Was it COVID that denied us a Justin Timberlake-esque rule over the US? SNL Ariana Grande’s microphone? Or did she just get a “thanks, next” during the increasingly competitive main-pop-girl wars? Of course, the continued presence of her then-boyfriend Pete Davidson, who was briefly engaged to Grande in 2018, may also have played a role. But there was still plenty of time before their breakup and after he left the show where she could have burnished her reputation as an accomplished musical impressionist and a down-to-earth sketch actress who, as a bonus, wouldn’t encourage writing again. one of those “take it to omeletville” sketches. Her musical monologue, which included a jokingly insincere bit about how she would keep things low-key, while admitting that she hadn’t presented since 2016, also somewhat suggested that she did so so regularly that the audience would hear a litany of famous voices, characters and powerful tunes – hence the false warning that she wouldn’t do any of that. Maybe she folded everything she planned when she appears on Jimmy Fallon’s Show tonightwhich I understand involves a fair amount of impressions – furthering the unspoken connection to Timberlake.

In fact, before I got notes from Grande herself about her last hosting gig, I couldn’t remember exactly when that was, or if she had ever done it before without also serving as a musical guest (no!). While she managed to be a theater kid in the monologue, there’s something vague about Grande’s image, at least in terms of how she functions in a comedy-variety show. (I’m sure a full-time music critic or even a hardcore fan could give me a full overview of her personality.) Her vocal impressions are indeed technically astonishing; putting her more lethal Jennifer Coolidge voice next to Chloe Fineman’s (very good!) Jennifer Coolidge voice felt like exactly the kind of showing off she joked about avoiding in her monologue, in which she also went through mini impressions of Britney , Gwen and Miley. (Celine Dion would have a bigger, but not necessarily better, effect later in the episode.) But her “regular” voice also sounded like she was doing some kind of Broadway thing, like she couldn’t shake Kristin Chenoweth. Bad job, just like Austin Butler couldn’t shake Elvis. It puts her whole deal in protective quotes.

That is not necessarily negative. Her vocal control was a highlight of the episode, which brazenly broke her monologue promise with a sketch lineup featuring majority singing. Of the seven sketches in which Grande appeared, she sang in four, giving the episode an unusual degree of cohesion — even in the non-musical sketches, there was musicality in her vocal mannerisms. So it was a strange twist that Grande’s control was perhaps most impressive in a sketch in which she not only studiously and playfully sang out of tune to stay in character, but one that didn’t even make that the real joke of the piece . . SNL has done the scenario of being cheated on at your wedding in various guises before, but playing Grande, Heidi Gardner, Ego Nwodim and Sarah Sherman as single bridesmaids who performed a clumsy “Espresso” parody with such deliberately choppy enthusiasm worked wonders because the momentary verisimilitude of their bizarre confession – at least until the sketch failed to reach the final punchline of Marcello Hernandez running onto the stage to shout something. (Also, he’s clearly a cute and charming guy, but any time a comedy show takes for granted that one of the performers is absurdly hot, you have to scratch your head a little.)

The Bridesmaids song was the most purely unaffected thing Grande felt all night. Most of the time, she managed to channel her affection into something memorable: a mother who couldn’t stop cruelly taunting (or ignoring?!) her son’s boyfriend; a woman embroiled in a tangle of intrigue involving a series of hotel detectives; an Italian castrato with a perpetually distant look in his eyes while his parents talk enthusiastically about the mutilation he has experienced. She was perhaps the highlight of all these performances, which is rarely the case with a presenter. So what kept this episode from retaining its status as a complete instant classic? Was it just that most of the sketches were pretty good, rather than laughably great?

Or maybe I detect a hint of pop star vanity in the proceedings, a holdover from those Timberlake episodes where the purpose of about half the sketches was to show what a game, energetic, versatile guy Timberlake could be. Grande isn’t nearly as open about it — and she seemingly seems better at disappearing into character. For example: It is not unusual for a Saturday evening live cast member in her 30s to play a middle-aged mother; This is less true for a singer of the same age, who often presents himself even younger, to do the same, and do it so well. Still, Grande’s showcase work occasionally felt like something the cast was bumping into, rather than fully syncing with. That’s not a knock on her, or on the episode, both of which were good by most standards. But especially with such a large cast, it can be disorienting to watch someone swoop in and become the star of the show, as if seeking a refuge of credibility in a devastated music industry landscape. If she can’t be Sabrina Carpenter, she damn well better commit to singing out of tune.

