When you throw Kristen Wiig and Christmas together, you can almost count on the holiday spirit overtaking an audience, through pure, brute force charm. And that’s what we had for the Christmas episode of Saturday Night Live to close out 2020.
The cold opening was terrible. This will hopefully the last time we’ll see this unfunny Mike Pence part as they fumbled trying to get laughs as the Vice President took the vaccine. While this episode was ultimately okay, this opening was bad.
And yes, we do have a Joe Biden casting problem (more on that later).
We did have a very cheerful opening monologue by Wiig and her Bridesmaids co-star, Maya Rudolph, who also played Kamala Harris tonight. I enjoyed that.
It’s also an easy win each time you have Wiig on Secret Word as Mindy Grayson. It’s one of those skits that will always pull a chuckle just by the way she sells it each time.
Ego Nwodim is on a winning streak. First playing Dionne Warwick last week, and with this latest skit spoofing “A Teacher”, as she plays the opposite of the streaming program teacher, that wants nothing to do with her students.
Wiig was back with a rap that once again hits hard for Christmas and that’s moms getting junk gifts under the tree. Kristen getting the same gift as the dog, got a pop out of me. Poor moms.
Dua Lipa rocked her performance and even showed up in a skit. While there is a lot to complain about on SNL this year, musical guesses have succeeded across the board. Excellent stuff here.
And in a true Christmas miracle. Weekend Update wasn’t terrible. Heidi Gardner got a second straight win on the segment playing Landis Trotter, an internet influencer who sells out. And the always popular Christmas tradition of Michael Che and Colin Jost feeding each other cringey jokes is impossible to not enjoy.
This was a tough year for SNL with some high ups and some low downs. But after four decades, we’re not bailing.
On to 2021.