SNL Scorecard: Chris Rock / Gracie Abrams

There's been a lot to celebrate for Lorne Michaels and Saturday Night Live so far this Fall. The famous show is in an unprecedented-- and scarcely believable -- 50th season, and the industry is giving them an appropriate amount of flowers. A 50th anniversary special in February was recently announced, and New York Magazine recently featured an article on the show's relevancy while front-paging a massive spread of famous cast members and hosts over the years. In September, it once again picked up copious amounts of Emmys, and even more Emmy nominations. And perhaps most importantly of all...quietly, this season has actually been pretty good! The last few seasons have often been a struggle and done nothing to quiet the usual chorus of "SNL hasn't been funny in years!!" from the masses, but more than one episode in this young season has produced a night full of hilarious highlights and more innovative writing than we've become used to.

All this to say: the sudden slide in quality as we approach 'Christmas Break' is unfortunately stalling the good amount of late-stage momentum the aging show had built up over the last few months. If SNL's return with Paul Mescal last week was uneven but generally fine, this weekend's episode was, at least in this reviewer's estimation, the first outright bad episode of Season 50.

I'll confess to perhaps some preconceived bias coming into this episode on my part: this was the first host + musical guest combination that did nothing for me. I've never been a huge Chris Rock fan, personally, and the little I had heard from musical guest Gracie Abrams I found completely uninteresting. Still, I don't think it was unfair to expect that a night helmed by an SNL veteran, wildly successful comedian and four-time host of the show in tandem with one of the biggest rising pop stars, might yield a solid night. Instead, an episode started strong with both a good cold open and monologue quickly fell off, thanks to poor writing, and a low-energy effort from a host who seemed oddly nervous and off his game all night. The clunkers on the night significantly outnumbered the memorable moments. It would be disappointing to head into the new year on a real slump; the good news is, next host up is Martin Short, and if any host can rise to the occasion it's a comedic genius like him.

One note in case you forgot- I know my rankings can seem a little arbitrary, and truthfully there have been times where even I will look back at scorecards and think "Now, why did I rate (x) an 8.5, if (x) from this other episode was only a 7...?". So, both to hopefully clear up my scoring system for any curious readers, but also really to help keep myself consistent, here is the rubric to reference:

10/10: Perfect, no notes

8-9.5/10: Very funny-to-hilarious, definite rewatch

6-7.5/10: Pretty funny-to-funny, but won't necessarily be a rewatch

4-5.5/10: Not BAD, but not particularly funny or memorable

1-3.5/10: Terrible/poor taste, to simply bad/unfunny

Here's the sketch-by-sketch breakdown of the 9th episode of the season:

Sketch of the Night

"Crime Stories with Nancy Grace Cold Open": 7/10

I straight up didn’t know Nancy Grace was still a thing. Is she? I don’t even know. I’m not gonna bother to look up what she’s up to, but I haven’t heard that name since the mid-2000s. That said, I usually enjoy a non-political cold open, and usually enjoy a Sarah Sherman-fronted sketch, so the combination of the two yielded an open that both was solidly funny and felt fresh, arguably the first of its kind all season.

The Good

“Monologue": 7.5/10

Chris Rock is the third famous and well-established comedian to host this season already, and the previous ones haven’t exactly set the world on fire with their monologues so far. Between that fact, and the fact that Rock’s last monologue in 2020 wasn’t great, I had lower expectations. So this was a pleasant surprise by those standards! Chris had some pretty solid material across the board, but especially on the UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting. This won’t make his career greatest hits or anything, but good stuff.

“Weekend Update": 7.5/10

In what's generally been a very good season for them, this was one of Che’s and Jost’s weaker nights, overall. The co-hosts had a handful of good moments, but their punchlines were generally weaker, and I really don’t understand Che’s running “it’s the 90s!” gag he has employed almost all seasons. Thankfully, hilarious outings from walk-on guests Andrew Dismukes and Jane Wickline salvaged the segment's quality. SNL is now 2 for 2 on outrageous bald guy material, and Wickline is now 2 for 2 on hilariously witty mock songs on Update.

“Sexual Harrassment Charlie": 6.5/10

This is a repeat sketch, but it's been a hot minute since they trotted it out. Fun as it ever was, Kenan always kills it in these sketches. The jokes were not exactly novel, but everyone seemed to be having a lot of fun with it, and this was one of the only times Chris Rock seemed to be on top of his lines and timing.

"Office Christmas Party Extravaganza": 6/10

This felt like a close approximation of some great past bits the show has done in recent years, such as the Christmas Service and Graduation mock "promos." The punchlines in this one definitely weren't at the same level, but even a skeleton version of recent classics was good enough for one of the funnier moments in this episode.

The... Less-Good

"Simpsons Christmas Gift": 5/10

Most if not all of the side jokes in this one were legitimately funny and cleverly written, but they lost me (and, it seems, most of the audience) with the main joke, Chris Rock’s Simpson character storyline. They did win me back a little bit with everyone committing to the storyline at the end, but not enough for me to consider this anything but mediocre.

"Gallbladder Surgery": 5/10

Another totally forgettable sketch, but unlike most others on the night, this one was at least fun. Props are warranted for the big cameo reveal, and for the chaotic finish. What a mess. A fun mess, mostly! But a mess all the same.

“Mall Santas": 4.5/10

This started with a very funny joke at the outset, but it just never grew into a memorable sketch from there. The host stumbled over the cue cards numerous times, which hurt momentum, and it seemed like they wanted to poke fun at the mild hypocrisy of white liberals, but never really figured out a clever way to do so.

“Grandpa's Magic Car": 4/10

Another one in which we saw a great (racial) joke near the top... and then the sketch never really grew into anything else. It wasn't offensively bad, just boring. I was ready for it to be over long before it finally was, and the ending was not worth the buildup at all.

“Blind Date": 3/10

This sketch felt like Lorne Michaels and co. were like “this will play really well at the slaphappy hours” and just didn't think it through further. I usually would love a wacky 10-to-1, but with this one I was just cringing and waiting for it to be over. A total waste of Ego Nwodim, and Michael Longfellow and Marcello Hernández provided the only funny moments of the sketch, but combined for about 45 seconds of air time.

Musical Performances

Gracie Abrams: 5/10

As I alluded to at the outset, I had heard of Gracie Abrams, increasingly so in recent months, but couldn't name more than one song of hers, and the snippets I had heard did not intrigue me in the least. Thus, I certainly couldn't say I was excited for her musical performances, but I will say I was curious whether she would rock the joint and turn me into a little more of a believer, or if it would be a disaster.

The verdict? Not really either. Her first performance, of current single "That's So True," was a perfectly serviceable performance, especially for a first-timer on an often unforgiving stage. There was nothing impressive about the song itself, though, nor memorable from the production. Her second song, "I Love You, I'm Sorry" was the one track I recognized. Her performance was a little shakier in this instance, though I have definitely heard worse, but that wasn't a huge issue. The bigger issue was, as my sister who was watching with me put it, the song just isn't interesting enough musically or lyrically to generate the amount of discourse it has on Stan Twitter. Was this a disastrous outing from Gracie? Not at all. Did it move the needle of interest in the least? Definitely not.

OVERALL SCORE: 5.50 ('Comedy Only' score: 5.55)