Chris Rock has a rare position as Saturday Night Live Alumnus, as the show did a lot to popularize him and his comic style, but by most accounts he wasn’t particularly successful or happy as a cast member during his abbreviated three seasons (and, in fact, already had a nice career). good film career before he left). Rock was part of an era in which the show was loaded with sassy stand-up comedians who appeared in front of the camera but didn’t always seem to know how to write sketches (or, according to some interviews, even know how to write sketches). writes). allegedly write your own sketches); He’s easily the most accomplished stand-up artist of this group and is perhaps the least comfortable doing crazy makeup and silly characters. Rock just seemed to have a limited desire to impersonate someone else; Is Nat

Nevertheless, Rock also came back faster than his “bad boys” and/or Adult The actors David Spade, Chris Farley, Adam Sandler and Rob Schneider, who is still waiting to be invited, reflect on how quickly he got back on his feet after leaving the show. And he hosts more often than any of these guys, for different reasons, but it puts him more in line with alumni like Tina Fey or Julia Louis-Dreyfus (who keeps coming back after conquering another area of ​​media), more than, say, Spade or even semi-frequent host and guest star Dana Carvey, who was absent from this week’s Rock-hosted episode for the first time all season. (Interestingly, Carvey made a cameo appearance on Rock’s first hosting gig in 1996.)

Another cameo with a bigger name appeared in the back half of the episode, encapsulating Rock’s entire involvement as host. In a hospital-set skit that initially seemed like an odd combination of Gen-Z sensibility satire and Sarah Sherman’s attempt at a more standard recurring role, Sherman played Leslie, a nurse who repeatedly makes big mistakes during surgery and then knows wants to know if that’s the case, everyone is mad at her. The first twist involved Rock’s doctor character repeatedly defending Leslie, at least in part because of her beauty; Then the patient wakes up, it turns out he’s being played by Adam Sandler, and the sketch becomes an under-rehearsed bloodbath, with the Sandman making a play of squirting fake blood on each actor in turn (despite some initial hiccups with Sherman) and on One Point: I congratulate Emil Wakim on being able to spend some time on screen, even though he didn’t actually play a role in the “sketch” (ouch, Sandman). All in all, Rock stumbles over his lines and isn’t particularly convincing even as a comedy doctor; Sherman plays a character that the sketch seems to abandon halfway through; Sandler appears and takes over the sketch, making it more meta; and multiple throwback vibes at once (fake blood spray; intentionally annoying character). It’s a mess of a sketch. (Actually, Sandler might be right. It really could be a sketch.) And it still seemed incredibly funny and charming, a sleazy acknowledgment that sometimes the show just dresses goofily and splatters blood on its comedian friends.

Other sketches in Rock’s episode functioned in a more traditional, cohesive manner. But the film, which for about a minute felt like it was shaping up to be an easy classic (and could still show up on this year’s Christmas compilation), was similarly sloppy: Rock plays a department store elf who cheerfully visits white families The choice is between a white Santa Claus (James Austin Johnson) and a black Santa Claus (Devon Walker), whose name is not “Blanta”, no matter how hard Chloe Fineman’s mother figure tries. Great premise, but the execution just turned out to be Rock standing around awkwardly and essentially repeating the joke with minor variations. Maybe it needed a better lead-in; As it is, it felt like the sketch was waiting for a big moment of catharsis, which, despite lots of smaller laughs, it rushed towards without ever reaching it.

This energetic search for something greater could also be felt in Rock’s stand-up monologue. He first feigned a scolding over the assassination of the United Healthcare CEO, then sharply and succinctly pivoted from expressing sympathy to a great punch line: “Sometimes drug dealers get shot.” Then he chatted a little about Trump and worked into a few of the jokes Menendez Brothers a…there were definitely laughs, because Rock is still a talented comedian who clearly thinks more in terms of stand-up than sketches or scripts, but man was still able to remember a look at the guy who was publicly slapped for it GI Jane Joke 25 years too late. Plus, I’m watching him again SNLwho, while still not exactly indulging in live sketch comedy but trying anyway, was a reminder that sometimes the show’s oddball moments can create more compelling comic tension than the gentlest professionalism.

