Saturday Night Live season 43 episode 5 review: Tiffany Haddish
Saturday Night Live changed up the game this week by having their first black female host and Tiffany Haddish killed it! With musical guest Taylor Swift.
Tiffany Haddish was the first black female comedian to host Saturday Night Live and she didn’t let us down. She was in some pretty great sketches and had one of the best opening monologues in recent years.
And we have a recap of every sketch!
Cold Open
Jeff Sessions talks to Roy Moore and his possum father. Honestly, maybe that’s the only thing that mattered in this opening sketch? Obviously, it was fun because they were talking about the very funny Roy Moore! (In case you couldn’t tell, that was sarcasm.)
It wasn’t that great, but recently the Cold Opens haven’t been that great. But if this is the worst sketch of the night, that’s fine. Because the rest of the show included Tiffany Haddish and that’s what we wanted.
Monologue
Honestly maybe the best opening monologue so far this season (and even better than most of season 42 as well). Looking like a goddess, Tiffany held nothing back and gave us the best. As seems to be the trend whenever they have a stand up, Tiffany ended up doing her own monologue.
And it was perfect. There really wasn’t a moment that had the audience cringing or a dull moment. If anything, it was just constantly great.
Death Fight 12
This is a sketch that Mikey Day has been talking about for some while. On Late Night with Seth Meyers, Mikey talked about how he wanted to do it for a while and it never came to be. Yet here we are and it was actually pretty funny!
Basically they’re in a gaming contest and Kenan accidentally selects a character called Boo Boo who doesn’t like fighting. So he continually loses. It’s just funny because Boo Boo will walk out of the game and forfeit.
Lion King’s Screen Tests
The Lion King just announced its cast, but that doesn’t mean we couldn’t see what other celebrities auditioned for roles! In their typical screen test format, Saturday Night Live gave us from Mary J. Blige to Nick Offerman auditioning for The Lion King and it was wonderful.
Democrats
It’s so funny that Larry David came back to make fun of himself, right? No. In a weird “hey look the Democrats are coming back” sketch, Bernie Sanders makes fun of Larry David for a Holocaust joke. And is it surprising that no one laughed?
It was fine. Nothing special and not really great, especially with that Larry David stuff.
Leslie and Kyle
It is back and this time Beck and Colin want in. Colin wants his girl back and Beck wants his best friend back. So they decide to trick Leslie and Kyle so that they can get their respective people back. Does it work?
No. Instead Colin gets beat up by Lorne and Tiffany and Leslie and Kyle still end up together. It was funny and just what we love about these sketches!
Taylor Swift
The new Taylor is here and she’s ready to perform. She’s dancing, she’s singing, and she’s being her own back up singer. Everything about this was weirdly appealing and not the kind of performance I thought to expect.
I actually really liked it and the second song was beautiful. Just Taylor and a guitar showing us that she still remembers where she came from. Maybe the old Taylor isn’t dead after all!
Weekend Update
Finally figuring out what is great about Weekend Update and how it works with Colin Jost and Michael Che did them wonders. Just talking about the pop culture and news in the world, this week also brought back Tiffany’s white dress as well as Kathy from HR who has had quite the week.
It was a pretty great and I truly like it now that they just let Michael and Colin treat it more like a stand up routine rather than the typical Weekend Update format.
The Last Black Unicorn
There is a myth about black unicorns and how they can tell the future. But they’re hard to find and when a couple of kids stumble upon them, they realize soon enough that maybe knowing the future isn’t that great. Especially when you find out you have 5 kids with different dads and are being chased by the FBI.
There was a bit of breaking in it, which is always fun, but the whole sketch was just cute!
Get Woke With Tamika
Tamika wants to get work but by doing the bare minimum. She sends away an author but gives the twerking Instagram model a shot. It’s a little crazy town but still, there were moments in it that made us happy. Again, it is one of those “eh it’s fine” sketches but one we probably won’t remember.
BBC
Aidy and Kate are two scientists who were trying to prove that dolphins could understand English but they only learned that they liked to pleasure dolphins. Who knew that would help science?
I wish I was kidding but I’m not and the sketch, while completely creepy and morally wrong, features great reactions from Tiffany Haddish who plays another scientists who just write in her journal about how messed up it is.
Whiskers Are We
Kate McKinnon and Tiffany Haddish just had to control cats for five minutes and it was perfect. They kept trying to escape and the two had to hold them and, at one point, a cat tried to attack them.
What was actually supposed to be happening in this sketch? Who knows. Something about Tiffany grabbing Kate’s chest, but the best part was them trying to control cats!
Next: Saturday Night Live season 43 episode 4 review: Larry David
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