Quinta Brunson Brings Some Black Lady Sketch Show Energy to a Middling Saturday Night Live

And Your Host…

In her monologue, Quinta Brunson bemoaned the fact that, as creator and star of the very pro-public schools award-winning sitcom Abbott Elementary, she’s frequently approached by people who think of her as an education expert, rather than the happily disheveled goofball type she actually is. (Brunson did politely body a charter school Karen online this week when the woman unwisely questioned Quinta’s public school bona fides, but that’s just the notoriously plugged-in Quinta’s language.) As anybody who saw her work on A Black Lady Sketch Show knows, Quinta Brunson can get down with a sketch, and tonight the acclaimed showrunner threw herself into her sketches like the pro she is.

The writing wasn’t as strong as it’s been the last several weeks, but Brunson was in there swinging, whether she was expressively miming “Eat my butt” to a fellow motorist or donning male businesswear (including some impressive male pattern baldness) and playing Chloe Fineman’s boobs like a conga drum. In the monologue, Brunson joked how, in the pre-Abbott days, she truly wanted to be a Saturday Night Live cast member, but charmingly explained that her current path to her first hosting gig (toil in comedy, create a show, win lots of awards, then get asked to host) was a lot easier. She also did her dutiful best to stump for public school teachers like her mom, demonstrating that creating Abbott Elementary comes with responsibilities, whether she wants them or not. (She also showed a video of her recent dinner with former President Obama, just to flex. Respect.)

The Best and the Rest

The Best: I mean it when I say the writing left me flat tonight. Not mad, just disappointed. You get it. I did love the traffic jam sketch, though, where Brunson and Mikey Day’s drivers spend their time stuck side by side pantomiming increasingly elaborate insults at each other. Partly, I was impressed with the unusual-for-SNL camera angles and storytelling, with multiple cameras positioned to catch the drivers in their separate cars. Mainly, though, the sketch was a grower, the original conceit elaborated upon with some nifty twists and Day and Brunson’s commitment, as well as that of Day’s mortified teen daughter whose attempts to join in on the abuse gets unfortunately graphic. (“First of all, I don’t love it that you used two hands,” Day’s dad states after Chloe Fineman’s daughter signs an elaborate “You suck” to Quinta.)

In a lesser sketch, the funny hand gestures would be an end to the joke, but the reveal that Brunson’s mom (a hilariously popping-in Ego Nwodim) is offering up filthy rejoinders from the back seat is great, as is the final fake-out, where the two (as it turns out, recently divorced) drivers appear to be softening their irate name-calling into a potential dinner date, only for Brunson to pull the rug out in an even bigger laugh. Silly and energetic, with some unexpected cleverness. Always a good formula.

The Worst: The cold open was the pits, but that gets its own spotlight dance below. Sadly, I have to toss the Please Don’t Destroy guys here, although their show-ending short film wasn’t terrible—just their worst so far. I’m waiting for Ben Marshall, John Higgins, and Martin Herlihy to prove that they can function outside of their established backstage-at-SNL comedy bubble, but the two times they’ve tried it on Saturday Night Live haven’t worked nearly as well. Here, they’re clomping around Kyle Mooney and Beck Bennett’s shoes as a trio of boorish college students whose YouTube treks in search of “authentic” NYC cuisine see them being mocked and humiliated. Brunson’s funny as the beleaguered Jamaican restaurant cashier dutifully doling out appallingly unseasoned chicken in deference to the guys’ inability to handle actual spices. (She gives in once she reads the uniformly abusive comments under the trio’s videos.) And I did like the predictable turn that the guys’ energetic bro vibe collapses into shrieking privilege once some angry patrons toss Higgins’ line-cutter across a bodega (pronounced “bawdiga”), the suddenly furious transplant screaming, “My father is a lawyer!” But, again, without the driving conceit of Please Don’t Destroy’s downtrodden SNL drone schtick, this one sputters.

The Rest: Game show sketches are ready-made for sketch comedy, which is why SNL has always done them to death and back. There’s an easy set-up (the show’s rules), a ready-made comic conflict (the customers’ struggles with those rules), and a guaranteed, “let’s go to commercial” out. Bing, bang, boom. They’re also a crutch that the show has relied on for far too long. There are other sketch types out there, just sayin’. Anyway, there was another game show sketch, this one of the Newlywed Game variety, which means plenty of “Oh, honey, you make me so maaad” jokes. James Austin Johnson had the thankless hosting duty, although he’s so singular and committed a performer that he made something out of the scraps, while couples Brunson and Kenan and Michael Longfellow and Punkie Johnson all guessed each others’ cue card answers incorrectly, etc. What set this one apart was the developing conceit that Kenan’s seemingly loving husband lives in constant fear that his wife will suffer a debilitating accident (a gag paid off when we see the state of his parents’ marriage in the crowd), with Kenan’s answers spinning out into more and more elaborate scenarios, culminating in a multiple-card fantasy of him having cared for his bedridden wife so long that he and Brunson’s sister have romantic, cleansing sex amongst the redwoods after their long shared ordeal of nursing the late Brunson has ended. (He also tore up Brunson’s prize of rock climbing lessons in front of an arena full of basketball fans, in a development that only pays off as the premise is gradually revealed.) It’s a loopy, original gag that takes its time.

