Saturday Night Live season 44 episode 2 recap: Awkwafina

Saturday Night Live didn’t pull out the stops too much for its second episode this season, with Awkwafina hosting and Travis Scott as the musical guest.

In the second episode of season 44, Saturday Night Live has officially hit its stride once again… as being about average when it comes to delivering funny shows. It seems like the NBC show didn’t take our advice last week when we suggested using thei host to their advantage. And it seems like they let another good talent sink into the background.

This time, Awkwafina (known of Crazy Rich Asians fame) took the stage at 30 Rock, and gave it her all. (Or about all that they let her do.) Of course, the show tackled Kavanaugh’s supreme court initiation and the recent presidential alerts. But, in typical SNL fashion, there were also a few sketches that didn’t make sense at all. To help break down the show, here’s our good, okay, bad picks for SNL this week.

The Good

Monologue

When SNL has the chance to have an actual comedian come on and host, they always give them the chance to do a little standup routine. Awkwafina’s was quite enjoyable, but the best part of her monologue was her tribute to Lucy Lui, who served as a role model and inspiration for her as the last Asian woman to host the show, which was 18 years ago (!!!).

Emergency Alert

It’s clear that the country went absolutely haywire when we got our first (and, please, hopefully last) Presidential Alert. SNL throwing in its two cents was just as funny as some of the other jokes about this alert. But laughing seems to help numb us from the reality of the situation.

Ted Cruz Rally

With the Texas election showdown between the popular Beto O’Rourke against Senator Ted Cruz, SNL knows Cruz really needs to step his game up. Beck Bennett plays a hilariously pathetic Cruz, and we’ll just leave it at that.

Weekend Update

Weekend Update hit another stride this week once again tackling the Kavanaugh results, and Eric Trump and Don Jr. make a return as their dumb and dumber characters. But the best guest on Update this weekend was Pete Davidson, who gave us some behind the scenes info on the Kanye West Trump rant that followed his show last week.

Who Wants to Date a Magician?

SNL veterans know they love a good dating show sketch. And while this sketch didn’t really show off Awkwafina’s comedy chops, it did give the cast members a few good characters to play around with. Also, Pete Davidson is starting to brand himself as a character-breaking cast member.

The Okay

Cold Open

The cold open once again revolved around Brett Kavanaugh this week, but it was far from what they brought to the table last week with Matt Damon. Maybe with his initiation actually being an actual reality, it’s harder to laugh at this sports-meets-politics sketch.

Pumpkin Patch

For a sketch about getting intimate with pumpkins, what do you expect? It seems like SNL — especially Beck Benett and Kyle Mooney — knows how to produce a good digital short. So it’s worth a few chuckles regardless of what it’s actually about.

Film Panel

If you’ve seen one Film Panel sketch, you’ve seen them all. Cecily Strong seems to love playing Marion Cotillard (who hasn’t been in the spotlight much recently, so maybe she’s not a good choice of character.) And Kate McKinnon once again played the dazed Hollywood star from yesteryear, this time during the “Me Too, Year Two” talk. Different year, same sketch.

The Bad

Late Night Battle

For the first sketch of the night featuring Awkwafina, SNL didn’t really bring its A-game. This silly sketch about a dance battle doesn’t really have too much to laugh at, maybe aside from the surprise of the songs Awkwafina’s crew dances to.

Cleopatra

Here’s a sketch that barely even picked itself off the ground. Playing a makeup crew to Cleopatra, Awkafina and her stylists try to give the queen a new look. There’s nothing really funny about the situation, and it’s hard to see where they were going here.

Baby Shower

Also another sketch that just fell plain flat. Cecily Strong takes the lead in this sketch as well, playing a friend who longs for baby, with Awkwafina being the awkward-yet-supportive friend. Perhaps there were a few funny lines through all this, but the sketch didn’t really call for too many laughs.

Saturday Night Live returns on Oct. 13 with host and SNL alum Seth Meyers and musical guest Paul Simon. Check back on Culturess for our recap and review next week.