The joke swap on Weekend Update and the NYPD sketch about the character actors were the only things that made me laugh. The rest was meh at best.

 

I thought it was pretty good and a worthy season finale. They did a sequel to the classic Cancelling Spectrum Cable sketch from 2.5 years ago, this time targeting Southwest Airlines. I liked the Scooby-Doo casting... you can tell Sarah pitched it from all the gore.

 

The Scooby Doo sketch cracked me up. The Weekend Update joke swap was funny, especially the one about Che and Kendrick Lamar.

I'd never heard of Sabrina Carpenter before and will probably never hear of her again. I watched to about half of her two performances and they seemed pretty generic, like 187 other female vocalists could have done the same thing.

 

It was one of those rare episodes where the last two sketches to me were the funniest. I loved the NYPD sketch and I thought the Tavern sketch was funny too. Both had me really laughing.

WU joke off was funny as it always is. I liked the cold opening as well.

I thought the Southwest "ad" was funny, and so true, hahaha.

I didn't realize Jake could sing. I guess he wanted to show that off, as I think he sang a couple of times.

As for Sabrina, I agree with @cheesesteak. She's so typical of a lot of recent female artists where the stage show trumps any musical talent. That was some of the most obvious lip syncing I've seen since Jessica Simpson!. There was one portion of one of the songs where she wasn't even moving her lips and words were coming out of her mouth. It looked ridiculous. She's another pretty face that they try to turn into a pop star. I'd be surprised that in 5 years we even remember her. But who knows right?

 

It was one of those rare episodes where the last two sketches to me were the funniest. I loved the NYPD sketch and I thought the Tavern sketch was funny too. Both had me really laughing.

WU joke off was funny as it always is. I liked the cold opening as well.

I thought the Southwest "ad" was funny, and so true, hahaha.

I didn't realize Jake could sing. I guess he wanted to show that off, as I think he sang a couple of times.

As for Sabrina, I agree with @cheesesteak. She's so typical of a lot of recent female artists where the stage show trumps any musical talent. That was some of the most obvious lip syncing I've seen since Jessica Simpson!. There was one portion of one of the songs where she wasn't even moving her lips and words were coming out of her mouth. It looked ridiculous. She's another pretty face that they try to turn into a pop star. I'd be surprised that in 5 years we even remember her. But who knows right?

It was Ashley Simpson that notoriously botched her lipsync on SNL.

 

This was by far the worst SNL episode since I've been watching the last 3-4 years, to the point where I wondered at one point if they saw cancellation coming and just stopped trying. They AREN'T cancelled, not remotely, but that's just how it felt. Or maybe Lorne Michaels is just being a short timer for 50.

It's strange though, don't they usually pump out their best material for finales?

 

It's funny how tastes are, because I thought it was actually one of the better episodes of the season (and people here chide me for always being negative about the current state of the show). As I said, several of the sketches actually had me laughing, which doesn't happen too often these days. WU was great, the cold opening was pretty good and I thought Jake was pretty good as host. Only downer for me was lip syincing Sabrina. She might as well have sent a music video rather than being there sort of live. I forgot to mention the cool cameo by John Hamm. Now, perhaps the funniest sketch, the NYPD one, hits home to me because I'm local, but to me, it was funny (though they've done a lot of NY based skits before. Heck Rosanne Rosanadana was based on a real NY news reporter).

 

The cold open was great and I liked the airline sketch and Weekend Update. I liked the Scooby-Doo film until it got violent.

I liked the school that was shown for one of Che's jokes at the end.

I've heard of the host, I guess, and he seemed to do a good job.

The rabbi from Weekend Update was not thanked at the end. She seemed uncomfortable with the jokes and I guess that was the point.

I gave the singer a chance when her second song didn't have too many instruments. That song was pretty close to what I like. Too much dancing and too many instruments in the first song as I fast-forwarded.

Do those who skip commercials miss the behind the scenes looks? They showed inside the control room one time. I couldn't see any detail on the various screens.

 

The rabbi from Weekend Update was not thanked at the end. She seemed uncomfortable with the jokes and I guess that was the point.

When they did something similar at the end of last season, it was an actor playing the part of the civil rights leader, so I'm guessing it might be the same thing here. I wonder why they chose a rabbi. I don't think Jost is Jewish, his wife is half Jewish so maybe that's why.

Do those who skip commercials miss the behind the scenes looks? They showed inside the control room one time. I couldn't see any detail on the various screens.

I skip commercials (using the 30 second skip) and sometimes I get glimps of the behind the scenes stuff they show halfway through the ads. I always felt it was an excuse to say they showed show content in between six minutes of ads. On this note, I have figured out that it's exactly 4 skip button pushes to skip past the opening credits, so that works great for me. Seriously 2 minutes of opening credits? That's ridiculous.

 

I was just really hoping, as I watched the WU bit with the Rabbi, that she was totally in on all the content that was going to happen and was ok with it. I'm non-religious so I don't have a dog in this fight, but I cared about how she felt, how she was treated, and just really hoped that they didn't pull any surprises that would make her uncomfortable.

 

And not only is Jill a real practicing Rabbi, she's also a Cantor. They should book her as a musical guest next season.

 

I only remember maybe half of these.

https://www.npr.org/2024/05/20/1252448986/snl-musical-guests-ranked-season-49

 

This seems as good a place as any to mention this.

In order to see Sam Waterson's final "Law & Order" I record from 8 to 9 on Thursdays, and that was when the Red Nose Day special aired. Colin and Che did a special "Weekend Update" and Kate was their guest, playing an older woman employed by the network who pledged to contribute a lot of money if Colin and Che would kiss. Colin did it, but not on the lips.