What was going on

In addition to the bridesmaid song, which felt very much in the current style SNLtwo sketches from later shows were very similar to pieces that might have aired in the first five seasons: the castrato sketch and the hotel detective sketch, both full of devotion to silly voices. James Austin Johnson seems particularly enamored with the chance to pretend he’s in a thriller from 1941 or something, and he could be MVP of this episode if it made sense for a cast member to take the title. But no, this is very much Grande’s show.

What was out

The triple Jennifer Coolidge routine was clearly there for the sheer joy of it, and while it is novel to see the mirror image piece performed by three impressionists, rather than one impressionist and the real thing, I don’t really see the point of extended impressions of someone who is primarily a comedy performer to begin with. Likewise, while Maya Rudolph and Andy Samberg were funny in the castrato sketch, and it’s hard to say no to a little all-star action on the side, as long as Rudolph, Samberg and Carvey are there to do their little political sketches still for a month or so, there’s a neither-here-nor-there quality about their presence later in the show.

As for the cold opening itself, yes. Family feud is an ideal format… to push an impressions-based sketch past the 10-minute mark, as it takes at least half the sketch to create cursory intros. This dusty framework highlighted something appealing about these mediocre 2024 election sketches: how no artist is expected to shoulder the burden of severe cold alone. Three weeks later it was Rudolph, Carvey, Samberg, Johnson and Yang, doing their little show together each time, and this week Mikey Day joined in as well. It feels very supportive of the fact that three-quarters of each overlong sketch is canned and toothless, propped up by Rudolph and Johnson as the actual candidates. I try not to let it bother me too much SNL’It’s both side-isms – it’s part of the show, what can you do? — but three weeks into the season, the idea that making fun of Doug Emhoff is at least as crucial as making fun of J.D. Vance has gone from slightly odd to downright insane.

Next time

Michael Keaton, whose nine-year span between episodes is actually the shortest ever of his three stints as host.

Stray observations (mostly about music)

• The “My Best Friend’s House” music video was specifically credited to longtime writer Dan Bulla on the back, and branded as “Saturday evening live Midnight Matinee” at the front. Does this mean other writers get shots from their own videos instead of a regular Please Don’t Destroy Piece? The PDD guys still write sketches, and their videos would probably be more refreshing three or four times a year than ten or twelve times.
• I’m afraid James Austin Johnson and Sarah Sherman don’t exactly ‘have’ a Noel or Liam Gallagher respectively. (Not least because Johnson mockingly started singing ‘Wonderwall’ in Liam’s voice, not Noel’s.) They also have no idea when Oasis played stadiums or when the Spice Girls were around. However, they do understand that it’s funny to hear boys say ‘legend’ with a rough approximation of a Manchester accent and screw each other like children, so the Update piece worked well enough!
• It’s clear that the three characters intertwined in the hotel detective drama were meant to represent the three songs in They Might Be Giants’ trilogy of hotel detective songs. James Austin Johnson is “(She Was a) Hotel Detective,” Ariana Grande is “She Was a Hotel Detective,” and Dismukes is “She Was a Hotel Detective in the Future.”
• If that last bit meant anything to you, I’m sorry. If not, it’s probably at least useful to reveal that I’ve never been a big Fleetwood Mac guy, and as such I don’t feel entirely qualified to recommend a new Stevie Nicks song or her assess. performance of “Edge of Seventeen.” It’s also a nice nod to the show’s past, inviting a musical guest who hasn’t been there since 1983. That said…she sounded bad, right? Especially that first song?
• Where was hell? Here’s the part of the recap where I ask where the heck a certain cast member was. Where the hell was Ashley Padilla?