A Post-Election SNL Episode Flops With a One-Note, Uninspired Bill Burr in the Driver’s Seat

Even before the Associated Press called the 2024 Presidential Election in favor of Donald Trump last week, I could hear the groans getting louder as everyone began remembering that SNL was going to be on the air just a few days later. Ever since Kate McKinnon sang “Hallelujah” in full Hillary Clinton garb after the then-candidate lost to Trump in 2016, it’s been hard to rally around the show’s election-related efforts. Once it became clear that Kamala Harris lost the race via both the popular vote and the electoral vote, dread began setting in: How would SNL handle the candidate they not-so-explicitly endorsed last week getting blown out in “the most consequential election” of our lives?

In both 2016 and 2020, Dave Chappelle was tapped to host the post-election episodes, because, for some reason I still don’t understand, he was whom Lorne Micheals considered to be the most-employable comedic voice in times of great turnover and transition. While the “Election Night” sketch from eight years ago remains very timely, especially as liberals clutch their pearls and blame everyone but the candidate herself for Kamala Harris’s loss, the writing was on the wall for SNL: They needed a new host for a new set of unprecedented times.

I don’t think Bill Burr is necessarily the answer to that. I like Bill; he’s responsible for one of my favorite sketches of the 2020s so far—the pre-recorded “Sam Adams” sketch four years ago—but he’s not the guy. His monologue had its highs and lows, changing moods as he poked the anti-vax crowd with a story about a barefoot cowboy who gave him the flu on a plane and then told all the women in the room that they’re 0-for-2 against Trump in elections—a stat we’ve all been thinking about, but may have reserved for our various Twitter/X shitposting rather than a bright, big stage in New York City. But Burr’s bit about Trump’s heart growing like the Grinch’s when he worked a shift at McDonald’s during the campaign was especially fun. Burr has worked a crowd better in the past, when the stakes weren’t so high. So, how did the rest of last night’s episode of Saturday Night Live fare? Well, as a wise cue-card says…

“Live from New York…”

Luckily, there were no pianos to be found on last night’s episode. I unfortunately admitted to all of my friends that, if the cold open is going to be funny this week, it’s going to have to be about Trump and not Harris—and, even then, does anyone really want to see an impression of that man just yet? The real Trump has been awfully silent these last five days, and it’s a rare consolation prize to an otherwise not so great Tuesday night. Yesterday, after the NBC emblem came on screen and gave us a little head’s up, Bowen Yang, Heidi Gardner, Kenan Thompson and Ego Nwodim—no doubt SNL’s current top four voices—stood together and, initially, began speaking somberly about the results of Tuesday’s election. For a moment, they had me fooled. I thought that SNL was going to hang up the comedy for five minutes and refuse to riff on either candidate for the sake of figuring out just what the hell happened.

But, even amidst all its faults, SNL can still turn its heel and make a bad situation work. In a flash, the cast members begin pledging their allegiance to Trump, kissing up to him in hopes that the show’s cast doesn’t wind up on one of his infamous lists of enemies he wants to retaliate against. Nwodim professing that she was “one of the 8% of Black women who voted for Trump” and that she and her castmates are “just like him” were some very funny touches, as was Yang’s outward support of a president whose original 2016 campaign plan included measures that would revoke the fundamental human rights of gay people. The “We’ve been with you the entire time!” shtick doesn’t miss a beat, especially when Colin Jost came out to put blame on one of Trump’s biggest detractors, Michael Che (he even spells Che’s name out, so Trump won’t forget to add him to the retaliation list).

In the process of having nearly the entire cast, save for the “three new hires (Ashley Padilla, Emil Wakim and Jane Wickline), who all voted for Kamala,” kiss-up to the president-elect, SNL couldn’t let the cold open go by without just a tiny bit of James Austin Johnson’s Trump—so they introduce him as a fresh character, “Jacked Trump.” “They finally got the body right,” the president proclaims, before flexing his veiny muscles while wearing a Rambo-style bandana on his head. The worst part of the cold open was Dana Carvey showing up to impersonate Elon Musk and missing the assignment completely. Carvey couldn’t quite match-up the voice, and he’s far too skinny for the job—the only saving grace being his jumping around in a “Dark MAGA” hat and all-black get-up. But, even then, did we really need Carvey on that stage? The SNL writers were so close to nailing this cold open. They used all of the cast! Everyone’s voice was heard or made fun of somehow! SNL can be funny if it would just trust the repertory players it hired in the first place! Seriously, if I never see Dana Carvey in Studio H8 again it would be too soon. That’s a sentence 12-year-old me probably never imagined they would say.

“You look mahvelous!”

