Saturday Night Live Report Card: Season 44, Episode 3: Seth Meyers

This season of SNL has not been its finest, but I'm hopeful it can turn itself around. If it'll ever turn itself around, this week's episode, featuring the hilarious Seth Meyers, will be the one to do it.

Cold Open: Kanye West Donald Trump:
After an episode cold open for the premiere and a solid one last week, this one was a big disappointment. While I had high hopes after seeing what the cold open would be about, it was just a misstep. This honestly wasn't any stranger or funnier than reality, so it didn't work as satire. It also just ran on too long, with no good jokes to justify even existing at all. They could have done a much better Kanye parody, but instead, we got this.
Score: 5/10

Seth Meyers Monologue:
I'm a big fan of Seth Meyers, so I really enjoyed seeing him deliver a monologue without help from any of the cast members. The monologue itself wasn't anything spectacular, but it was pretty solid and defintiely more interesting than most recent monologues.
Score: 7.5/10

Movie Talkback:
This sketch wasn't very clever, but I'm a sucker for any time that the cast members get to play a bunch of weirdos. And that was definitely this. Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones' turns were particularly funny moments, but most of these characters provided at least a few chuckles. The sketch didn't really go anywhere unexpected, but it was pure dumb fun.
Score: 6.5/10

Beta Force:
Even though I usually love commercial parodies, this one was just not very good. I was pretty bored with this a minute in, and it didn't really get better from that point on. There were only a few funny lines to be found in here, and the rest was just a snooze.
Score: 4.5/10

Traffic Stop:
Does SNL realize what year it is? I guess this might have been funny ten years ago, but it was not even remotely funny today. It was just offensive and stupid, even worse than the average SNL sketches that are just stupid.
Score: 4/10

A Frightening Story:
I can't quite put my finger on why I liked this so much, but I thought it was hilarious. The cast acting so terrified to something so fundamentally not scary was just hilarious, and this was a rare bright spot in a season that has been lagging on laughs.
Score: 8/10

Jail Cellmate:
It might just be because I love Kenan's impression of Bill Cosby so much, or it might be because I was desperate to love something from this episode, but I found this really funny. Kenan and Seth worked really well together, with Seth playing the straight man perfectly and Kenan playing the wacky character like he usually does. This was just really, really funny and was definitely my favorite sketch of the night. Also, I will never be able to not see Quincy Jones as a turtle from now on.
Score: 8.5/10

Weekend Update:
Heidi Gardner's newest wacky Update character was pretty great, as was the Amy Poehler-less Really? segment. But the rest of this just kinda happened. None of the other jokes were really that memorable, but they weren't really awful either. Also, there's a one-point deduction in my score for the absence of Stefon. Honestly, it should probably be more than that. That's just unforgivable.
Score: 7/10

Bayou Benny's Liberal Lagniappe:
Huh?
Score: 3.5/10

Cuban Vacation:
Was the strange pronunciation the funniest thing about this sketch? Absolutely. Did I still laugh a lot during it? Yep! Am I embarrassed to admit that? Incredibly so.
Score: 6.5/10

Trees:
Pete and Luke being so blissfully ignorant about how our environment works was truly hilarious, as were the repeated mentions of our almost-president Al Gore. Things went a little off track when straight-up kidnapped Beck Bennett's character and took him to the doctor, but they got back on track by the sketch's end.
Score: 7.5/10

Halloween Gig:
I find this bizarre recurring sketch delightful in a strange way. It always makes me chuckle, even though it's far from comedic genius. It's a nice way to close out any show, and it's not an overdone sketch, at least not yet. This entry was fine, nothing exceptional but definitely welcome.
Score: 6.5/10

Wrap-Up:
This was a tremendously disappointing episode. With a legacy castmember like Seth Meyers at the helm, they didn't really have an excuse to be so mediocre. He tried his best, but the writing was just lacking this week (as it has been all season). Even some of the highlights weren't anything that memorable, making for a forgettable episode. If I even remember anything about this episode at all in a few months, it'll be just how disappointing the episode was. They should have done better, and they easily could have, but they just didn't. The only positive I really have for it was that I guess it could somehow be described as the best episode of this season, which speaks only to how mediocre and disappointing this season has been so far. But Paul Simon was pretty fantastic tonight, so there's one plus. And there weren't any bizarre MAGA rants after the show, another plus.

Score: 6/10
Grade: C-
Pass or Fail: Pass? I guess I can say that. I don't know.
MVP of the Week: Heidi Gardner
Sketch of the Night: 
Jail Cellmate
Worst of the Night: Bayou Benny's Liberal Lagniappe

Top 5 Hosts of the Season:
1) Seth Meyers

2) Adam Driver
3) Awkwafina


What did you think of this week's SNL? What was your favorite sketch this week? Let me know in the comments and vote in the poll below!

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