‘Saturday Night Live’ review: Dave Chappelle’s monologue, Pulse, Harambe, Negan, and more

As we pointed out earlier this evening, we’re not really interested in reviewing the opening of this week’s “Saturday Night Live.” Sure, we do think that it was an “it will all be okay” moment to everyone who voted for Hillary Clinton in the election, but it was also meant to be a moving tribute to the late, great Leonard Cohen. There’s no merit that comes out of picking it apart; we wanted to laugh, but instead we got choked up.

With that said, let’s move on now, since we’re going to review the remainder of the episode hosted by Dave Chappelle!

The monologue – Remember, comedy comes from pain, and that’s in part what made this so great. He was really willing to tell jokes on controversial subjects, whether it be the Pulse nightclub shooting to the Black Lives Matter movement. He even joked about Harambe! We gotta say that this is one of the last things that we expected to see from him in the opening … and it’s easily the best one of the entire season. There was some politics in here as well, as Chappelle talked about President Obama and the job that he did in office.

We’ll go on the record in saying that this was one of the greatest monologues we’ve ever seen in the history of the show. We know that it may have been too edgy for some, but this is late-night TV, and this is also who was hired to host. Chappelle is a genius, and he’s going to push buttons.

Election Results – The entire premise of this was fairly predictable, mostly because you had to know they would do a sketch all about charting the results of the election. The reason this was hilarious was because of Chappelle and (later) Chris Rock’s performances as the two guys who knew that this was coming, and were aware that there were plenty of people out there who would choose someone like Trump to be President. This was satire at its best: It wasn’t overly hard-hitting, and it did not need to be. Instead, we had two of the funniest people alive in the same room together, and that combined with the subtlety of the writing were enough for it to be magic.

Negan – Lorne Michaels really gave Chappelle a lot of leeway tonight, and that proved to be a winning move here with a wide array of “Chappelle’s Show” characters meeting the villain from “The Walking Dead.” While we’ll admit that the writers didn’t have a clear ending to this sketch, seeing the lineup and many of the jokes proved to be wonderful nostalgia. Also, Chappelle’s Lil Jon is especially ironic given that he’s a former “Celebrity Apprentice” contestant.

Also, remember “Farewell Mr. Bunting”? “SNL” really loves beheading people these days.

Weekend Update – Unsurprisingly, this was amazing even if there were some really silly gaffes that took place during it. For example, we had at one point Michael Che completely botching his joke about his friend’s ethnicity. Then, we had McKinnon as Ruth Bader Ginsberg downing Emergn-C without putting it in water first. Many of the jokers were also brilliant, but one of the best was an improv seemingly by Colin Josh about Chris Christie and the infamous bridge.

This was probably the turning point where quality-wise, things started to slide a little bit — with one notable exception.

Inside “SNL” – This was probably the weakest sketch of the night so far, though the premise started out strong: A post-sketch press conference meant to determine what went right and what went wrong over the course of the night. Most of the jokes were funny, including Leslie Jones channeling Allen Iverson. We think the problem here was mostly that the audience thought at first that they were watching a bad sketch, and it never quite recovered in terms of energy. It’s hard to pretend to be bad also from a cast point of view.

Kids Talk Politics – To us, this felt a little bit too much like a PSA that our children are watching as opposed to a real bit of comedy. Had the show not covered Trump’s “Access Hollywood” tape already, maybe it could have been more effective, since that line from the character of Chappelle’s daughter was the entire basis of the humor. At least it was over pretty quickly once the joke became clear.

Last Call – Think of this as one of the highlights in the second part of this; it’s a sketch we almost always love anytime “SNL” goes with it, and it’s completely dominated mostly by McKinnon’s performance and Kenan Thompson’s reaction shots. This time around, we had fountains (or sort-of fountains) that almost turned it into art. We wouldn’t say it was physically the silliest incarnation we’ve seen, but this is SO MUCH commitment and even though we always know where it’s going, we still find it hilarious.

Kyle Mooney and Leslie Jones – This was one of the more random parts of the night, but as far as the Kyle Mooney pre-taped pieces go, we found the idea of Kyle losing his virginity to Leslie really funny. “SNL” was really meta all across the board tonight, but we enjoyed the narrative of Kyle as a guy constantly jealous of Colin Jost very much.

A football game and a mama’s boy – For some reason, we closed the night with Chappelle being a man-child who still was getting breast-milk from his mom. Not exactly great, but after the stellar first half of the show, how can you be upset?

Overall – That is our sentiment. Chappelle’s show, pun intended, was a little more of a mess near the end, but with a first half so powerful and so great, we’re willing to ignore some of the later stumbles in calling this one of the best episodes in quite some time. It may also be culturally one of the most significant in years, and they did it without even bringing in Alec Baldwin. We thought the show needed him going into this, but we’re actually glad in retrospect the character was off-screen, out of sight, but not out of mind. Grade: A.

What did you think of this week’s episode of “Saturday Night Live”? Leave us a comment below with your thoughts. For some other highlights of “SNL” this season, be sure to head over to the link here. (Photo: NBC.)