This might have been the toughest “best sketch of the night” pick of the season so far—not because the show was bursting with options like last week’s John Mulaney-hosted episode, or Ariana Grande’s turn in October, but because every sketch was resolute in its ineffectiveness. If I had to pick one, for the sake of giving last night’s episode some praise, I would go with “The Janitor,” a Good Will Hunting spoof centered around a pile of puke on a college seminar floor. The Matt Damon character, a janitor named Donny (Michael Longfellow), solves an impossible equation on an MIT professor’s (Yang) chalkboard. But, quickly, his boss comes in and ridicules the young janitor for not cleaning up the very gross puke lingering nearby. Their boss (Burr) walks in, slips on the pile of puke, and chews both of them out. Then, MIT’s dean (Thompson) arrives, marvels at Donny’s math skills, slips on the puke himself and all hell breaks loose.

We get a resolution when Sean Maguire (Johnson) walks out of a storage closet (that he’s been living in, mind you) and repeats Robin Williams’ classic “It’s not your fault” line over and over before admitting that he was the one who left the pile of puke on the floor. The sketch is a pretty standard escalation routine for SNL, almost formulaic to a fault, but there are good bits of absurdity at play here—like when Donny tries to mop up the puke on carpet, or when he says that he tried using a Roomba on it. When the sketches are lackluster, even the glimmers look like diamonds.

An honorable mention goes to “Calling Dad,” a sketch that leaned on seriousness more than comedy but just failed to get off the ground. As somebody with a parent who doesn’t ever want to open about his feelings, I know what Dismukes and Walker are going through when they try to level with their own dads. It was well-done, but not entirely funny. Burr and Thompson trying to explain their problems and feelings through car and sports metaphors was simple yet effective. Therapy and manhood made some serious rounds on SNL last night, a good style for a post-election episode—even if it didn’t quite hit the mark every time.

“Yipee! Jerry Rubin died last week.”

Weekend Update didn’t push the envelope too far this week, though Che, refreshingly, tried to poke the elephant in the room. Jost’s joke about the Democrats not knowing how to rig elections was a great place to start, especially in the wake of Trump remaining silent on any claims of voter fraud now that he’s on the winning end of an election. I liked Che’s joke about listening to R. Kelly now that more than 70 million people voted for a bigot. “If white people can elect their felons, I can dance to mine,” he said. Of course, Pennsylvania turning red was a topic of conversation, as was Trump’s comment about his impending presidency becoming the new “Golden Age of America” and the upcoming race for Senate Majority Leader between three men who have “white hair, gray hair and no hair.”

Jost, in response to the claims that Vance helped land Trump the Catholic vote, got a chance to riff on his time spent as an altar boy—proclaiming that he avoided abuse by disguising himself as a lesbian (or, culturally, a white boy with a middle-part). Che comparing Trump’s early blowout lead to the Lakers putting Bronny James in the game, topped off by a few sips of bourbon, was a good moment from the more-polarizing half of the Update team. He also made fun of the farmers who think that, with Trump as Commander-in-Chief, they’ll get wealthier from his tax policies, too.

The guest characters on Update were, to put it bluntly, awful this week. Nwodim’s “Woman Who Can’t Find Something in Her Purse” talking about how to be an active-listener felt uninspired. This is how you’re going to comment on the current state of the world? Nwodim is far too talented to be rummaging through her purse, pulling out maracas and finding her unused Pennsylvania ballot in the mess. In a fair and just world, Nwodim would be the far-and-away leader of the SNL 50 cast, but her Update characters haven’t clicked and she’s been underused in live sketches this season. Her repetition of “Yes, girl!” was funny the first two or three times, because it flustered Jost, but there’s no point to be had here. When Nwodim finds what she’s looking for, a gold-plated handgun, she rattles off the best one-liner of the night: “And you know what’s crazy? I flew here!”

Elsewhere, Thompson came by to reprise his role as Che’s (ex) neighbor Willie and cheer everyone up in the face of uncertainty. SNL fans know Willie all too well, as he was always on the show five, six, seven seasons ago. This time, he’s come back to get his wires crossed, talking about getting accused of attacking somebody or being put in a police lineup instead of talking about the election results (but he does make a little jab at Che about the Yankees losing, which was nice). Thompson plays this character so well, which means it’s entertaining even if the wheels have barely been greased. Eventually, we sort of get around to talking about the election. “I learned at a very young age that it is important to use your vote, because how else are people gonna know that you’re trapped in that old refrigerator again?” Willie says. “C’mon, Michael, don’t tell me you never played ‘Hide.’” “You mean ‘Hide and Seek’?” Che responds. Willie pauses for a moment, chuckles, and then offers up a LOL-worthy reply: “That would have been nice!”

“In a word? Chaos.”

“Rorschach Test” was one of the better post-monologue sketches of the season, set in a firehouse (in Boston, of course) and centered around a mental health specialist (Gardner) giving a Rorschach test to a few firemen (Burr, Andrew Dismukes, Marcello Hernandez and Wakim). All is well, as Wakim and Hernandez both respond to their inkblots normally, until Ralphie (Burr) starts seeing highly sexualized pictures of animated characters like Mike Wazowski, Elsa and Snoopy. When Gardner says that Ralphie is suppressing his trauma, his co-workers throw him under the bus when Dismukes says that he “works the front desk.” If anything, hearing Burr explain that a buff Snoopy is walking Charlie Brown like a dog is worth the five minutes we spend in the sketch. Then, as it’s revealed that Bluey’s dad, Bandit, is not just into BDSM and Four Loko but is banging Wazowski, the joke meets an entertaining resolution. This was one of those rare moments where SNL figured out how to finish a sketch without beating us over the head with the point of it all.