What was going on?

In terms of a thoroughly well-written, old-fashioned sketch comedy that made unexpectedly good use of Rock’s admirable enthusiasm and questionable ability to play Weird Guys Who Keep Saying Weird Stuff, this Secret Santa bit was great. Funny lines and moments on the side: Rock’s character not only loves his Secret Santa gift, but also allows it to stimulate his imagination and his possibly questionable understanding of it The Simpsonsand the cheerfulness of the whole company made this a success. The blind date sketch with Rock that closed out the evening wasn’t exactly a success, but it was notable to see that another Weird Guy Saying Weird Stuff sketch, with a more traditional hook, didn’t work quite as well .

I also found Jane Wickline’s second Update song very funny, a cleverly off-center take on pop music fandom where she sings “as” Sabrina Carpenter, protesting the complete lack of distrust of her sexuality. So far, Wickline is more in the early ’90s tradition, although her TikTok background is more akin to sketches than stand-up SNL Players like Rock, whose special personality rather than their great versatility seems to be the reason for their hiring. But while I’ve been impatient in recent years with the show’s seeming interest in recreating a Pete Davidson dynamic, in 2024 the show does a better job of balancing traditional ensemble casts like Ashley Padilla with more idiosyncratic personalities like Wickline. The 1993 version of Jane Wickline would be encouraged to create a recurring one-note sketch as soon as possible.

What was going on?

Kenan really nails it when it comes to the security guard whose harassment elicits far more affection from a group of office workers who deeply disapprove of him than from a more piggish manager or supervisor. But really, there was no reason to release this, what was it, a third time? It just can’t compete with everyone’s favorite recurring sketch: Michael Che protesting, “It’s the ’90s” after a Weekend Update joke.

Most Valuable Player (who may not be ready for prime time)

Even considering how surprisingly well Sarah Sherman integrated her sensibilities into the show, it was a big week for her, especially considering her hair and costumes were never anything more than “a little edgy” — and that served mainly her acting qualifications as real person Nancy Grace. The opening to “Nancy Grace” was a real revelation in the sense that I had no idea that Nancy Grace was still there (although of course she is). Since this is actually a really funny sketch, Sherman added a few odd touches, and the interrupting YouTube commercials (featuring Marcello Hernandez as an “insanely loud guy”) added a fun textural wrinkle. “Best” isn’t always “most,” but Sherman really nailed the episode this week.

The next time

Martin Short takes the five-timer bag in his final appearance as presenter in December, and Hozier apparently still exists too!

Crazy observations

• • I’d like to get more into music discussions in these recaps, and perhaps I will at some point, but nothing I have to say about Gracie Abrams will seem overly original. She sounds like Taylor Swift. Kind of like Taylor Swift. She looks a bit like Dua Lipa meets Phoebe Bridgers. I saw someone say on the internet that she meant, “If Phoebe Bridgers were talented,” and that depressed me for a few minutes until I realized that some people are just really young.
• • Dismukes playing a super-defensive bald guy on “Update” made me laugh, although it was confusing territory to cover so soon after the bald guy song they played on the Bill Burr episode about a month ago.
• • The two filmed numbers, “Grandpa’s Magic Car” and “Your Office Christmas Party,” both felt like they could have been removed from Rock’s second appearance as host in 2014 or (COVID aside) his third appearance in 2020 ; Both were funny enough, but I’d give the preference to “Your Office Christmas Party” because, frankly, I’m a sucker for skits that ironically use the announcer’s voice in a monster truck rally style. In that sense, it wasn’t a “Kick-Spit Underground Rock Festival” or aggro Black Friday ad (“Find him! Touch him! Win!”), but more like a jazzed-up version of the classic Thanksgiving ad for “Your Hometown.”