By now, everyone who met Mikey Madison as the titular Ani from Sean Baker’s 2024 Oscar’s sweeper Anora knows she’s not nearly as brash and vocal as her character. That was, unsurprisingly, further proven during her opening monologue. She’s sweet and quiet — still able to exude confidence, but way played down.
The show started with a relatively short but funny cold open — “Group Chat Cold Open” — before launching into a perfectly average show.
The sketches that worked
- Far and away the sketch of the night, “Jury Duty” could only have been improved with more time and more crazy characters. This one was fun.
- I deeply enjoyed the Joe Jonas reveal in “Big Dumb Line” and always like when SNL makes a mockery of New York City.
- “Spring Break” is a classic SNL-ism — fun is in the background; foreground actors play straight. It’s a standard because it works, and this iteration worked just fine!
- Please Don’t Destroy pretty much carbon copied “Bad Bunny is Shrek” for “Mikey Madison is Squidward“, but they paid the necessary homage and it still played. Made me laugh.
- I’m truly coming around on Ashley Padilla! Her “Joann on JOANN Fabric and Crafts’ Bankruptcy” bit had me giggle during Weekend Update.
- I think I liked “Planning New York – An SNL Animated Short“! It worked on a lot of levels for me. And fun to hear Bowen Yang in an animation.
The sketches that didn’t
- I was fine with “Acting Teacher” the first time around, but the magic & surprise was gone for “Acting Teacher 2“. I kept waiting for something more fun to pop up, but we just got the same old premise — and Mikey wasn’t quite wild enough to make it interesting.
- “Pop’s Big Regret“: Booo! Too long. No payoff. Dumb premise.
- Ahhh, I don’t know. I got the vibe of “So Like … What Are We?” instantly and it never really surprised or entertained me. From the second it started, it was like ‘Okay, I get it, let’s move on, folks.’
- Bowen played his part in “Barry the Midwife” fine, but again, Mikey just wasn’t in it enough for me to stay engaged. This one could have been cut before air in my opinion.
The musical GUEST
Arguably the biggest name in country music today, Morgan Wallen sure flexed his star power this week. After two half-assed performances, he walked off stage during good-nights then posted a (now viral) Tweet of his PJ with the caption “Get me to God’s Country.” Of course, he’s now selling God’s Country t-shirts and merch, so… clearly a stunt. Whatever.
Here he is walking off:
Final thoughts
A lot to enjoy this week — almost just as much to ignore. With dud musical performances as the rotten cherry on top, this episode was just so-so for me.
My rating: 2.5/5
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