Best, Worst of Ariana Grande's 'SNL'

by Julian Spivey
The third episode of the milestone 50th season of the legendary NBC sketch comedy series “Saturday Night Live” featured singer/actress Ariana Grande hosting with musical guest Stevie Nicks. It was Grande’s second time hosting the show with her big role as Glinda in the upcoming musical “Wicked” next month. It was Nicks’ second time as musical guest on the program, with her first coming all the way back in 1983 during the show’s ninth season – surely that has to be the longest gap between musical performances in the show’s history?

The third episode of the season was pretty solid all the way through, without many highs or lows, but here are the highlights and lowlights anyway. 
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Photo: NBC

Best
Election seasons have always been big for ‘SNL,’ with the show focusing on presidential candidate impressions and mocking presidential debates. The only problem with season 50 is the presidential debates are over with Republican candidate Donald Trump refusing to do any more, so the show had to reimagine how it does political humor in the third episode of the season now that there are no more debates to mock … and it was better off for it. The show has gotten into this habit of almost repeating actual dumb moments from political debates and now was forced to come up with original jokes and did so by putting the candidates and their cohorts into an episode of “Family Feud,” which allowed Kenan Thompson’s ever so faithful Steve Harvey impression to make fun of the idiocy of campaigning. It was Thompson’s line about “white nonsense” after Jim Gaffigan’s Vice President candidate Tim Walz rattled off some stuff that might be in his car’s glove compartment that provided the biggest laugh for me. I know Dana Carvey’s impression of President Joe Biden has quickly become derivative, but I can’t help but continue to laugh and be entertained by it, though there isn’t much Carvey does that doesn’t humor me (at least on ‘SNL’). This was an improvement over last week’s Vice President debate cold open. 

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​Worst
​There weren’t all that many moments in this episode that made me cringe or wish the show wasn’t wasting my time, which is somewhat impressive for any sketch comedy show, with comedy being so hit or miss depending on the sense of humor of people. The sketch that stood out as the weakest of the evening for me was the Castrato sketch in which ‘SNL’ living legends Maya Rudolph (in the studio to play Kamala Harris) and Andy Samberg (in the studio to play Doug Emhoff) play the parents of a young boy, played by Grande, who they have castrated to preserve his high pitched singing voice. They are showcasing him in front of Andrew Dismukes’ prince character. I am grateful the show is trying to use Rudolph and Samberg in an anniversary season, but this wasted their talents. The only performance that stood out in this sketch was Grande’s dead-faced, sexually mutilated boy.   

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Best
​There was a lot of “what is wrong with Stevie Nicks” bullshit on social media sites on Saturday night following her performances of “The Lighthouse” and “Edge of Seventeen” on the episode. Come on, people, she’s 76 years old. What do you expect? She’s a living legend and shouldn’t be treated with disrespect. Anyway, the best part of her performance was her standing up for the fundamental human rights of women in this country with her new song “The Lighthouse” with lyrics like: “I have my scars, you have yours/don’t let them take your power” and “you gotta get in the game/you gotta learn how to play/you gotta make a change/you gotta do it today.” We’ve experienced some damaging and deadly changes in this country over the last few years, and Nicks wants us to know that it will only worsen if we don’t get in the fight and demand change. 

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Worst
‘SNL’ is a well-oiled machine after 49 years and is now into its 50th season, so there aren’t many hiccups during a season. Still, there was quite a noticeable one on Saturday night that thankfully came during a commercial break, so it wasn’t as evident as it would’ve been during a live sketch or performance. Before Nicks’ second performance of the evening, the show was about to return for the performance when Nicks' bumper stayed on screen for nearly a full minute before commercials re-appeared. After a few more commercials, the show resumed with Nicks’s performance of her 1982 classic “Edge of Seventeen.” According to Twitter user ‘That Week in SNL,’ a mixing board freeze resulted in the delay. Anything can happen when a show is live, right?   

Best
My all-time favorite Weekend Update anchor was the late Norm Macdonald. His humor and jokes on the satirical fake news segment he collaborated with writer Jim Downey on were often dark and biting. The show’s WU segment hasn’t always been that way but over the last decade, Colin Jost and Michael Che, now the longest-running WU anchors in the show’s history, have done a good job at bringing some of that biting, edgy and sometimes downright mean humor back to the segment and this week included some excellent moments in this vein.

Colin Jost: “Experts have noted that Donald Trump has struggled to present a softened stance on abortion. In fact, this is the best he’s come up with. [Image of cloth-covered clothes hanger]

Michael Che: “A new report shows that inflation has dropped to its lowest level in four years. Man, I just wish Joe Biden was around to see this.”

Colin Jost: “Fans of the Peanuts comic strip were upset after a fan account endorsed Donald Trump. Even worse, they claimed that Franklin was trying to eat Snoopy.”

Michael Che: “Scientists have released a detailed map of a fruit fly’s brain and it’s actually very different from a straight fly’s brain.” (His response of, “It’s the ‘90s, Colin!” really cracked me up.)

Colin Jost: “The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to a group of Japanese atomic bomb survivors who are trying to free the world of nuclear weapons. The survivors called the award the second biggest surprise of their lives.”  

I don’t know how well this humor plays with today’s audience, but I appreciate it.