Saturday Night Live review: Did Chadwick Boseman get to shine beyond Black Panther?

This weekend’s new episode of Saturday Night Live was hosted by Chadwick Boseman and almost from the get-go, it felt like we were going to get an interesting show.

We appreciated the fact that Boseman admitted that there wasn’t all that much to talk about when it comes to Black Panther, mostly because of the fact that Sterling K. Brown did some stuff about it on his show … even though his character wasn’t around all that much. He also then went into a series of jokes about politics, talked about playing famous people in biopics (at least everyone had one other than Rachel Dolezal). We did love the brief impersonation he did of James Brown before going off the stage at the end.

Overall, we do think that Chadwick managed to get some good laughs in this monologue, especially when Kenan Thompson came out dressed as a character from Thundercats in an effort to audition for a part in the sequel.

Related – Check out our take on the cold open from this week

Nike commercial – This was a really great spoof of crazy Nike fitness commercials showing how tough some of their athletes are. Here, Nike sold some “pro chiller leggings” that were perfect for sitting on the couch and doing nothing — basically, the same thing that many people who apparently wear leggings do. We can’t relate to the experience per se, but we absolutely know that this was a funny sketch.

Black Jeopardy – Even though he did joke about there being no new Black Panther ideas in the cold open, Boseman chose to bring in his character for this classic sketch. The funny thing about it was just how pure T’Challa was. He didn’t understand most of the expressions and references; instead, he was genuine and kind. This was pretty funny at first, and right when we worried that this was going on too long, it turned out to have a really satisfying ending when he realized how the game was actually played … while also learning about Karen’s potato salad.

Pregnant man – This was an odd idea. Who thought that a press conference about this was a great sketch idea in 2018? While this wasn’t altogether hilarious, it was fairly funny to watch this man freak out when he started to hear about more of the grisly details that were going to happen to him.

Aidy B – The entire premise of this sketch was Aidy decided that she was going to be a little more like Cardi B, in between her confidence and some of her signature inflections. This was great, mostly because of just how far she was willing to go in order to adopt this new persona. What added to this was a great cameo from Cardi at the end.

Weekend Update – The opening jokes were funny, but what really pleasantly surprised us was getting to see the show version of Mark Zuckerberg as a completely crazy, out-of-touch billionaire who says hip things randomly and claims to have known Colin Josh while at Harvard. He also dredged up the memory of the “poke,” otherwise known as “flirting for cowards.”

The second correspondent tonight was Angel a.k.a. the wife from every boxing film. The rants in this bit were really funny, but the whole end tag about her taking the kids to her sister was starting to wear thin.

Personal Princess – The funniest sketch of the night. The idea here was that while at Disney World, three women wanted to see the princess version of themselves in a magic mirror … only for some inexplicable reason, Leslie Jones saw R. Kelly (Boseman) in the mirror being exceptionally creepy. So random, but random in the funniest possible way.

Firefighter sketch – This sketch went on and on — while the personal princess was one of the funniest sketches of the night this was a clear miss. It was awkward, not altogether funny, and we couldn’t wait to never hear about the “plans” Boseman’s character had ever again.

Restaurant complaint – This sketch featured four diners who were desperate to perform various impromptu songs about the dinner service. This was pleasant at first, but then careened in another direction when it went on too long and had no real ending.

Life: DACA Edition – This was controversial to say the least. It was a modified version of the Life game in which there were a number of terrible rules and consequences. This was a complete mockery of both DACA rules and also some of the terrible things that America can put some of the people who are in the country under the initiative through.

Wakanda Forever – Is it wrong for white people to do the famous salute? This was the main subject of the final sketch of the night, one that eventually went into a negotiation as to whether or not the white people would eventually give back dabbing in return.

CarterMatt Verdict

There were some good, interesting sketches tonight, and also some that will draw a lot of interesting conversation after the fact. It’s too bad that this show was so wildly inconsistent and producers relied way too heavily on Black Panther in order to sell Boseman as the host when there so much more to Boseman than that movie.

What did you think when it comes to this weekend’s SNL episode?

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