Season 50 Episode 7 Charli XCX

Charli XCX should be the perfect pop niche mix for Saturday Night Live– and maybe she is? Increasingly, it’s difficult to parse what counts as a zeitgeist pop culture joke, perfect for the most mainstream sketch variety show on TV, what counts as a cute reference for a small segment of the audience, and whether any of They are worth pursuing with some special service. Charli serving (and also, if I understand correctly, serving?) as both host and musical guest really helps blur that line, especially when the show merrily leads with material that has enough reruns to put the Spartan cheerleaders to shame.

On the one hand, the first proper sketch of the night follows the “Domingo” sketch from just a month ago, in which Chloe Fineman’s sassy Domingo-doing woo girl is now fired up as her besties favor her with a song about their recent weekend together . -a combination of old-SNL grinding down a nice original sketch and new era does this because the sketch apparently blew up on TikTok. (I’m not on TikTok, but I get it because now I think of that skit every time I hear “Espresso.”) But at the same time, there’s something fun about bouncing off Ariana Grande and singing a parody with Sabrina’s Carpenter “Espresso” is off-key for Charli XCX, who sings a parody of recent musical guest Chappell Roan’s “Hot to Go,” all while continuing the increasingly unlikely saga of Kelsey and Domingo. Can’t say I’d have a problem with Addison Rae directing an off-key spoof of “Von Dutch” for a February trilogy capper.

So is this the hackneyed repeat or the crowd-pleasing encore? Is it brats, or is it calling everyone brats on Twitter while everyone flees to Bluesky? That’s the pop star’s dilemma, innit? Figuring out when to play the hits and when to find a new way to present your entire ideal? brat pulls off the rare trick of doing both at once: distilling Charli’s persona down to something that feels intensely specific to her (for better or, when she starts to sound a bit like Lily Allen, maybe for worse), while they transform these songs into semi-unlikely hits.

Obviously one SNL episode doesn’t need one brat-like replayability, although a few singles to wear is always appreciated. For the first bunch of episodes, it felt more on the hackneyed side, simply because it took an annoyingly long time for the show to bring out a brand new skit: You get more Biden and Trump and a miniature impression parade; the “Domingo” sequel; a revival of the long-dormant impression-parade audition sketch; and the reliably entertaining bake-off sketch that also never really topped the Eddie Murphy series from a few years ago. It’s a little strange when the most original piece of the pattern is yet another new Digital Short. (Seemed like it might be a holdover from one of the weeks Samberg hung around, but it turns out this was one of those weeks too; Charli shows up to help Samberg make the call after the cops after other white people. Good! Not one for Lonely Island’s greatest hits, but no one else on the show can really pull off the musical parodies these days.)

But as the episode went on, it found a bit more genuine brattiness, not just in two Charli musical performances – which, yes, affects the nature of this episode; how better to mark what could be this season’s only instance of me owning every album by the musical guest?! – but in the goofy ensemble sketches: the “Banger Boyz” podcast, which took a sideways trip into the episode’s best sorta-political material; the extremely silly (but novel!) “It Girl Thanksgiving”; and an ideal end-of-night sketch where everyone is a little insane (as befits any group of friends who catch Shrek the Musical together). Also telling that the one original sketch that really fell apart, where Marcello played a commercial acting coach, was the kind of Chris Kattan-y showcase sketch that overwhelmed the other people in it – except for Charli, who did a wonderful piece work on pronouncing DISHONORABLE words AS the teacher’s pet.

In the end, this was really kind of an It Girl Thanksgiving: gathering a lot of obvious stuff and more niche references, doing a lot of impressions that range from spot-on to one-note, and just trying your best to own it.

What was on

Every once in a while, a sketch that is (or appears to be) directed by Bowen Yang will feel like it’s just spouting off non-sequiturs for an imagined super-online audience. This Shrek however, the sketch was perfectly judged with its round-robin escalation and quick oddities; I love it when a sketch walks the line between genuine characterization and outright absurdity. Somehow, terrifyingly, the skit about moronic podcasters managed to be the more grounded of the two brightest live-show non-musical highlights; chalk it up to Dismukes and company having a good ear for the stupid bluster about what is apparently the main source of information, entertainment and possibly friendship for a not insignificant portion of the population.

What was off

In theory, the endless audition sketches are easy pitches. Not every impression deserves its own sketch built around it, and the format allows for quick versions that can last as little as eight seconds. But wouldn’t it be fun if they occasionally dipped into, oh, I don’t know… some movie stars? It’s not like the impressions of Martha Stewart, Janet Jackson, or Bernie Sanders are so stunningly spot-on that they transcend any reason to include them (sorry Chloe Fineman, Ego Nwodim, and Sarah Sherman, all great performers). But it’s a lot more fun to see a version of Sydney Sweeney in these auditions than… people who aren’t actors. It’s not that I’m eager to fact-check a comedy sketch. It just seems like maybe someone in the massive cast could do an impression of Jennifer Lawrence or Leonardo DiCaprio or Dwayne Johnson or Ryan Reynolds or Blake Lively or Ryan Gosling or Channing Tatum? As long as we’re trotting out Martha Stewart in 2024, we’ll have the whole staff on The view on the next one?

Speaking of impression parades: Look, the idea of ​​Trump and Biden’s cozy little fireside meeting is exhausting, but it’s also a perfect opportunity to reboot the robot formula of political cold openings. Why e.g. not write dialogue between the two to make the most of two good impressions, instead of having them both recite things to the camera and then introduce more, less good impressions? Why, it’s Attorney General nominee Matt Gaetz! Shall we?

Most Valuable Player (who may not be ready for prime time)

Sarah Sherman got to sing more about Domingo, do her grieving-animal-widow bit and have fun with Shrek – but it’s Chloe Fineman who better embodies the Charli XCX spirit. Close, but Chloe wins this week.

Next time

Paul Mescal and Shaboozey, an unlikely pairing that nevertheless feels like someone, somewhere, must have guessed correctly at some point.

Stray Observations

• • Wicked audition sketch power rankings: 1. Sydney Sweeney (Chloe); 2. Jojo Siwa (Chloe); 3. Adele (Charlie); 4. Sebastian Maniscalco (Marcello); 5. Shannon Sharpe (Devan); 6. Bad Bunny (Marcello); 7. Leslie Mann (Chloe); 8. Troye Sivan (Charli); 9. Mikey Madison (Heidi); 10. Al Pacino (Dana Carvey); 11. Bernie Sanders (Sarah); 12. Fran Lebowitz (Bowen); 13. Martha Stewart (Chloe); 14. Janet Jackson (Ego); 15. Charli XCX (Bowen)
• • Did that Allstate ad talk like Please Don’t Destroy’s short or were they cut? Sub question: Were they cut for time as a tribute to special guest Kyle Mooney?
• • Oh yes, Kyle Mooney was there! He is probably in New York to promote his film Y2K (he will probably be at a press screening on Monday evening). He’s also now part of SNL’s weird but fun unofficial Season 50 guest list. We’re a third of the way through the season, and every episode has had at least one, usually two or three, former cast members, often more than once. Carvey has definitely logged more screen time than several cast members (and not just newbies!). As this becomes less directly tied to terrible political-themed walk-ons, it also becomes more fun: OK, so this season there will occasionally be a Digital Short or a Carvey impression for a little hint of throwback. It works.
• • Where the hell was…? Here’s the part of the recap where I ask where the hell a certain cast was. Where the hell was Mikey Day? Actually, that’s fine; he’s in a lot of sketches, let him rest.
• • Don’t tell anyone, but my favorite Charli XCX record is Crash.