SNL Scorecard: Kristen Wiig / RAYE

As exciting as it is each time for Saturday Night Live to pluck new faces, this season at least has been at its strongest when familiar faces have come back. Good-to-very good outings by Timothée Chalamet, Josh Brolin, and Adam Driver come to mind. It stands to reason, then, that the week that saw the most familiar face of all as the night's host, also yielded easily the best episode of the season, and perhaps the last few seasons.

Legendary cast member Kristen Wiig, who starred in the show from 2005-2012, made her fifth return as host of the show, joining the vaunted ranks of the “Five Timers Club.” (Not, however, as the youngest, as the first woman, nor the first SNL alum, all of which was accidentally and unhelpfully pointed out to her by Matt Damon.) 

I happened to be on a de facto “siblings weekend” last Saturday, and belatedly, we four watched this episode together. Before watching, we SNL nerds lamented the lack of creativity in writing that has plagued the last couple seasons, as well as the inexplicable recent disappearance of some phenomenal cast members like Bowen Yang and Chloe Fineman, and grew nostalgic for the era of Wiig, and her peers Fred Armisen and Will Forte, among others. What a delightful surprise it was, then, to witness an episode that saw Wiig absolutely star, pull those very former cast members to help bring enormous amounts of funny, and some of the most creative writing and widest use of the talented cast we’ve seen all season. It was the ultimate palette-cleanser, and a reminder, even 49 years in, of how good this show can be.

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 13th episode of the season:

Sketch of the Night

"Retirement Party": 9/10

I guess this technically counts as a repeat sketch? It isn’t exactly the same bit, just a reprise of an idea they had done before in the 2010s, with a few familiar faces. I loved previous iterations of Wiig’s emphysema lady, Armisen’s tone-deaf free-love fiend, and Forte’s deeply unsettling white-nationalist-coded characters. 

But, and maybe this is the recency bias talking, this was my favorite iteration of it ever. Every single walk-on guest was hysterical, Mikey Day took on what was usually Jason Sudeikis’ straight-man role expertly, and by the time Will Forte menacingly uttered “Joseph HUSSEIN Biden,” I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe. 

The Good

“Jumanji": 8/10

This is the best example all season (maybe the only example?) of effectively kicking off the live sketches with a tone-setter. I’ve talked multiple times the last couple years about SNL’s trend towards weird choices of first post-monologue sketch and how it gets the episode off to a rocky, muddled start. This one was as random a sketch idea as many of those others were, but was so creatively written and marvelously acted that it became an instant hit, and primed the live and TV audience for a night full of wild, wacky hilarity. 

“La Maison Du Bang!": 7.5/10

A perfect 10-to-1: energetic, zany, and original. It was nice to see yet another great use of the host and many different cast members, right at the tail-end of a strong show. Perhaps it’s just because it reminded me of “Les Jeunes de Paris,” but this felt like another example of the type of creative sketch we saw in Wiig’s era in the cast.

“Secretaries": 7.5/10

This was chaos in the best way. I wasn’t expecting this to be a repeat character, but as my brother Gabriel said, Wiig was a perfect host to play off Heidi Gardner’s wild energy. Heidi is hit or miss for me to be honest, maybe more so than any other main player on the cast. But it’s fun to see her develop a trademark character that feels like it has fan favorite potential.

"Pilates": 7/10

Parodies of workout culture, wellness culture, “basic white woman” culture, whatever you want to call it, are always gonna be a gold mine for comedy. In a weaker episode, this sketch could have and probably would have been a standout. In a show like this one, though, as funny as it is, it doesn’t really make a name for itself amongst the much more unhinged and original bits 

"Weekend Update": 7/10

It's funny how Weekend Update has felt like the consistent funniest thing from this show, yet in the few especially strong episodes, they take more of a backseat. Case in point, the jokes from this segment were more hit and miss than usual, but there were a fair bit of hits at least. Michael Che really needs to drop the women’s basketball jokes; they're lame and outdated. The walk-on guests lifted this installment; Aunt Linda was not the Kristen Wiig character I expected to see back, but what a delight.

“Monologue": 7/10

No surprise that Kristen was a natural on this stage, given her extensive time at Studio 8H, but it was still an impressive level, even breaking out into song effortlessly. I appreciated the clever twist on the typical “5-timers welcome” sketch as well. Truthfully this wasn’t quite as funny as it should have been, given the mega wattage star power on stage. But there were some hilarious moments, and boy was it a fun way to kick off the show.

“TBS March Madness Cold Open": 6.5/10

You know I always appreciate a non-political cold open, and this was refreshingly silly and different! The jokes themselves were a little tame; they never amounted to much more than “the women’s game is better than the men’s” (which is true), and they sorta handled Kim Mulkey with kiddie gloves. It was more fun than funny, I would say, but still, lots of fun!

"Go-Karts": 5.5/10

This had plenty of laughs, but never really figured out where to go, which was especially obvious at the very end. My sister Catherine made the point that this was the only instance all night that felt in line with what we've seen with the current writers, rather than a throwback to the creative, energetic not-so-distant past. Still, when this sketch, which probably would have been among the funnier ones in a lot of Season 49’s episodes, is your weakest, you know you’ve got a good week.

Musical Performances

RAYE: 9/10

I was familiar with the name, but could not have told you a single song by RAYE. In her first performance, of “Escapism.”, I slowly began to realize I had in fact heard this song. I had not, however, heard it in the manner in which she performed it, a jazzy, swingy number that showed off her impressive vocal chops. She absolutely killed it, and brought back the jazzy pop energy for performance number 2, which saw the artist once again get the crowd on its feet (I have to imagine).

It's safe to assume the English singer-songwriter had never performed to this large an American TV audience, and yet, didn't seem at all daunted by the eyeballs on her, nor by the famously unkind SNL soundstage. Her stage presence was electric, and her style combined the powerhouse vocal control of an Amy Winehouse with the creative performity of a Doja Cat. Color me very impressed. 

OVERALL SCORE: 7.44 ('Comedy Only' score: 7.25)