SNL Scorecard: Dua Lipa

It’s May, which means much like the academic year and the club football season, Season 49 of Saturday Night Live is nearing its end. After a phenomenal three-episode run in April, the show took two weeks off before kicking off the three-episode stretch this month to close out the season last night.

Any time an extended break immediately follows a great episode, let alone three consecutive great episodes, there’s a fear that the show will lose its momentum. The show certainly did their best to avoid that fate on their choice of host, though. Dua Lipa has, in the last several years, become one of the biggest stars in pop music, and while she had made a couple terrific stops by the program as musical guest (and even popped up with a delightful cameo in a sketch a few years back), this would be her first time helming the show as host. The buzz about her being chosen as host and musical guest was immense, especially considering her newest album Radical Optimism just dropped on Friday. And there isn’t a hint of bias at all why I say that she is objectively the most beautiful, talented and brilliant host the show has ever had, and also she should probably dump this “boyfriend” of hers and hit me up sometime so I can tell her all about how I feel about her…hosting SNL. 

Anyways, the exciting choice of “Dua double duty” proved to not be an effective barrier against the 'loss of momentum' claims, or at least a foolproof one. The host herself proved more than capable of holding her own in sketch comedy acting, and provided a great set as musical guest. But, while host and cast provided plenty of funny moments, this episode stalled out on poor writing much more than any episode in the last month-plus, resulting in a perfectly fine but unsatisfying show.

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 18th episode of the season:

Sketch of the Night

"OBGYN": 7.5/10

I find it interesting that Ego Nwodim played a pregnant woman in two different sketches tonight. Is that a hint?!?!? Am I on to something?!?!?

Anyways, this was delightfully horrifying. Perfect ‘late-episode’ chaotic energy, and I love that even in Year 37 of his being in the cast, Kenan can still have Ego, Mikey Day and Punkie Johnson barely keeping it together. In an episode without any real standouts, this ball of fun towards the end of the night takes top honors.

The Good

“Weekend Update": 8/10

Weekend Update has been more hit or miss than usual lately, but they got back on track in a major way this week. The co-anchors had some of their best material in quite some time; though I’m not surprised by it, necessarily, I did find it ironic that Michael Che’s best joke (which he said himself) got the most muted response. I also can’t get enough of his Stallone impression— or more specifically, how much he enjoys his Stallone impression. Both walk-on appearances by cast members were great, too, between Marcello Hernandez’s hilarious bit as “Kristi Noem’s other dog” and Chloe Fineman’s spot-on JoJo Siwa impression. Unfortunately, a great segment lost steam at the end with the needless and unfunny appearance by Jerry Seinfeld, which felt all too much like Lorne Michaels giving a handout to an old friend who’s fallen out of favor somewhat recently.

“Young Spicy": 7.5/10

This one stayed in one lane from the very start, so it was somewhat obvious where this was going, but thanks to solid writing and acting all around, it stayed funny throughout. It’s similar to bits they’ve done before, so it didn’t feel wholly original, but if it ain’t broke, I guess.

“Monologue": 7.5/10

Anyone else start barking at their screen once the host walked out onstage? Okay, okay, sorry. Dua Lipa is much more than just the hottest person in the world, she’s a terrific singer and musician, and a star on stage. I was excited to see how she handled the monologue, usually the most daunting aspect for a first-time host with no acting background. I thought she was great! Clearly a little bit nervous, but she came prepared with some solid self-referential content, and that was one of the funniest “questions from the audience” bits in a monologue in some time— I had to pause after Bowen Yang’s line because of how hard I was laughing. I appreciated that it was short and sweet, too, no need to overstay the welcome.

"The Anomalous Man": 7/10

I ended up finding this a lot funnier than I thought it would. The exposition in this sketch took so long that I honestly thought the sketch might just be an old-school surreal/absurd production rather than a ‘funny’ bit, but the twist was hilarious. Was the payoff worth the long, bizarre buildup? Maybe not totally, but I respect the wildly original sketch with a solid punchline.

"Penne Alla Vodka: 7/10

Making faux commercials for everyday mundane things/shared experiences is an underrated SNL genre, imo. Much like the subject matter itself, this is just right for a mid-show mock ad: it won’t show up on any “best of” lists or go viral, but a very solid bit that helped get the episode somewhat back on track after the weaker sketches that preceded it.

“Teeny Tiny Statement Pin": 6.5/10

A clever, if unspectacular end to the show. I wish this would have been earlier in the episode, or just online as a Cut For Time video, as I think its more straightforward humor would have met the audience better in those contexts. Still, a solid bit!

“Jingle Pitch 2": 6/10

I can’t say I necessarily expected a return of Andrew Dismukes’ and James Austin Johnson’s soul-blues duo, but I don’t hate it. This wasn’t all that funny, per se, but they’re just having so much fun, Dua and Bowen Yang included. It’s hard not to enjoy that.

"Community Affairs Cold Open": 6/10

Whew, I was nervous about this. From the outset it reeked of SNL thinking “well, we can’t NOT address this issue, but we don’t really want to.” But impressively, it found a funny angle in Kenan Thompson’s supportive but overbearing parent character. It still felt like the writers didn’t really know how to fully commit to a humorous sketch involving the sad and scary protest crackdowns, nor did they know how to end it, but it was a surprisingly decent start to the show.

The... Less-Good

"Good Morning Greenville": 5.5/10

Similarly to the cold open— albeit with a much less serious topic —this kinda felt like SNL trying to address a buzzy contemporary issue without really knowing how to do it. Also like the cold open, I appreciated the creative way it approached the issue, and it had plenty of funny moments, but ultimately fell short of being truly memorable.

"Sonny Angel": 3.5/10

I still haven’t seen Challengers, but thanks to Twitter’s inability to shut up about it, I pretty much understood what was going on in this sketch. Even with that, this was a mess, and I can only imagine how unfunny people who DON’T know anything about the movie thought it was.

Musical Performances

Dua Lipa: 8/10

As mentioned in the intro, this may have been her first time as host, but Dua is no stranger to the Studio 8H stage, having graced it twice as musical guest. Her last appearance, in the 2020 Christmas episode, was one of the best of that very season. This stage is so unforgiving that, even with how big a Dua fan I am and how much I liked Radical Optimism, I would have been nervous about her ability to perform well. But with the prior precedent of her crushing it, I was confident she would turn in at least a good show.

And she rewarded that confidence and then some. Of course she did! She’s a star. Her first performance, of latest single “Illusion,” was electric. Even if her vocals were fairly flat throughout the track, the choreography and her dancing were on point, and the set design very cool (although I was sad not to see the tower from the music video recreated). Her second performance, of album-ender “Happy For You” was beautiful. Much less choreography involved for the emotional ballad, but Dua’s vocals sounded phenomenal, and the closing shot of her wind-blown outline in the blinding lights…iconique. 

Did it surpass her terrific 2020 set, in terms of song selection and vocal performance? I don’t think so. But when this is the “weaker” of your last two appearances, you’ve got a good thing going. 

OVERALL SCORE: 6.67 ('Comedy Only' score: 6.55)