“You are weak like H.R. Pickens!”

I wish I could deem most of last night’s sketches the “worst,” but I’ll just go with the one that made me actually groan while watching it: “Sex Rock CD.” Framed as a “paid advertisement” about a rock band, Snakeskin, releasing a compilation CD via infomercial, Burr tries to show his son Joaquin (Wakim) the pleasures of music when it was free of Auto-Tune and still “real.” So, what better way to show that realness than through a metal rock band that only sings about sex? Snakeskin—a combo of Andrew Dismukes, Sarah Sherman and James Austin Johnson—take turns singing about banging chicks while jerking off their guitars. It works until it doesn’t, and it barely worked to begin with. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoy Dismukes and JAJ sharing the stage together, as they seem to share an affection for out-of-date, on-the-nose comedy references, but by God could it have killed Bill Burr to even try livening up a sketch last night? While the compilation infomercial portion was good (shipping and handling being $35 triggered a very specific neuron in my memory) and songs sounded pretty faithful to ‘80s hair metal bands like Poison and Ratt, Joaquin calls Snakeskin “corny and lame” and, sadly, I think that’s a good label for the sketch altogether.

“If you have a $50 bill, we can give you 50 singles.”

We got just one pre-recorded sketch last night, in the form of “Buffalo Wild Wings.” Outside of Thompson’s Willie on Update, this bit featured the only other recurring character from last night: Bill Burr’s disgruntled Boston man, whom we last saw in that “Sam Adams” sketch I was talking about earlier. This time, he’s in a Buffalo Wild Wings because his wife kicked him out. I suppose it’s low-hanging fruit to take advantage of Burr’s Bostonian roots, but I think the well of ideas is running dry. We get Mikey Day returning as Burr’s wise-cracking, foul-mouthed son (who now has a daughter of his own with him), but “Buffalo Wild Wings” doesn’t hold a candle to “Sam Adams.” These kinds of sketches work really great one time and then get cheaper with every return. I do love that Burr put his arm in a cast again, and as he and Day get into a tussle with each other, “Real Patriots Fans” comes up at the bottom of the screen. That was a nice touch.

Your very precious lunch hour…”

The post-Update sketches left a lot to be desired. Between the “Bald Guys” musical number—which, in the wake of last week’s very good “Port Authority Duane Reade” bit, failed miserably—and the “I Got One” 10-to-1 flop, it was a very underwhelming final 40 minutes. The saving graces, I suppose, was the “Trauma Support Group” sketch and Mk.gee performing “Alesis.”

But “Trauma Support Group” had some legs. In the group, led by the very granola-y George (Burr) almost everyone is dealing with loss of some kind—except for Samuel (Yang), whose problems are pretty macro and frivolous. The sketch got a couple of air-through-the-nose moments from me, especially every time Samuel put a cigarette out on somebody else’s leg or shoulder. The 10-to-1 sketch is about a wife named Linda’s (Padilla) joke flopping, but it just didn’t move the needle much for me—even though it was good seeing Padilla get a bit of spotlight, as Wakim and Wickline have both already been given Update spots to spread out.

“I Got One” is Padilla’s show to steal, and she mostly does—if only because Burr looks bored, Yang is ready to break at any moment and she’s the only character with any real dialogue. The “four gorgeous dogs” line coming up over and over is met with confusion from everyone else at the table, leading to Linda having a meltdown in front of her husband’s (Burr) boss Tom (Thompson) and the whole group. It would’ve been a better sketch for immediately after Update rather than the final joke of the night.

Not Ready For Primetime Power Rankings

1. Ego Nwodim
I wouldn’t say that anybody in the cast had a particularly strong night yesterday, but Ego was in a few sketches, had a character of her own on Update and was the anchor of the cold open. You can’t argue with those results, even if it was a night of up and down quality for her and the rest of the team.

2. Bowen Yang
Much like Ego, Bowen was a featured voice in the cold open. His turn as Samuel in “Trauma Support Group” was good and fun, and he made an appearance in the 10-to-1 was one of its bright spots. Credit where it’s due, even when SNL is in a lull Bowen manages to keep our eyes in focus.

3. Ashley Padilla
I think Ashley did very well post-Update. She had a feature in “Trauma Support Group,” only to ascend to spotlight status in “I Got One.” Out of all of the efforts by the featured players this season so far, this was definitely the best showing yet. I think Padilla has the best chance to get promoted in a year or two, and I’m excited to see where she might take us next.

Goodnights

“You learn more from your losses than your wins.” —Bill Burr, hopefully alluding to a better episode next Saturday night

Charli XCX will be pulling double duty next week on SNL, so we’ll catch you then!

Matt Mitchell is Paste’s music editor, reporting from their home in Northeast Ohio.