For a post-monologue show opener, the men’s room cocaine sketch wasn’t it. With Andrew Dismukes and Devon Walker’s tourists looking to score some coke, the joke that everyone in the club bathroom is holding turns into a litany of “my junk is soooo white” zingers. It’s fine—I dug Quinta coming out of a stall as a tiny male coke dealer with a soul patch, and almost everybody gets a turn to play, “How white is it?” bingo with their boasts about their products’ snow white purity. (“Its father sends it money every month for the rent.” “It’s whiter than the second season of The Wire.” You get it.) And, hey, it’s nice to be reminded that SNL no longer has to farm out non-white roles in multi-character sketches to extras these days, but the sketch itself isn’t strong enough for its spot in the running order.

Now that SNL’s editors have thankfully reached a tentative agreement with the show/network, the bridesmaid short film was another fine piece of technical assemblage. The so-so premise (getting roped into bridesmaid duties is akin to being trapped in an abusive and money-siphoning cult) makes for a decent enough engine, and the idea that this is the next big streaming cult exposé props it up ably. Everyone’s good in it. It’s fine.

Same goes for the midwife sketch, although there’s enough zippy absurdity around the edges to keep it alive. Quinta’s doctor not remembering the one time she met Bowen Yang’s doula years before turns into a whole thing, with Yang pausing his passive aggressiveness only to deftly deliver multiple babies just out of frame. (He also pronounces words like “curious” and “furious” oddly.) That the relatively simple idea keeps zipping back and forth in time—with accompanying elaborate wig changes for Yang—tickled me with how unnecessarily complex it was, but it was another sketch tonight that never got out of second gear. It’s fine.

Weekend Update update

Jost and Che kept the readied “Trump Indicted” chyron up for a handful of so-so jokes about Donnie’s upcoming no good, very bad week, but the biggest laugh came from Che’s reveal that he’d April fool-pranked his co-anchor by apparently telling the audience not to laugh at one of Jost’s jokes. (Someone also yells, “You suck!” over the smattering of chuckles, which I’m hoping was also directed by Che.) I’m cynical about these sorts of live shenanigans (Dr. Wenwodis burned me and I’m still hurting), but I’m going to go ahead and set that aside, since Jost’s extended reaction to the goof is so damned entertaining. With Che admitting what he’d done, Jost can’t get it back together, telling his pal, “That’s the meanest thing you’ve ever done to me,” while confessing to being drenched in flop sweat. Sue me—it was adorable.

Update’s topical material needs to be sharper, while Jost and Che are very funny. It’s been my criticism for so long, I’m as sick of saying it as you all of hearing it.

Michael Longfellow had another Update winner, mocking the recent, “The Simpsons already did that!” nonsense out of Florida (naturally), where a real-life Helen Lovejoy caused a public school to fire its principal after her little darling was exposed to Michelangelo’s David in a fit of in-no-way astroturfed right-wing censorship. Longfellow’s impressively painted David is another of the comic’s successful deadpan appearances, tinged with eccentric touches, including this David’s desire to show off his unimpressive genitals. (“People usually see it from below,” he tells Che). He also takes Che up on the offer to turn his head for once, Longfellow’s resulting scream of pain a jarring laugh to kick the bit off. As with the Trump jokes, this one’s much more about gags than insight into—just to note—emboldened conservative legislatures and manufactured “parents rights” groups banning books, defunding libraries, and generally imposing their own retrograde idiocy on the rest of us. So I’m dinging this one on those grounds. But Longfellow continues to find a singularly funny tone in these Update outings.

Marcello Hernandez hasn’t quite done the same, his sporadic Update spots feeling more like chunks of recycled stand-up than fully realized pieces in their own right. He’s frequently charming though, and his editorial here about the backhanded compliment of the term “short kings” gives him a turn at the making fun of Colin Jost carnival, with his repeated challenges for the supposedly six-foot Jost to stand back-to-back with the defensively 5’7” Hernandez constantly rebuffed.

“All that and an old lady on fire. Tonight on Dateline.”—Recurring Sketch Report

None. Take a few percentage point grade bump, SNL!

