Bill Burr’s ‘Saturday Night Live’ matches the national mood: Terrible

Saturday Night Live
Bill Burr & Mk.gee
November 9, 2024

Let me just say before going into this recap that I am still furious about the election and the very last thing I needed to comfort me through it was a both-sides-are-stupid comedian talking down to women. Did this color my ability to enjoy this episode? ABSOLUTELY. But here we are, like it or not.

Eight years ago, after Hilary Clinton lost to Former President Fascist-Elect in a shocking turn of events, Kate McKinnon put on her Clinton costume and opened the post-election episode by performing “Hallelujah” on the piano on an otherwise empty stage. I, for one, found it “one of the most moving cold opens Saturday Night Live has ever done,” but others, understandably, found it shlocky and even embarrassing. Hence, after Tuesday’s disastrous election results, one of the first things some people demanded was that Saturday Night Live leave Maya Rudolph alone and certainly not make her sing at a piano.

And they took the advice, choosing instead to go with dark humor. The cast appeared on the stage, looking glum, explaining that this convicted felon who staged a coup and has called for vengeance on his enemies and who no longer has any guardrails has been re-elected into office and THEY ARE GREAT WITH IT! In fact, they’ve been Team Former President Dipshit-Elect this entire time!

The cast then introduces their new character, “Hot Jacked Trump,” before also introducing a less successful Elon Musk as imagined by Dana Carvey.

It was a well-considered idea, maybe could have been funnier, certainly could have been shorter.

Grade: B+

I don’t know what to say about this monologue, except: Maybe, Bill Burr, maybe after another woman has lost the Presidential election due to the deep-rooted misogyny that taints this country’s lifeblood, MAYBE don’t suggest that women need to “whore it up” to win, and maybe don’t call feminists “ugly.” There are some really deep wounds festering right now — IT’S ONLY BEEN 4 DAYS SINCE PARENTS HAVE HAD TO TELL THEIR ELEMENTARY-SCHOOL-AGED DAUGHTERS THAT WE ONCE AGAIN VOTED FOR A SEX PEST INSTEAD OF A WOMAN — and you are just asking to find yourself on the wrong side of Witch TikTok with “jokes” like that, my dude.

AND LOOK, ONCE AGAIN BILL BURR HAS TRAPPED ME INTO SAYING EXACTLY THE KIND OF SHIT HE WANTS ME TO SAY. ~shakes fist at Bill Burr~

Grade: F

In the first non-political sketch of the night, Burr is a fireman who is forced to do some Rorschach tests in front of his entire crew for some reason, and all he sees are weird fetish images involving animated characters, like Mike from Monsters Inc., and the dead wife from Up. Juvenile and dumb and I’m still pissed off from the monologue.

Grade: C+

The last time Burr hosted, the best bit of the episode was a Samuel Adams commercial featuring “real Bostonians” which itself was a callback to a Casey Affleck episode featuring a Dunkin Donuts commercial featuring “real Bostonians.” This time it’s a commercial for a non-specific Boston establishment: Buffalo Wild Wings, but Burr and Mikey Day’s “real Bostonians” are back to scream, fight, and otherwise horrify the people around them.

Grade: A

Hey, remember hair bands from the 80s and how their lyrics were stupid and they dressed like women? Because SNL does.

Grade: B-

In this spoof of Good Will Hunting, a movie that is nearly 30 years old, a young janitor at MIT is brilliant enough to solve an impossible math equation but is too stupid to not realize he shouldn’t mop barf on carpet.

Somehow this sketch goes on for four and a half minutes.

Grade: B-

Here, two young men call their dads just to talk, but their fathers are too emotionally unavailable, so they have to refer to themselves as the Philadelphia Eagles or a car to be able to express their feelings. This one is the same length as the sketch above, and yet somehow feels ten minutes longer.

Grade: C-

Michael Che is just openly straight-up drinking through this “Weekend Update,” and frankly, who can blame him? The jokes are funny-ish: we can finally determine that Democrats don’t know how to rig elections; the Democrats will run Biden again in 2028; jokes about Catholic priests and R. Kelly, just to get some sexual predator LOLs in there.

Grade: B+

Ego Nwodim offers tips on being an “active listener” while searching for something in her purse, and calling Jost “girl” a lot.

Grade: B-

Kenan Thompson’s recurring character Michael Che’s eternally optimistic neighbor Willie, stops by the “Weekend Update” desk to remind us that things could be worse.

Grade: B+

There’s a restaurant filled with bald men who then proceed to sing about being bald. This is bad.

Grade: C

And yet, this episode never seems to end! In this FIVE-AND-A-HALF MINUTE-LONG SKETCH, Bowen Yang plays a spoiled man whining about his trivial issues, like his phone isn’t charging, to a trauma support group filled with people who have real issues. The characters break towards the end but I’m not entirely sure why as this is just a mess.

Grade: C

A woman at her husband’s work dinner attempts to tell a joke and is very bad at it. That’s it. That is the entire sketch.

Grade: C+

 

Final Grade: C+. I stand by this.

Saturday Night Live airs at 10:30/11:30 p.m. Saturdays on NBC and streams on Peacock.