Saturday Night Live recap and review: Sterling K. Brown with musical guest James Bay

With a great host comes great responsibility and Saturday Night Live didn’t disappoint. Sterling K. Brown hosted with musical guest James Bay.

Saturday Night Live didn’t disappoint as much as past episodes this week. With host Sterling K. Brown, the only fault for this run was that the sketches seemed to run just a little too long. Whether that was a choice or a lack of options is still unknown. James Bay jammed as the musical guest and Brown was a perfect host.

Cold Open

Every week, there is a political opener. So when SNL started things off with a sketch about The Bachelor, things got confusing. That is until Robert Mueller was the Bachelor who came in to talk to Becca K.

For those who didn’t watch the finale to The Bachelor, Arie broke up with the first girl he proposed to so he could propose to another woman. In the sketch, Becca K deals with Robert Mueller telling her that he isn’t ready to get Trump on collusion yet and she ends up crying in the bathroom.

Monologue

Actors are emotional beings and Sterling K. Brown is no exception. With a monologue geared towards his career while also setting him up to continually get emotional throughout it, it set the tone for how Brown’s hosting would go. The monologue is an important part of the show because it really shows how the host is going to fit into SNL.

Sterling K. Brown was never a concern and his monologue proved he came ready to give us a great show.

Celebrity Family Feud

The Oscar Winners were competing against the Oscar Losers and in typical SNL fashion, only some of the impressions really worked. The Winners really should have just been Kate McKinnon as Frances McDormand and Chris Redd as Jordan Peele because those were the only two worth watching.

“Sketch comedy is great but eventually you have to move on,” Peele said to which Kenan broke the fourth wall to reflect about his time on Saturday Night Live, which is pretty epic at this point.

But then on the Losers side, we had Pete Davidson as Timothée Chalamet, and even he cracked up at how ridiculous his role was.

This Is U.S.

It is like This Is Us without the feel good parts. Focusing on our current political climate, This Is U.S. follows Ben Carson, Kellyanne  Conway, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and more of Trump’s staff. It is set up like a trailer and just goes through the reviews of the show.

The sketch only works because Sterling K. Brown is the host but that doesn’t stop it from just being generally funny.

Family Dinner

First of all, Coco is incredible. Shrek is great but Coco will forever beat it. Thus this sketch may get some people heated. So Brown’s strong reaction to the idea that Coco is the best animated movie is what makes this sketch special.

To even try to compare the two is beyond us. But that’s beside the point. Brown’s anger over the best animated movie ruins his relationship with his fiancée and her parents. That is until he announces that Antonio Banderas is officiating their wedding. That sets everyone off.

It Came From the Woods

When Sasquatch comes to crash a friends’ camping trip, one camper challenges him and it doesn’t end well. The sketch had the feel of a bad scary movie and read like one too. It fell flat and had just one running gag going for it.

Honestly if they had made Sasquatch be friends with everyone else and then still punch Mikey Day, it would be funnier. Instead it was just the same thing over and over again.

James Bay

If you took Mic Jagger and you let him have a kid with Harry Styles, it would be James Bay. The first song he sang was “Pink Lemonade.” To be honest, I thought part of the song said, “I possess you” and hated it. Upon looking up the lyrics, they’re “I’m protected” — a whole different meaning. Otherwise, the song is fun to listen to.

“Wild Love” was his second choice and maybe this has confirmed that I’m going to listen to his music. He decided to wear another fancy jacket that we should all want to purchase, and his music just seems like you’d hear it in a movie when two people are falling in love.

Weekend Update

The political climate in our country is making for a great Weekend Update run. Typically when Weekend Update is slow, that’s when things are relatively calm. So really the only good thing about Donald Trump being in office is Weekend Update being a hit week after week.

This week had some special guests as well. Eric and Donald Trump Jr. made an appearance and that is always a delight. Especially since Eric got a pop-up book that gave us Alex Moffat giving us beautiful GIF worthy reactions to use later.

When they started to talk about the weather, everyone started to feel at a loss. But that is until a special guest showed up! Did you miss Dawn Lazarus? Or more importantly Vanessa Bayer? Well don’t worry, Weekend Update has you covered!

Black Panther Deleted Scenes

T’Challa has to visit the ancestors in a deleted scene from Black Panther. His uncle, who married into the family, won’t stop offering them burgers. In what seemed to be a trend in the episode, this sketch just went on a little too long. For whatever reason, it felt like no one knew when to cut the sketch off.

Yes, Sterling K. Brown is also in Black Panther so that helps with watchability, but this sketch was just okay. Basically the ancestors are giving T’Challa advice and we learn that when he’s not there, everyone becomes an animal and they’re all panthers except for Kenan’s character, who become a warthog.

Dr. Love

A man goes to see a doctor because it burns when he pees but he gets a lot more than he bargained for. A Harvard doctor who has his degree in love tells him that he has to go to the woman he’s been sleeping with no strings attached.

This is one of those sketches that, at face value, seems a little idiotic but truly is one of the highlights of the evening.

Film Set

Actresses, they’re so hard to work with. When an actress refuses to read her lines off camera, the script supervisor has to read them for the other actor to get his close-ups. The problem is that she refuses to swear and has maybe the worst voice of all time.

Continuing the trend of having sketches go way too long, this one was relatively funny. In the end, the script supervisor ends up singing “Hello” by Adele because that was the song they were going to play over the scene and Brown just can’t handle.

Rock Music or Rap?

Basically they just sent Kyle Mooney to Brooklyn and had him ask people whether rock or rap music was better. I’m 99% sure that all of the people they asked were real people on the street and if that is the case, there is one man who sincerely makes a racist reference and they kept it in the sketch.

It was like Kyle Mooney really wanted to play this character and Lorne Michaels and company just finally said, “Sure Kyle, do whatever you want”.

Dying Wish

Michael, a family friend, makes it just in time to hear Mrs. Gomez last words. I, on the other hand, would hate if my last words were Nickelback lyrics. Typically the eleventh hour sketch isn’t great but this is one we’re going to be talking about this week.

Basically Mrs. Gomez just starts singing “How You Remind Me” by Nickelback and everyone rocks out to it.

Next: Saturday Night Live recap and review: Charles Barkley with musical guest Migos

In the finale when Sterling says goodbye for the night, he was so genuinely happy to be there that it was nice to see and made the entire episode worth it.

Check back here on Culturess for more news and recaps for Saturday Night Live.