SNL Scorecard: Scarlett Johansson / Niall Horan
2019's penultimate Saturday Night Live episode aired this past weekend, with a familiar host at the helm, and a familiar musical guest onstage. Niall Horan made his debut as a solo musical guest on the show, but had graced the Studio 30 stage thrice before as a member of One Direction. As for the host, Scarlett Johansson returned for the 6th time, a number that's hard to believe, considering the actress is just 35 years old, and doesn't have a vaunted stand-up comedy career. She's not a surprising choice for right now, though; the actress has had an an enormous year, playing major roles in the box-office smash Avengers: Endgame, indie treasure Jojo Rabbit, and most recently, Netflix's critical hit Marriage Story. Fun fact: Johansson last hosted the show in 2017, during which she began a relationship with head writer and Weekend Update co-anchor Colin Jost. The two are now engaged!
The less fun fact: SNL strangely relied on a lot of callbacks from prior episodes, including two repeat sketches from previous Christmas episodes, and two sketches from ScarJo's gig just two years ago. This wasn't necessarily a disaster, as much of the funnier stuff on the night in fact came from the well of 'already-done' material, but it does perhaps speak to the writers becoming fatigued as we near the show's Christmas break.
Here's the sketch-by-sketch breakdown of the 9th episode of the season:
Sketch of the Night
“I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”: 7.5/10
Forget “Baby It’s Cold Outside,” I’ve always thought the most unnerving Christmas song is “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.” I’m glad Cecily Strong seems to agree, and am even more glad that she so brilliantly helmed this parody song about an even darker “I Saw Mommy” timeline. It was around this time last year that I started my #getCecilyanEmmy campaign, and I think it’s about time we start that up again.
The Good
“Office Apology": 7.5/10
This skit last appeared in another Christmas season’s episode, James Franco’s from 2017. (As far as I know, that was the only appearance of Kenan Thompson's "Charlie" before tonight.) As this wasn’t the only repeat sketch of the night, I know I should be annoyed by the somewhat laziness of the writing, especially because this is almost a carbon copy of the Franco sketch. But I can’t help but just eat up every second of this one. Kenan is just so hilarious, and his interaction with Bowen Yang in particular this time killed me, as did the reasons for Charlie’s firing.
“Singing Elves": 7/10
This is a reprise of the Funeral Song sketch from ScarJo’s last hosting gig, and thus may have lost a bit of the surprise factor, but man, this premise is so funny every time. And as ridiculous as they are, the songs are consistently pretty catchy! No wonder Beck Bennett’s character is happy (for the first time, according to his wife)!
"Children's Clothing Ad": 7/10
SNL loves to poke fun at the ‘bratty kids of holidays,’ and this was an original way to do so. Every single outfit and scenario they presented were 100% realistic— and this is coming from someone who doesn’t even have kids. Best of all, they finished with a sweet touch, true to form for a holiday episode.
“American Households Cold Open": 6.5/10
This may have been my favorite cold open of the season thus far. Not the best, necessarily; I still think the Democratic Town Hall from David Harbour’s episode was funnier. But this was a delightfully original take on a political cold open, and using the Atlanta family as comic relief rather than strictly focusing on “liberal families vs. conservative families” was a really nice touch. I don’t really know that Kate McKinnon’s Greta Thunberg was necessary at the end, but it was enjoyable all the same.
“Monologue": 6/10
This was kind of a mess, and I agree with Beck’s confusion as to why they were doing an Avengers monologue at the end of 2019, but hey, it was humorous, and it’s certainly fun to see the whole cast get involved. Also, Johansson and Jost make their first (and surprisingly, only) “couple” appearance of the night in a cute way. Aw.
“Weekend Update": 6/10
It was another decent outing for Update as a whole, but Che and Jost had their second-straight subpar week in terms of the quality of their jokes. The split-screen Che called for juxtaposing his co-anchor with Big Cosby, was absolutely hilarious. But otherwise, this week belonged to the guests, Yang’s always-catty Chinese Trade Secretary, and Kyle Mooney as an absurd (and disappointingly human) Baby Yoda.
“Hot Tub Christmas”: 6/10
Go figure that the first entirely original premise of the night was an absolute nutball of a sketch. This wasn’t the funniest of the night, but it may have been the most memorable. There was about a 1-2 minute stretch in the middle of Johansson and Strong’s song-- I think after Niall Horan joined in --where I couldn’t stop laughing, mostly just from how strange it was and how much fun they seemed to be having.
“Celebrity Sighting”: 6/10
This ultimately fizzled out after what was a promising start, but I really love that this sketch was likely borne out of somebody (probably Bowen Yang) saying, “What if the models in those choking hazard posters had a massive fan following?”
“A Conway Marriage Story”: 5.5/10
This was a funny premise, and had its moments, but all in all, the idea felt funnier than the end result. I half-expected a Marriage Story parody, but was hoping they’d do one about Johansson and Jost, even if that might be too on the nose.
The...Less-Good
"Another Translator": 5/10
Yet another retread from ScarJo’s last appearance. Whether the live crowd recognized it as being almost the same exact sequence of jokes from 2017 or just were less in the mood for pro-Trump punchlines this time around, this one clearly did not win the audience over. That’s a shame, because it was one of the best of the night in its first iteration, but there undoubtedly was something amiss this time that not even a piglet could rescue.
"Hallmark Dating Show": 4.5/10
It wasn’t too hard to tell what they were going for here, and yes, the plots of Hallmark’s Christmas movies seem to be getting more ridiculously predictable each year. But apart from a couple memorable lines, the snark outweighed the actual humor in this one.
Musical Performances
Niall Horan: 6/10
We're not even halfway through the season, and we've already had two former One Direction members as musical guests on SNL! Horan's former bandmate Harry Styles pulled double duty just a few weeks ago, and now it was the Irish singer's turn in the spotlight.
His first song, "Nice To Meet Ya," was quite the tonal shift from his first solo hit, "This Town," from 2016. This performance channeled a lot of Arctic Monkeys, which is always a recipe for success. His intonation wasn't always on, but his voice is stronger than I recalled, and he certainly brought the energy. Unfortunately, just like the show's humor, his later material, "Put A Little Love On Me," was a little weaker. The slow piano ballad seemed more in line with what we, or at least I, have come to expect from Horan. But, though the song is no doubt heartfelt, he seemed a bit off in his pitch, and coupled with the pace of the song, it caused the performance to drag a bit.
OVERALL SCORE: 6.15 (Comedy Only score: 6.21)