‘Saturday Night Live’ review: Larry David returns as Bernie Sanders, ‘Feminist Song,’ Ariana Grande videos
Going into tonight’s new episode of “Saturday Night Live,” it was fairly easy from our vantage point to telegraph what the cold open was going to be. Given all the protests recently at Donald Trump rallies, how does the show not go with that in starting things off?
So as we start this live review for Ariana Grande’s episode, we of course had some sort of Trump appearance. Just in case that wasn’t enough for you, we also had the return of Larry David as Bernie Sanders! He appeared and told his supporters in order to “get a life.” He then also made a joke about recycled cans. We love the take on the Bernie character from Larry, as he rambled on and on about superdelegates.
Eventually, we did get to the Trump rally again as Jay Pharoah got a nice send-off as his Dr. Ben Carson character, as it was actually Carson who was attacked by his supporters. This was biting, but also very funny.
We’re going to be back to review every sketch tonight LIVE, so stay tuned and refresh the page as we go along here!
Ariana Grande monologue – This was pretty funny at first, as Grande really made fun of herself as openly as she possibly could. She even brought up the donut incident! We really didn’t need the song, though, since she was doing a great job and was rather funny without it. We already know she can sing!
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Kids Choice Awards – Did this run too long? Sure, but this was a wonderful send-up of every single inane red-carpet pre-show and how all of them have crazy energy. There really is not much to get into note-by-note, but Bobby Moynihan with Blake Shelton’s golden hat really stole the whole sketch to us.
Feminist Song – Or, we should say, this is not a feminist song. Instead, it was a pretty perfect send-up of the modern culture where everyone gets so easily offended that this was a song about basically saying nothing, that way nobody would get angry as a result. From start to finish, this was tremendous and super-catchy.
Mermaids – Wonderful performance here by Kate McKinnon as the one mermaid who was a little off … but overall, everyone in here was really funny. So far, Grande is doing an excellent job on the show. She’s having fun, and seems game for everything.
Weekend Update – This was really strong, starting with the super-biting jokes and then continuing into the pieces. Cecily Strong did an almost perfect send-up of Lace Morris from “The Bachelor,” and from there, we also had the glorious return of Riblet. Is the character repetitive? Absolutely, but at the same time Bobby has so much energy and brings so much to this that we really don’t mind. It’s just pure fun from start to finish.
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Tidal – This was a new iteration of a sketch that Bruno Mars did years ago, when he tried to save Pandroa. This time, Ariana’s intern Chloe had to impersonate several singers to keep the service running. It was funny at times and REALLY impressive at others. We didn’t come into the show with the biggest expectations for this to be good, but she is really owning this so far.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7uBph38kXo
Celebrity Family Feud – Anytime we get Kenan Thompson as Steve Harvey, we’re happy. Most of the impressions here were pretty good, most notably Ariana as Jennifer Lawrence, Kate McKinnon as Tilda Swinton, and Bobby as a podcast-obsessed Kevin Smith. Many of the others were relative misses, though Jay Pharoah as Idris Elba was at least worthy of a laugh or two.
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Sound of Music Spoof – So this is how Maria reacts to a song about her, we suppose. This was probably our least-favorite sketch, and the only time we saw Ariana slip up on the night. It just felt like the joke was over about thirty seconds in. Still, this was the last sketch on what was a really great night. Ariana was really strong as a host, and we feel like there’s a lot to like in here. Sure, not all of it probably has replay value, but for a one-off watching experience it delivered. Grade: A-.
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