SNL's Continued Downward Spiral Thread

Something I missed earlier, no Cecily Strong in the credits. Apparently, she's still on the cast, but she's away doing some other show or performance.

 

I think this kid doing the WU monologue is very promising. But did Jost just diss him when he tried to pat him on the back at the end?

I might be using one of my challenge flags to check that.

 

Don't get me wrong. Bowen Yang is funny, but I think they may be going a little overkill on almost everything he's done being just some variation of him being "the gay guy."

It's trending close to Bowen just being pigeonholed as one character -- just like Kyle Mooney always seemed to play some variation of the stoner/skater guy character.

Even Kate McKinnon was able to build a diverse portfolio of characters on the show. She wasn't just the cast's token lesbian.

 

Bowen Yang is a one note cast member whose one note is incredibly annoying.

 

Takes two seasons. Dismukes and Punkie Johnson are entering their third, IIRC.

 

I like Yang, but it's clear they view him as their "breakout" or workhorse star going forward, and I'm not really sure that's the case. They had him doing the promotional rounds on Today and what not to lead up to the premiere.

 

Mikey Day is the workhorse. He can believably do impressions, characters or be the straight man. Helps he has the improv chops doing Nick Cannon's Wild n' Out.

But he can only do so much as one of the only two white guys on the senior cast (not counting Jost, who rarely does anything other than Update). There's Andrew Dismukes, but he's so youthful looking, it's hard to really trust him yet in anything but as the kid or teenager bits. I enjoyed the skit, but he was not believable as Eli Manning.

Can James Austin Johnson do anything that's not an impression?

Bowen Yang can just cash in the fact that he got an Emmy nomination as a featured player.

 

Mikey Day is more of an actual workhorse. By "workhorse star," I meant that Yang is going to get the Wiig or Kate McKinnon treatment. It's hard to explain precisely, but during large portions of their runs on the show, it often felt like they were crammed into sketches they didn't really fit into. Fred Armisen would be another example.

 

Enjoyed the writing - the open wasn't the usual "mailing it in, news catch-up" they typically do at the start of a year- it did seem like something was "missing" though - Teller was good. You can only go to the put Bowen Yang in a ridiculous costume so many times to make it work though.. Person I missed the most might have been Aidy Bryant. Gardner and Ego Nwodim I guess are now the "senior" women cast members, but they're so attractive it's hard to think of them playing mom types. Also a reminder how great Cecily Strong is that she can do anything - straight person, wacky character, impressions.
Costume department worked OT this week.
I also realize I am very out of the loop when it comes to social media and apps.

 

I only watched through Update, but last night was an OK, but nothing special episode.

However, Marcello Hernandez killed it with his Latino baseball bit in Update. All it needed was Big Papi and his mofongo, and a cameo from Chico Escuela.

 

I find the choices being made pretty interesting. The open was unusual, seemed like a middle of the ep sketch. It's almost like they went into this season determined to break the usual rhythm of the show with various newsmakers being impersonated in the open, commercial parody, - though the Blood sketch was something they've done a variation on dozens of times.

 

I don’t feel bad that I couldn’t understand half of the monologue. Apparently the closed captioning dude was left in the dust, too.