Saturday Night Live recap and review: Bill Hader with musical guest Arcade Fire

This week on Saturday Night Live, we got the return of one of the greats. Bill Hader was back to host with musical guest Arcade Fire.

It shouldn’t really surprise anyone that this week’s Saturday Night Live was pretty incredible. With host Bill Hader, it was like we were back to the old days of SNL. Bill brought back some of his old characters, was fun to watch and really made us miss the days when he and Kristen Wiig would take to the stage week after week.

Arcade Fire was there as musical guest and really, it was just an overall great episode.

Whenever there is a sketch about the Californians on Saturday Night Live, you just know that it is going to be a good time.

Cold Open

Honestly the only thing that matters is a surprising John Goodman. The entire cold open was just filled with surprise guests playing members of Trump’s team who got let go, but not before Jeff Sessions made an appearance and talked about how surprised he was that he was still there.

My favorite part came when John Goodman came to play Rex Tillerson, mainly because Kate McKinnon was already playing Sessions. Who doesn’t love a surprise John Goodman in a show? Especially when it is followed by Bill Hader as Anthony Scaramucci and Fred Armisen as Michael Wolff.

Monologue

There isn’t much to say about the monologue because it wasn’t very long. Since leaving Saturday Night Live, Bill Hader has learned a lot. Like when celebrities come up behind people doing impressions of them on television, those are typically planned.

More importantly, Bill learned that while he is hosting, he can make his monologue as long as he wants, which means he went straight into the next sketch.

The Californians

The show would be remiss if they didn’t do a sketch about the Californians. In case you forgot, the sketch focuses on very California specific jokes about the 5 or the 405 and going up to the Fresno aquarium.

Basically the sketch is set up to just talk about all the freeways and is a staple from Bill Hader’s career on Saturday Night Live. Maybe if you aren’t from California, then it might not be as funny, but to me, it is maybe one of the best sketches SNL has ever done. So I love every time they bring it back.

Irish Dating Show

The Irish really like kissing their cousins. On a game show where the contestant is out to have a kiss with a gal, Neal finds that two of the girls are his cousins and that only makes him more excited. He justifies it by saying that if they wanted to stop inbreeding, they would need to have stopped it hundreds of years ago.

In the end, we don’t know if he picks the Irish-American girl studying in Ireland about rocks or one of his cousins but let’s be honest, he’s going to probably go with his cousin who he’s already slept with on Good Friday.

Girlfriends Game Night

Sometimes, you just have to sleep with your husband while playing Uno with your friends. But it is all for the joy of having a child. When one of their friends has an older husband, she has to bring Horace around with her because he could be ready to have a kid with her at any given moment. And that moment just happened to be during Uno.

I truly think Bill Hader wanted to drive around on an electric chair and destroy a set and really, that isn’t a bad thing. It is pretty great and there’s a whole part where Bill ran the chair into Melissa and dragged her and the table, which made for great comedy.

Jurassic Park Auditions

The screen test bit that Saturday Night Live does is just an excuse for weird celebrity impressions with specific movies we all grew up to. This time, it was for the anniversary for Jurassic Park and everyone from Drew Barrymore to Al Pacino auditioned for the movie.

I think they only did it to have Bill Hader do Alan Alda and Al Pacino, but it was still funny because they’re just easy jokes. You just embody that actor and make all the jokes as them. So why not use it, especially with someone like Bill Hader?

Arcade Fire

If you’re like me, you’ve been a fan of Arcade Fire for quite some time and remember when the band won a Grammy back in 2011, confusing pretty much everyone who wasn’t already a fan. Honestly though after this performance, no one will wonder who Arcade Fire is. “Creature Comfort,” one of their new songs, was the first the band performed and it was awesome. It’s just a fun song with the band in all gold with strobe lights going off. It really set the tone for their entire performance.

“Put Your Money On Me” was the second song the group did and it started with them having people playing the slot machines. It was fun, quirky, and everything we have come to love about Arcade Fire.

Weekend Update

It wouldn’t be a Bill Hader episode if Stefon wasn’t there. With movie references, a Chase bank that was a CVS that went back to being a CVS after a Chase and Colin calling Stefon by his name, it was really a pretty great Weekend Update.

Why was John Mulaney there? Who knows, but it was still amazing. The last few weeks have been pretty surprising with who has stopped by the Weekend Update desk and Bill Hader’s episode is honestly going to be a hard one to top.

Sacred Rock

Saturday Night Live sure loves weird alien sketches where people get probed. Remember the Ryan Gosling sketch that became famous? Well, this one isn’t that much different, except that it is one of Bill Hader’s weird characters that doesn’t make sense, but you love him anyway.

Sacred Rock is not a place you want to go, because clearly the aliens are going to want to make a baby with you, just also with probing. Apparently though, that works because at the end of this wild sketch, Bill Hader ends up with his own alien child.

CBC News Hour

Canadians are just too nice, even when it comes to the #MeToo movement. The “Canadian Harvey Weinstein” once told his secretary that he liked her shirt, and it spiraled through everyone saying they were sorry for causing a whole debacle.

I think this sketch was just so they could get Arcade Fire into a sketch, and it was fine because really, what else do we Americans know about Canadians other than the fact that they say “eh” a lot and apologize for everything?

Undercover Office Potty

When is the end of the night sketch ever something that makes sense and isn’t completely ridiculous? Well, it isn’t starting tonight. In a sketch about a office supply that you can go into the bathroom in, Beck Bennett basically just can’t stop going to the bathroom and it results in him losing his job.

Honestly, this episode was pretty incredible. Everything was funny and quick and there weren’t sketches that had us cringing or waiting for them to end, and I think that has a lot to do with Bill Hader.

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

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