to Clinton’s emails.

Then, at the end, Kate and Alec broke character to run into Times Square to make themselves feel better and hugged people there in Trump and Clinton costumes. It was insane and funny and what everyone really needed after the constant election coverage. And though they didn’t tell their audience who to vote for, they did urge us all to vote.

If you won’t vote for yourself, do it for Alec Baldwin and Kate McKinnon.

Opening Monologue

Benedict apologized for our current America and then said that maybe people wouldn’t know who he was (which, in what world does Benedict Cumberbatch live in?) so he was going to ‘brag’. He sang a hot, sexy song about himself and all the evil geniuses he plays.

He also apologizes for the term ‘Cumberbitches’ and explains how he didn’t choose it and he wished they had picked something else.

Koohl Toilet

Honestly, it was an extremely strange sketch. At first, it was an Equilibrium-esque world. EVeryone sat in unison and then you realized they were all being ridiculed for how we as human beings use the toilet.

They were told that they were all supposed to look idiotic as they did what was necessary. Until a hot Benedict Cumberbatch walked in and sat on the toilet the wrong way. Honestly, it was pretty idiotic but there was just something about the insanity of it that made it hilarious.

Why Is Benedict Cumberbatch Hot?

Every fangirl ever wrote this sketch and it is about all of us. Beck Bennett has a game show and he is trying to figure out why Benedict Cumberbatch is hot. He asks Vanessa Bayer and Aidy Bryant but the two just make noises as their answers.

Until Benedict tells Beck that he is hotter than him in a picture and suddenly Beck gets it. It was just a pretty perfect sketch because that’s how we all are when it comes to Benedict. We don’t get the attraction until we do and then it’s too late.

Office Hours

If you ever wanted Benedict Cumberbatch as a hot professor, your dream is coming true. Like most the sketches this night, they didn’t really make sense but you laughed at them anyway. Benedict played a professor who was questioning himself.

He tried to kiss Pete Davidson who wasn’t into it but he also didn’t care. He was just there. Just existing, not really caring about anything. And it was great. He literally just said “okay” a bunch of times and let Cumberbatch have diatribes about his feelings and it worked!

Surprise Bachelorette

Aidy Bryant is the hero we all need. In a sketch about an 83 year old woman who is getting remarried, Aidy gets to be sandwiched in Benedict’s crotch. What a joy.

The 83 year old bride to be dies of a heart attack during her party and the two strippers still dance on her. She basically just has her head moving back and forth in Benedict’s crotch and then gets to have him eat whipped cream out of her mouth. Honestly, this is probably in a fanfiction somewhere on the internet.

Solange Knowles

In one of the more visually stunning musical performances Saturday Night Live has ever seen, Solange sang two songs off her new album. The performances were good and the songs were fun but not necessarily extremely memorable.

The look she was rocking though? That was something incredible. Solange and her back-up singers and band were all clad in white, moving as limitedly as they could. It was beautiful and the songs, while a little low energy, were still incredible.

Weekend Update

This Weekend Update was fine. It started slow and was the normal run of the mill thing but then, she came. Out of the darkness to shed light on the election, the woman we all trust. THE CHURCH LADY.

Dana Carvey came back to Saturday Night Live to give us the Church Lady and have her talk about the news that if people voted democrat, they’d go to Hell. It was funny and everything we love about the Church Lady but that wasn’t the only return we got.

Bill Murray and the Chicago Cubs came on to sing “Go Cubs, Go” and even if you didn’t care about the World Series, you were emotional about it.

Gemma & Ricky

Of all the Benedict Cumberbatch fanfiction in all the land, they had to pick one that was about him as Criss Angel. Another sketch that had us asking “why” happened and brought Gemma back. It seemed as if Saturday Night Live‘s new understanding of how to work their host into sketches didn’t work with Cumberbatch.

It was a fine sketch, not really funny, confusing for people who find Benedict attractive because he was very attractive as the magician. The entire episode was just kind of one of those weeks of “eh, this is fine. Funny but not great” and it is disappointing because Benedict was clearly ready to do whatever they asked him to do.

Criminal Mastermind

A sketch reminiscent of Die Hard on crack cocaine, Benedict played an evil villain who would tell two men riddles to try and confuse them. When Beck Bennett easily answered them, he just continued to give him more and more riddles.

It was very much a stupid funny sketch. Just easy jokes and funny riddles with people who really didn’t seem to care about the evil villain thing.

Meeting With Mr. Shaw

Honestly, if someone can tell me why this is a thing then I’d appreciate it. It was just so hard to truly find funny. Yes, the concept was funny and there were moments that would make us laugh but it was just kind of dumb.

All it was was a man and woman talking to bronze eagle. They thought he was a real man and the two men looking for a loan were confused but then into it. It made no real sense and wasn’t funny enough to be carried by the jokes and what’s disappointing is that it was the last sketch of the night for Benedict Cumberbatch.

Final Thought: LET BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH BE BRITISH. PLEASE STOP MAKING HIM DO EVERYTHING OTHER ACCENT OTHER THAN HIS HOT BRITISH ONE.

New episodes of Saturday Night Live air every Saturday at 11:30pm Eastern Standard Time. Check back here on Culturess for the recap of each episode after they air!

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