Saturday Night Live Season 42 review: Was Kristen Stewart funny?
By Josh Hill
Actress Kristen Stewart stopped by Saturday Night Live as a first time host, but was she able to pull things off or did she f-bomb?
Sometimes Saturday Night Live just doesn’t go right. That was the case this weekend, when what could go wrong did — all night long. Things got off to a pretty solid start with the return of Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump, with an addition of Steve Bannon to the mix.
But then Kristen Stewart dropped an f-bomb and things started to go awry. It wasn’t that the show was overall bad, but from a technical standpoint it was a disaster. The Weekend Update featured Michael Che flubbing a joke then Colin Jost cutting to the end of the show a segment too early.
Those are all things that actually made this an oddly endearing episode of SNL. We don’t always need the show to be polished, and when the warts show and people laugh it off, so too do we at home watching. So while this could have been a dumpster fire of a show, it ended up being one of the strangely great ones of the year.
Here are all the things from tonight’s SNL episode you need to know about for the water cooler this week:
SNL Rundown…
1. The cold open finally featured a portrayal of Steve Bannon. SNL decided that Death would be the best person to play Bannon, and it was one of the better cold opens we’ve seen this season.
2. Everyone will be talking about the opening monologue though. Kristen Stewart accidentally dropped an F-Bomb at the tail end of her monologue but she played it off cooly.
3. SNL waited until the first post-monologue skit of the night to address the Muslim travel ban. This afforded the opportunity to dig in on it proper rather than shuffle it into the cold open.
4. We were given a real treat with a surprise celebrity impersonation. While Alec Baldwin returned as Donald Trump, it appears that Melissa McCarthy will be playing press secretary Sean Spicer, which proved to be perfection.
5. Seriously, this we need to talk about McCarthy as Spicer because it’s the best thing SNL has done in a very long time. The show has been rebounding over the years but this is far and away the funniest thing rolled out in years.
6. As stated, The Weekend Update was a bit of a sh-tshow this week but not in a bad way. Michael Che flubbed a joke and Colin Jost screwed up his timing but none of that hurt — it made it even better.
8. One disappointment was the Family Feud skit. It was set up to be great, pitting celebrity Falcons and Patriots fans against one another. But it was just flat, and Leslie Jones’ Samuel L. Jackson was maybe the first time during her run where she wasn’t able to save a bad skit or impersonation.
Verdict
It wasn’t a perfect show, but it was oddly endearing. That doesn’t earn it too many extra points though. Despite the hilarity of the chaos, things weren’t as great as they could have been. There was no doubt a boost from the instant-classic Sean Spicer skit, which might be the best thing the show has done in over 20 years. But that was one skit among many others that failed to land.
Things weren’t terrible and this was far from the worst show of the year. But it’s a forgettable one despite all the notable flubs that happened throughout.
Here’s where this episode stacks up against the others that we’ve seen this season:
1. Dave Chappelle/A Tribe Called Quest — A+
2. Tom Hanks/Lady Gaga — A-
3. Benedict Cumberbatch/Solange — B-
4. Kristen Wiig/The xx — B-
5. Aziz Ansari/Big Sean — C+
6. Felicity Jones/Stergil Simpson — C+
7. Margot Robbie/The Weeknd — C+
8. Casey Affleck/Chance the Rapper — C
9. Emma Stone/Shawn Mendes — C
10. Kristen Stewart/Aleesia Cara — C
11. Lin-Manuel Miranda/TwentyOne Pilots — C-
12. Emily Blunt/Bruno Mars — D+
13. John Cena/Maren Morris — D-
must read: 30 Best Late Night Jokes about Donald Trump
Next Week on SNL…
While Kristen Stewart’s show was endearing if not great, next week should be a doozy. Alec Baldwin will be hosting the show for the 17th time in his career, but with his role as Donald Trump thrusting him back into the forefront, the show should be a scathing one. Ed Sheeran will be there to lessen the burn.
Date: Feb. 11th
Host: Alec Baldwin
Musical Guest: Ed Sheeran
TV Channel: NBC
Live Stream: Stream 1 | Stream 2
Be sure to check out Last Night On for all your SNL highlights.