SNL Scorecard: Shane Gillis / Tate McRae

I was late to the game this weekend, as a full plate of work and Oscar party prevented me from watching the latest episode of Saturday Night Live until two nights after it aired. But that was nothing compared to what the writers, cast and crew of the show had to find the strength and dedication to do over the weekend. Not even a full week after the conclusion of its multi-day mega 50th birthday celebration palooza, SNL's team got right back to it, and resumed business as usual.

It's funny, I'm an avid listener now to the Lonely Island Podcast with Seth Meyers, and greatly enjoyed listening to their episode last week recapping the 50th anniversary special, and hearing some of their behind the scenes chatter. But one of the things they talked about was how immediately all the stress of working on that show returned to them, as they poured effort into writing, acting, even producing a number of the bits for the live show. They made a point to mention, at the tail-end of this discussion, that where the four of them (and most other alumni involved) got to relax and party once the live special ended, the current SNL staff barely got any downtime before immediately needing to return to work.

All this long windup to say: I went into the episode with fairly low expectations. How could I not? The time since their last regular live episode may not have been quite as long as the annual holiday break, but it wasn't far off, and where the holiday season at least (in theory) would provide rest and rejuvenation for everyone, this "break" was really just even more work, to put on what many would hope was SNL's grandest show yet. Burnout has to be expected, at least until the next week off. In that regard, perhaps it was for the best that the choice of both host and musical guest were two people who appeared just last season, and frankly, neither of whom set the world on fire. It would have been malpractice to try to throw a first-time host (and also musical guest, for that matter) out there with a malnourished crew and a studio and TV audience that's positively saturated with SNL content by now. Yet, at the same time, you wouldn't want to risk going with a bona fide A-list host right away and attracting mega eyeballs for an episode unlikely to have the juice to match the hype.

Enter former 1-day cast member and currently very successful comedian Shane Gillis and up-and-coming Canadian pop star Tate McRae. With expectations properly lowered, I was able to at least enjoy this one a decent bit! It was not a very good episode, and the host's shortcomings-- at least in live sketch comedy --were on full display. But it was the rare (these days, at least) episode that actually grew into itself as the night went on, improving from an incredibly rocky start to a noticeably stronger second half of the night. Given that even the strongest episodes of the show in recent years have tended to explode out of the gate, and then somewhat fizzle out, it was at least a nice change of pace for the 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 13th episode of the season:

Sketch of the Night

"Please Don't Destroy - The Sound": 8/10

It’s always a little jarring to see the PDD trio do a full on ‘digital short’ and not just a small bit within their office. This was hilarious, though, and the best use of the host all night. The sound effects were an easy laugh for me every time, as was Shane Gillis’s perfectly timed little smirk as the judges all turned around the first time. Great return to form for Please Don’t Destroy in a season in which they’ve felt noticeably absent.

The Good

“CouplaBeers": 7.5/10

This was great. It lost a little bit of steam down the stretch (ironically, it could have used a “Lil Bump”) but this was one of the few examples all night of a successful use of Shane Gillis’s ‘bro humor.’

“Wedding Interruption": 7.5/10

This wasn’t the funniest sketch of the night, and likely won’t make any “Best of 2025” lists at year’s end. But I appreciated it because it was one of the only examples all night of a sketch that a. had a funny and original premise, and b. wasn’t derailed by bad line reads and/or a really sloppy conclusion. This was lots of fun.

“Doctor's Visit": 7.5/10

I’m a simple man. I’ll laugh at crude humor when it’s the last sketch of the night and includes puns and entendres galore.

"Dad's House": 7/10

I’m sad James Austin Johnson’s brief cameo didn’t get many laughs, because his one line about the dolphin made me cackle. Also, Ashley Padilla is really carving out a nice niche for herself as a reliable source for an intentionally dramatic line read. Anyways, this was another hilarious idea for a sketch that because of Gillis’s poor line-reading and a bad ending, was just pretty good instead of great.

"Weekend Update": 7/10

A hit or miss outing from the co-anchors, more so than usual. Some real highlights, but also a couple of groaners, including the unwelcome return of both Michael Che’s anti-women’s basketball jokes and his confusing “it’s the 90s!” gag. The walk-on appearances, too, were a mixed bag. Marcello Hernández’s “Movie Guy” had me cackling from the very start. I really hope that’s a return character. The only other appearance, though, was a so-so showing from Jane Wickline. I’m a big fan of Jane, truly, but it feels like she and the show both are trying to figure out how to retrofit her very online brand of humor into a network show. This song was a perfect example; “person who can only be romantic in the context of the trolley problem” is the exact kind of niche bizarro stuff that would kill on TikTok, but just didn’t really land as a Weekend Update bit.

“Mid-Day News 2": 6.5/10

Even though it was never going to be as novel the second time around, I wasn’t gonna complain about a reprise of one of the best sketches of 2019. The humor proved to be a great formula once again, but between Gillis’s timing errors and a somewhat sloppy finish, this one just didn’t end up nearly as memorable as its first iteration.

The... Less-Good

“Winery Tour": 5.5/10

There wasn’t much here, other than a played-out stereotype of the ‘difficult girlfriend.’ Fortunately Heidi Gardner’s commitment to the bit at least lent some hilarity in the latter half of the sketch.

“Monologue": 5/10

Yeesh. Not Shane’s best material— some might argue the intent was to provoke the audience, and I can entertain that idea, but the thing is, he seemed genuinely uneasy with how much they weren’t going for his material. The only funny bits throughout were the parts where when he referenced how much they weren’t enjoying it. He did stick the landing on the joke at the very end, though, I’ll give him that.

“Elon Musk Cold Open": 4/10

Not to sound like the friend that’s too woke, but I don’t think I’m ready to laugh at the Oval Office debacle yet, even two days after this episode aired. I understand SNL couldn’t not talk about the biggest news story of the week, but sheesh, it’s just so bleak. JAJ and Bowen Yang (who would go on to present at the Oscars the next night!) did their best to salvage the comedy as the comically absurd Trump and Vance, and there were some good moments. But, especially with the addition of Mike Myers’ Elon Musk, this just felt like a throwback to SNL in the first Trump term, where they sacrificed any subversive comedy for the cathartic release of making it clear they hate Trump (and Elon), too.

Musical Performances

Tate McRae: 7/10

I swear I’m not exaggerating- about once a month, Twitter decides my algorithm needs to be plastered with Tate McCrae content. I don’t know how or why, but seriously, every several weeks, the app loops me into Tate McCrae Stan Twitter, somewhere I have never asked to be. Anyways, they have been trying to tell anyone who will listen that she is IT, she is THE MOMENT, she is THE NEXT GREAT POP STAR. 

I’ve never really understood it, but honestly, after an absolutely electric first performance of her single “Sports car.”I thought of my new forced family of Twitter Tater Tots and how excited they must have been. I still can’t really go for the nasally vocals, and that’s a personal preference of mine, but there’s no denying she’s blossoming into a serious performer. Girl can dance.

Interestingly enough, the stacked-chair set design was back for the second performance, but not the choreography. This song, “Dear god,” had a decent sound, and Tate’s performance was perfectly fine, but given that it was slower and not a dance number, it was really just about the vocals, and truthfully, her vocals don’t interest me quite as much. 

OVERALL SCORE: 6.59 ('Comedy Only' score: 6.55)