SNL IM JUST A BILL UPDATE

For a national audience on a major network, this opener feels unsparing and confrontational.

(And yeah, he does look surprisingly like Dobby the House Elf.)īurr doesn’t make comedy for everyone he makes comedy that wields his savage perspective like a shiv, and makes audiences laugh while they bleed out. Rowling’s controversial comments about trans women, landing some fun jabs in a monologue that ranges from talk of tattoos to who controls the banks in the Harry Potter books. There’s also a particularly good one about the sugary items on McDonald’s new breakfast-bakery menu - they’re all available for “the low, low price of one of your feet.” Pete Davidson takes a few minutes to talk about J.K. Jokes about sharks, horses, and how Sizzler’s buffet is an American wet market are all great. Update’s second half remains a little dark, but as always, there are some jokes about odd news items completely apart from the big headlines. Just when her character begins to grate, the performance becomes a conversation about coping during the pandemic, anticipating a fraught election, and coming to terms with the limits of what we know. Even Kate McKinnon, who comes on as a new doctor character Wayne Wenowdis, performs through a kind of staged breakdown. It’s not wrong, and the majority of it works well, but it is a bit bleaker than usual.

SNL IM JUST A BILL UPDATE

Maybe the limitations were meant to make Burr feel comfortable, but it also made for a pretty cloistered episode.Īs per tradition, this week’s sketches are ranked here from best to worst.Īs Trump recovers from the coronavirus, Michael Che likens it to a car crash in which the “only survivor is the drunk driver.” Because Trump seems to have learned nothing from his experience, Colin Jost likens it to “a guy smoking through a hole in his neck.” So, yeah, as both of them confess between jokes, this week’s Update is a little dark. It would have been fun to see Burr do something different, to play against type - his stand-up monologue is risky, but he never risks failing on someone else’s terms. The writers kept Burr (and his narrow range) in mind, so there weren’t many surprises (or roles outside of that narrow range). Given its host, it’s not surprising that this week’s episode was a bit fixated on who’s allowed to say what, and when they’re allowed to say it.

Though White’s last solo album dropped in 2018 and his last Raconteurs record came out last year - Boarding House Ranch and Help Us Stranger, respectively - his last appearance as a musical guest was in 2012, and he was due for a set.) As Lorne Michaels has a contact or two, he managed to convince Jack White to fill in. (It’s also worth mentioning that the scheduled musical guest, Morgan Wallen, was cut from this week’s show after some TikToks of the budding country star surfaced showing him partying indoors, in public, practicing the kind of sloppy drinking and face-mashing of which he sings. It was an exciting prospect for those of us who would love to see Burr stretch a bit, and maybe less exciting for those who don’t care for Burr’s general outlook about, say, women. Maybe it was attrition, maybe it was Pete Davidson (whom Burr worked with on King of Staten Island) whatever the case, Burr got his first chance to host on Saturday. He’s great at holding his own when he gets high-profile gigs such as Breaking Bad, but he’s always a version of himself. He’s a masterful comic, and a ranter nonpareil, but his perspective is a limited one. Stand-up, actor, and podcaster Bill Burr isn’t the first name that comes to mind when thinking about sketch comedy.

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