SNL spoofs Rachel Lindsay’s Bachelorette in unaired Chris Pine sketch
What happened? Part of the issue may be relevancy, given that The Bachelorette isn’t on yet and few people are talking about it. This is consistently the SNL issue here — The Bachelorette premieres after its season is over, so it’s harder to tie it into anything that they’re doing. That’s especially a shame given that Rachel, as the first black lead for the franchise, is going to get a TON of publicity this season. For SNL, it’s a bummer just because Sasheer Zamata is consistently on the “needs more screen time” list.
As for the sketch itself, it’s legitimately hilarious and ironically much funnier than the recent Bachelor sketches they’ve aired. One distinct difference here is the format shift — instead of just getting the lead speaking to various Bachelors / Bachelorettes, there is some increasingly hilarious b-roll included that mocks most of the terrible b-roll that you see in promos for every season of the show out there. It features Rachel (Zamata) rolling around with flowers and making a series of questionable facial reactions.
Meanwhile, the guys that Rachel meets are for the most part terrible, and it includes a bunch of white guys who want to do nothing other than talk about how not racist they are. It’s a callback to the recent pre-tape sketch featuring several guys acting like they are pro-women only to try and secure a date. It actually works better here since it doesn’t feel like it’s the same exact joke every time. Specifically, what brings it over the top here is the arrival of Kenan Thompson, a black contestant who Rachel hates enough to get rid of before anyone else. Why? Terrible magic.
This is a legitimately funny sketch, and it’s a shame Lorne Michaels and company failed to find a way to include it.
Should Saturday Night Live have aired this sketch? Sound off now in the attached comments!
Meanwhile, check out a promo for this weekend’s show hosted by the awesome Melissa McCarthy. (Photo: NBC.)