SNL Scorecard: Regina King / Nathaniel Rateliff

I lamented the premature nature of my excited prognostication last week, but then proceeded with said prognostication anyway, that Saturday Night Live had turned a corner and was moving full steam ahead. I should have known that as soon as I made such a confident declaration that the show would see its least memorable episode in some time.

To be fair, last night's episode was not bad. It had a whole lot more good material than bad, and host Regina King was a confident, easygoing natural in her hosting debut. If this had aired near the beginning of the season, I likely would have felt a lot more positive about it in comparison to the opening stretch of sloppy and often boring episodes. But, on the back of so many good-to-great episodes in a row, spanning back to pre-Thanksgiving, this felt like a bit of a step back. Some of it-- arguably most of it --is not even on the cast and writers themselves: the studio audience for last night's show was one of the most dead live audiences I think I have ever seen on this show. I understand there's a lot going on in the world right now, it's a smaller crowd than usual, everyone's slightly muffled by masks....I get it. But still, woof. They were not easy to please, and that kind of thing can completely suck the energy out of the show. That much was obvious last night in some timing and production errors and uncharacteristically low energy from some cast members. Again, this did not make the episode bad, but it harmed what could have likely been a far more memorable installment of the show.

Here's the sketch-by-sketch breakdown of the 12th episode of the season:

Sketch of the Night

“Women's Theater”: 7/10

It took until the last sketch of the night, but the episode finally found a perfect balance between an original idea with a genuine comedic payoff. I have no idea why the studio audience wasn’t really responding to this one, because I loved the dead-on portrayal of this sort of slam poetry/monologue show. I lost it at the last line of the women’s set (I won’t spoil it for you).

The Good

“Birthday Gifts": 7/10

I could kind of tell where this one was headed early on, when Aidy Bryant was continually pulling out house signs with no real punchline. But my anticipation just made the payoff that much more fun. This is one of those niche things SNL does that I think is so funny: take a seemingly heartwarming, innocuous thing and just slowly turn it increasingly dark.

“The Negotiator": 7/10

This was a bold sketch to break out before the 10-to-1 slot! I wonder if there was more to it that had to get trimmed out for time, because it feels like it ended abruptly, but man, I was rolling from the first gummy bear’s appearance. The fact that this sketch, while funny, could really double as a bad trip for anyone who happened to be watching after consuming weed gummy bears (not that I can relate) is particularly dire.

"What's Your Type?": 6.5/10

I honestly didn’t know how to feel about this one. The central dynamic was obviously funny, but the cringe factor was SO intense that it teetered on unenjoyable for me. Plus I felt like more could have been done with Ego Nwodim’s character. That said, King, Mikey Day and Cecily Strong in particular had enough memorable lines to turn this into a really good, albeit not particularly memorable sketch.

"Pelotaunt": 6.5/10

This alternative brand of Peloton bikes is catered to the people who don't respond to the positive affirmation and motivation that is a hallmark of the Peloton brand. It was a simple enough joke, but pulled off well.

“Monologue": 6/10

First off, can we talk about how Regina King hasn’t aged a day since I first had a crush on her in Daddy Day Care? She is gorgeous and was positively radiating on that stage. She was unsurprisingly comfortable up there, and her comedic timing was good, too! It was a short, and simple enough monologue, but Kenan as the hype man was a fun touch.

“Weekend Update": 6/10

For the second consecutive week, the Update performance was in line with the episode as a whole. Unfortunately, this week that meant “okay, but not great.” The jokes certainly felt a little weaker this time around, but it still felt better than the response it got from the audience. I suppose people weren’t particularly ready to laugh at the Capitol insurrection or at eating babies, which, saying it out loud, I now guess is reasonable. I do feel a little bad for Lauren Holt, though; her Weekend Update debut could have been better with a more responsive audience but it felt like there were a couple clear comedic moments that they just completely ignored. Thankfully, Beck Bennett is too big to fail in my eyes, and his “Drunk Tom Brady” helped Update end on a stronger note.

The... Less-Good

“Gorilla Glue": 5/10

I honestly love how they jumped all over this viral story, but perhaps the audience wasn’t totally up to speed because for the most part they seemed a little lost. I loved the crazy hairstyles and the references to “Big Gorilla”, but it felt like it just went on a little too long.

“Second Impeachment Trial Cold Open”: 5/10

After two non-political cold opens to start off 2021, it was somewhat disappointing to see them return to a traditional format, but I suppose the impeachment hearings were too big a story to ignore. This saw what I believe was the introduction of Alex Moffat’s inch-perfect Tucker Carlson, as well as the welcome return of Beck’s Mitch McConnell and a brief star turn from Pete as Trump’s perturbed 2nd lawyer. But, and this is probably the only time I have ever said this, I could have done without Kate and Aidy’s appearances, as Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz, respectively. I’ve said before that McKinnon’s Lindsey Graham is the worst of her otherwise terrific impressions. I have to imagine part of the reason they’re playing them is the assumption the real-life figures will be annoyed that women are playing them, which, fine; but the impressions themselves aren’t very good, which somewhat killed any momentum the skit had from the start.

“70s Green Room”: 4.5/10

I really wanted to like this one, because it was so silly and felt more energetic than just about anything else on the night. But, it was a one-note sketch that really just didn’t end up going anywhere. It definitely could have been a little better utilized as a pure 10-to-1 bit.

Musical Performances

Nathaniel Rateliff: 6.5/10

My knowledge of Nathaniel Rateliff was very limited coming into last night, but I did know his fantastic song "S.O.B." I also had heard from my sister, a fan of his, that he was "a country singer who does a bunch of work with organizers on climate change & Black Lives Matter." So needless to say, I came into the episode eager to listen to him and prepared to like him.

His first performance was of his single "Redemption," a song that played in a commercial for that new Justin Timberlake movie immediately after this performance. It really is a beautiful song, but like so many performers before him, Rateliff felt a little restricted by the Studio 8H stage. From a performance standpoint, things got better with the 2nd performance, where he and his crew rocked out a soulful performance of "A Little Honey."

OVERALL SCORE: 6.09 ('Comedy Only' score: 6.05)