October 17th SNL Review: Issa Rae and Justin Beiber
This past Saturday, actress and comedian, Issa Rae, hosted Saturday Night Live with help from musical guest, Justin Bieber. Following suit with Bill Burr last week, SNL chose another first time host for the week, and though I know how talented Issa Rae is, I did not expect her to be the star she was in what was clearly the best episode SNL has had this season.
The show opened with, as we all could have expected, a Trump / Biden cold open. It was funny, poignant, and added to streak of segments proving that Jim Carrey was the right choice to play Biden on the show. This was followed by a funny, though admittedly short monologue by Rae, though she isn’t really a stand-up, so thats typically par for the course. From this point on, however, the show was basically perfect.
All of the sketches garnered consistent, loud laughs even from a limited in-studio audience. Though I could honestly refer to each one as a highlight, two that especially shined were a Canadian news show sketch, which was just bizarre and left-field enough that it had to work thanks to Kate McKinnon and Rae’s commitment to a strange accent, and a sketch that takes place at a Tennessee Titan’s tailgate that it’s much easier to tell you to watch then try to explain. Out of the pre-produced video sketches, the 5 hour empathy sketch, which advertised a drink for white people to feel the impacts of systemic oppression for 5 hours after consumption, was a laugh out loud satire on woke culture.
Weekend update was, as usual, fantastic, with two highlight guest appearances from impersonations Eric, Tiffany, and Donald Trump Jr, and Aidy Bryant just as herself. It’s hard to go to deep into reviewing weekend update, as it’s just a sequential series of jokes, but if you’re a fan of what they usually do, this episode is no different.
All in all, this is the best episode SNL has put together yet from start to finish, and I can’t wait for Issa Rae to return to the stage.
9/10
