Posted in: NBC, Opinion, Peacock, TV, TV, YouTube | Tagged: ice spice, nbc, Pete Davidson, saturday night live, season 49, snl

SNL Second-Guessing: "I'm Just Pete" Was a Musical Therapy Session

In this week's SNL Second-Guessing, we offer some thoughts on why Pete Davidson's "I'm Just Pete" works and why it's worth a second look.

As we inch closer to the return of NBC's Saturday Night Live for its milestone 50th season, we've been using this downtime from the long-running late-night sketch comedy/music series to look back on Season 49 for some "SNL Second-Guessing." What we do is take a look back at an episode from the most recent season (based on the show being repeated during the summer off-season) and spotlight a sketch or a situation that deserved a bit more attention – not that that's always a good thing.

Sometimes, it's for good reasons – like when we kicked things off by looking at the "Moulin Rouge" sketch from March 9th's Josh Brolin-hosted and Ariana Grande-performing show. Following that, we looked at the "Please Don't Destroy – We Got Too High (ft. Travis Scott)" sketch from March 30th's Ramy Youssef-hosted and Travis Scott-performing show. We also had April 6th's Kristen Wiig -hosted and musical guest Raye-performing, with Wiig and Andrew Dismukes nailing it with the "Jumanji" sketch. Then there was the May 11th show with host Maya Rudolph and musical guest Vampire Weekend to make sure that the "Teacher PSA" sketch got the high marks that it deserved.

Other times, it could be for not-so-good reasons, as was the case with the "CNN Town Hall South Carolina" Cold Open from February 3rd's Ayo Edebiri-hosted and Jennifer Lopez-performing show – when then-GOP POTUS candidate Nikki Haley played SNL hard. And then there are the debatable ones, like making the claim that the "Scooby-Doo" sketch from May 18th's Jake Gyllenhaal-hosted, Sabrina Carpenter-performing season finale may have been better than the Ryan Gosling, Mikey Day, Heidi Gardner, and Kenan Thompson-starring "Beavis and Butt-Head" sketch. For this go-around, we're heading back to the October 14th Season 49 opener with NBC's SNL alum/actor/comedian Pete Davidson hosting and Ice Spice as the musical guest.

To say that a lot of folks have a lot of opinions about Davidson would be an understatement – from his looks and his jokes to who he's dating and who he's buying a Staten Island Ferry with (here's a hint: their name rhymes with "Jolin Cost"). That's translated into a whole lot of media putting his face and name out there  – so much so that Davidson addressed the matter in the "I'm Just Pete" filmed musical sketch. While he's never shied away from addressing his personal life – whether in film/television or his stand-up act – this one felt different and much more personal Because although you can read it on a purely satirical level, you don't have to scratch too deep beneath the surface to get to some true introspection. While some may have an issue with Barbie being used as the basis for the sketch, it does work nicely in terms of the importance of individuality and being true to one's self.

Filmed sketches are something that some long-running SNL fans have never been fans of, complaining that they take away from one of the foundational elements of the show – being live. But for the show to last a half-century, SNL needed to change with the multimedia times and adapt accordingly. As long as I can count on over half of every episode being a live sketch, I'm more than fine with mixing up the comedic offerings – especially when they succeed on as many levels as "I'm Just Pete" did.

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