“That’s perfect! Show me the sneer when a Democrat gets too specific!”—Political Comedy Report

Well, it took most of the season for me to start dreading the Trump cold opens, so that’s something. To be fair, James Austin Johnson’s impression remains original and spiky as well as accurate. ( Also, the show has called upon Trump less than in past seasons.) So, JAJ, we’re good. But the fact that the SNL writers room glanced over the last several weeks where the former president [checks notes] was indicted on felony charges, posted a threatening photo of the District Attorney prosecuting him for his illegal hush money payments to the adult film actress he had sex with while his third wife as recuperating from the birth of their son, openly incited his internet mob to further yahoo violence (leading to a package of white powder being sent to the same D.A. along with a racist death threat), lost several attempts to derail his upcoming rape trial, was hit with another accusation of mistress-payoff, and probably a few I’ve forgotten and thought, “Hey, what about a Trump duets album?” is the sort of shooting for the low-middle that broke me.

Kenan sang as Don King. Devon Walker as Afroman, and Mikey Day was Don Jr. again, all tenuously connected to the premise and cut so short that there was a “what’s the point?” vibe to the whole enterprise. Trump is already grifting more money out of his MAGA rubes off of his post-indictment hissy-fits, so a cash-grab album at least makes sense. And the equally shifty King is a Trump supporter, and Johnson’s Trump does make one of his signature asides that the infamously crooked boxing promoter actually killed a couple of guys, but there is something so nondescript and instantly forgettable to this barely-there cold open that it’s erasing itself from my brain as I type.

Not Ready For Prime Time Power Rankings

I remain into the ensemble feel this season, even if I question how long SNL can thrive without a few guaranteed audience pleasing breakout performers to tentpole a season. That said, it’s been a while since Mikey Day had a couple of meaty roles like he did tonight, and Chloe Fineman wasn’t far behind. James Austin Johnson is becoming this cast’s Phil Hartman (or at least Chris Parnell) everyman, and Ego can pop big when she’s deployed right.

Molly, Marcello, Longfellow, Devon—all four of the newest kids did their usual dues paying, although Longfellow’s Update piece raised his boat a bit higher.

“Get back on that damn wheel! And this time enjoy it, you stinkin’ sheep!”—10-To-One Report

The Please Don’t Destroy piece was last, but I’m swapping it with the previous office sketch. Partly because the office sketch is a far weirder fit for the 10-to-one spot, and partly because the last sketch should always be live. (These are my categories, so I make the rules. Don’t question it.)

I’ve zeroed in on my hesitancy toward Sarah Sherman’s spotlight sketches this season. She goes huge, playing to the cheap seats, which I admire. But I haven’t found her on-air ideas to be as daring as they are loud (those meatball people notwithstanding), and the degree to which she’s clearly as amused with her antics as we’re expected to be can be a little exhausting. In this sketch, Chloe Fineman’s lone female office worker attempts to get her colleagues to acknowledge that there’s something iffy about the way one coworker treats her, only for Sherman to come out in a bald cap and mustache and shift his brusque chumminess with his male colleagues to the sort of “Aaaa-ooo-gahh!” sexism the company’s H.R. department should see from space. The sketch doubles down when Brunson comes out as an identically cartoonish male sexual harasser, culminating in Sherman and Brunson (as office favorite musical duo The Penis Brothers) literally playing Fineman’s breasts like bongos, all while the rest of the office remains blind to the inappropriateness.

There’s a bracing chutzpah to how brazenly Sherman and Brunson ham it up, and it’s amusing watching the game Fineman attempt to keep a straight face as Brunson, especially, straight-up starts smacking her boobs. I suppose you could call it satire of workplace harassment if you wanted to, but honestly the sketch is more about Sherman amusing herself. I think I’m in the minority concerning the once and future Sarah Squirm’s time on SNL (I find myself preferring her Update pieces as herself, mocking the hell out of Colin Jost), but if Sherman has another comic gear, it’s time to engage it.

Parting Shots

As the traffic jam sketch closes out on the live broadcast, Mikey Day can be heard telling Chloe Fineman, “That went okay.” It’s edited out of the official YouTube version, but you were right, Mikey.

“Phil, you lying son of a bitch,” Jost deadpans over a picture of Punxsutawney Phil amid a story about New York’s record-low snowfall this year.

Che’s decision that every Update needs at least one joke where he jabs a woman (this time, a female-run weed store closes because she can’t open the jars) borders on the fetishistic at this point.

Lil Yachty brought out the impressive vocalist Diana Gordon to back him up in his two numbers. I also liked all the houseplants everywhere. They really tied 8H together.

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Dennis Perkins is an entertainment writer who lives in Maine with his wife, the writer Emily L. Stephens, and their cat, (Special Agent Dale) Cooper. His work has appeared in places like The A.V. Club, Ultimate Classic Rock, and the Portland (Maine) Press Herald. You can find him on Twitter, where he will anger you with opinions, and Instagram, where you will be won back over by pictures of Special Agent Dale Cooper.