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SNL Season 49 Ends Strong with Scooby-Doo, Joke-Swap & More (REVIEW)

From Scooby-Doo and a joke-swap to two great cicadas and more, Jake Gyllenhaal, Sabrina Carpenter, and the SNL team wrapped Season 49 strong.

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When it comes to NBC's Saturday Night Live, the season finale is a pretty bittersweet affair. On one hand, we're excited to see the SNL cast & writers getting some time to unwind, decompress, and pursue other projects – after a season like the one we just had, they've more than earned it. On the other hand, it sucks having a long stretch of SNL-free Saturdays – then there's the matter of who may or may not be coming back. But this summer isn't quite like the others because this is the summer that leads into SNL's milestone 50th season – and that brings a whole other level of speculation. Will Season 50 have a lineup of special hosts & musical guests? Is Lorne Michaels calling it quits after the festivities – and how much of the current cast will be leaving with him?

But to get to all of that, we needed to wrap up Season 49 first – and after last week's surprisingly less-than-stellar show, we were a little nervous heading into this weekend's season finale with host Jake Gyllenhaal and musical guest Sabrina Carpenter. I'm happy to say that the combination of strong writing & performances from the SNL team, Gyllenhaal's willingness to buy into the seriousness of the silliness, and Carpenter proving herself an MVP as both a musical performer and excellent Daphne from "Scooby-Doo" resulted in a season wrap-up that ended things on a very strong (and funny) note.

SNL
Image: SNL Screencap

What Worked? What Didn't Work? Let me get the negative stuff out of the way first. There isn't any. While not every sketch necessarily hit with me, that's more a reflection of me not connecting with it than of the quality of the sketch itself. While James Austin Johnson can do no wrong as Donald Trump during the cold open, I still believe not having Ego Nwodim play Rep. Jasmine Crockett was a missed opportunity on a number of levels. Gyllenhaal went all-in with his monologue – with our host, Nwodim, Kenan Thompson, Punkie Johnson, and Devon Walker making for a damn impressive Boyz 2 Men cover group.

"Dad Has a Cookie" was a fun bit of absurdity that examined the issues of trust, family bonding, and how cookie crumbs can be a deal giveaway – with Andrew Dismukes offering the perfect counter to Gyllenhaal's obsessed father. "Beautiful Girls" was another sketch that found a way to thread some effective social notes (this time, on the double standards between men and women) through musical fanfare. SNL continued living up to its rep of hard-hitting filmed sketches with "Fast Fashion Ad" – taking on the brutal realities of how companies (like XIEMU in the sketch) are able to get fashion to the masses at such cheap prices.

Colin Jost and Michael Che had another strong "Weekend Update" – but we'll get to the best part in a minute. But we would be remiss if we didn't throw some love and respect out to Thompson and Marcello Hernandez as "Two Cicadas on the Largest Cicada Emergence" – celebrating the news that we're going to have to suffer through two different groups of cicadas coming up from the soil. Fun, right? Especially in New York City. While I can honestly say that I never thought about what a cicada would sound like or act like, it just felt like Thompson and Hernandez nailed it – with bonus points to both of them for having fun with their cicada legs.

"Canceling a Flight" presented the kind of spiraling airline phone hell that most of us have found ourselves in at some point in our lives – though Gyllenhaal couldn't have sounded any cornier dropping that DMX line the way he did (maybe that was intended). "Snake Eyes" was silly sunny, with Gyllenhaal playing the perfect straight man to Johnson's Snake Eyes – know that the sketch would rise or fall based on Johnson being able to sell his unexpectedly high-pitched badass. "Bike Trail" was a mixed bag for me, but I respected what they were going for and the complexities of the sketch. Along those lines, Gyllenhaal and Bowen Yang have a fun chemistry that I would like to see repeated.

"NYPD Press Conference" could've gone down a bad road, considering it was addressing the recent assault on Steve Buscemi and could've been seen as making light of it. Instead, it was actually an oddly loving tribute to the actors who we may not always know by name, but we remember their work. Bonus points to Heidi Gardner as the Brad Pitt-obsessed reporter who keeps thinking she knows who the person is (even after being told who the person is) and to Jon Hamm for a fun, self-deprecating guest appearance.

But our two biggest highlights? Without hesitation, the filmed "Scooby-Doo" sketch took a nasty turn into horror movie and Quentin Tarantino territory and never looked back. With Gyllenhall as Fred, Carpenter and Daphne, Sarah Sherman as Velma, and Mikey Day as Shaggy (and an animated Scooby-Doo rounding out the "Mystery Machine" team), we see what happens when a villain reveal goes really wrong – and before we know it, we've got decapitations, a cop killing, Fred asking Daphne a very pointed question… and Scooby-Doo answering for her.

Along with that, how could we not include Jost & Che's Season 49 Finale Joke Swap? And what a wonderfully and brutally funny mix of awkwardness it was! From Che, we had Jost telling jokes in front of a very real rabbi and operating a rabbi hand-puppet. From Jost, we had Che telling jokes about women in NYC getting punched and trash-talking Kendrick Lamar. For those who still don't get the premise, Jost and Che know these are bad jokes – the point is for each of them to make the other one look and feel as bad as possible over having to tell them. And let's just be clear – you could read the discomfort on their faces and with their body language.

Saturday Night Live Season 49: Jake Gyllenhaal/Sabrina Carpenter
Auto Draft
Review by Ray Flook
8/10
When it comes to NBC's Saturday Night Live, the season finale is a pretty bittersweet affair. On one hand, we're excited to see the SNL cast & writers getting some time to unwind, decompress, and pursue other projects - after a season like the one we just had, they've more than earned it. On the other hand, it sucks having a long stretch of SNL-free Saturdays - then there's the matter of who may or may not be coming back. But this summer isn't quite like the others because this is the summer that leads into SNL's milestone 50th season - and that brings a whole other level of speculation. Will Season 50 have a lineup of special hosts & musical guests? Is Lorne Michaels calling it quits after the festivities - and how much of the current cast will be leaving with him? But to get to all of that, we needed to wrap up Season 49 first - and after last week's surprisingly less-than-stellar show, we were a little nervous heading into this weekend's season finale with host Jake Gyllenhaal and musical guest Sabrina Carpenter. I'm happy to say that the combination of strong writing & performances from the SNL team, Gyllenhaal's willingness to buy into the seriousness of the silliness, and Carpenter proving herself an MVP as both a musical performer and excellent Daphne from "Scooby-Doo" resulted in a season wrap-up that ended things on a very strong (and funny) note.

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Ray FlookAbout Ray Flook

Serving as Television Editor since 2018, Ray began five years earlier as a contributing writer/photographer before being brought onto the core BC team in 2017.
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