As for the rest of the episode, there was a fantastic array of original ideas for sketches. The “Saturday Night Live” writers and cast didn’t rely on their usual game show or talk show formulas, and unlike the Jacob Elordi episode, they weren’t obsessed with using Sweeney’s good looks be the driving force of too many sketches. Instead, we got a solid series of gems that made for an overall good episode.
Air Bud – Who had a sketch about the 1997 family sports comedy “Air Bud” making it into a 2024 episode of “SNL” on their bingo card? I don’t know how this came about, but I’m certainly not upset that it did. While it might be unsettling to imagine Sydney Sweeney intensely hitting on a golden retriever (at least for the more normal parts of the internet), you can’t help but love the clueless good boy just sitting there without reacting to anything but a sandwich (that he adorably chomped up with no problem). While it might have been entertaining if the dog didn’t cooperate, which has garnered laughs plenty of times in sketches before, the well-behaved canine actually helped the sketch land firmly and hilariously.
Detectives – Never underestimate a Gen-Z woman with an iPhone. She will find out anything and everything, and that includes solving cold cases where the suspected murderers of various women have disappeared for years. At first, I thought this was going to be a riff on true crime podcasters working as detectives, but it ended up being so much better than that. Honestly, this isn’t something that is limited to Gen-Z women either. It’s amazing how careless people are about what is revealed about them on the internet, and all it takes is some sleuthing around social media and any tangential accounts to track people down, even if they don’t want to be found. But having these detective interns be two young women with a bit of vocal fry and an aloof but efficient approach to investigation makes that concept really funny, especially when they find the chief’s secret internet profile.
Please Don’t Destroy – Gone Too Soon – We haven’t gotten much of Please Don’t Destroy in 2024. They had a cut-for-time sketch when Jacob Elordi hosted to kick off the year, and they roasted Dakota Johnson in what was easily the best sketch of her episode. But they sat out both Ayo Edebiri’s stellar hosting debut and Shane Gillis’ awkward but amusing stint. So having them back with Sydney Sweeney was great, even if it feels like it doesn’t feel like they had a sketch that was tailor-made with her in mind. There’s not a lot of escalation here, as the trio recount the nonsensical death of their friend in the Grand Canyon, which makes it not as strong as their usual stuff, but it’s also just silly enough to still be funny.
Airbnb Design Commercial – Finally, even though we didn’t get a full blown sketch about that awful Willy Wonka-inspired attraction across the pond, it was still big enough to land a mention in this sketch featuring the stylish designers behind those Airbnb’s that you stay in when you’re on vacation. Featuring the worst art, cheesy sayings on walls, and that one unsettling picture of the family that actually lives there, this skewering of the basic decorative sensibilities that these Airbnb owners all seem to share is something we can all laugh at, having experienced our share of awful condos, cabins, complexes, and other assorted cheap getaway residences.
Honestly, there wasn’t a flat out terrible sketch in this episode, though it should come as no surprise that the political cold open centering around Joe Biden was probably the worst bit of the night. But even that was better than most of the other political satire cold opens we’ve seen this year. Otherwise, the “Hooters” sketch felt like it had a little too basic of a premise without any escalation, but the “Makeup Artists” sketch and the “Big Bench” sketch offered up some solid new characters, with the latter having the potential to be recurring (though it could probably use some punching up on the absurd side). The “Loud Table” sketch also offered a traditional 10-to-1 bit, something that doesn’t happen quite so often because of the prominence of alternative comedy sensibilities on “SNL” these days.
#celeb #celebrity
