Saturday Night Live: Brendan Gleeson / Willow
October 9, 2022 3:53 AM - Season 48, Episode 2 - Subscribe

At 41.59 years, this episode has the 4th greatest gap in ages between host and musical guest! (#1 is 56.96 years, between Miskel Spillman, the 80yo winner of the "Anyone Can Host" contest, and 23yo Elvis Costello in S03E08 on Dec 17, 1977)

  • Cold Open - So You Think You Won't Snap: Bowen Yang, Heidi Gardner, Punkie Johnson, Chloe Fineman, Sarah Sherman, Kenan Thompson, Devon Walker
  • Monologue: Brendan Gleeson, Colin Farrell
  • Try Guys: Ego Nwodim, Brendan Gleeson, Mikey Day, Bowen Yang, Andrew Dismukes
  • New at SNL: Michael Longfellow, Devon Walker, Marcello Hernandez, Molly Kearney, Kenan Thompson
  • Marilyn Monroe Fan Mail: Chloe Fineman, James Austin Johnson, Heidi Gardner, Brendan Gleeson
  • Head Shot Grandpa: Michael Longfellow, Andrew Dismukes, Brendan Gleeson, Colin Farrell
  • Seniors: Brendan Gleeson, PDD
  • Willow - curious/furious
  • Weekend Update: Michael Che, Colin Jost
    • Black Ariel: Ego Nwodim
    • Baseball: Marcello Hernandez
  • Blood Oath: Brendan Gleeson, Kenan Thompson, Mikey Day, Chloe Fineman
  • Willow - ur a stranger
  • New Eyes: Ego Nwodim, Brendan Gleeson, Bowen Yang, Sarah Sherman, Michael Longfellow
posted by rhizome (11 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
Solid B. New at SNL was the only home run, but no clunkers. Gleeson was clearly up for anything. Willow was pretty good for a genre I’m not that into anymore.

Moving the post-monologue game show to the cold open (which I suspect happened because the Try Guys skit did well in practice but wasn’t as standardly political as a typical cold open) was an interesting choice.

Sarah did the whole 10-to-1 blind, right?
posted by Etrigan at 6:40 AM on October 9, 2022 [1 favorite]


Agreed. Decent show. Enjoyed New at SNL. Hoping Molly Kearney goes far.

Thought the cold open could have been fleshed out a little more.

Monologue felt a bit awkward, I thought. I wasn't sure the constant tuning was part of the bit or if he was really stalling while tuning.

It was one of those shows where I wasn't familiar with either the host or the musical guest but they were both decent. I thought Willow was pretty good. Her voice reminded me of someone else but I couldn't quite place it. Boy, Annie Clark really sold the world on that guitar shape, didn't she?

I love Sarah and love her wackiness.
posted by bondcliff at 7:37 AM on October 9, 2022


For Gleeson fans, please note that In Bruges just got a 4K blu-ray release. Just in time for the holidays!
posted by praemunire at 11:12 AM on October 9, 2022 [3 favorites]


Could Sarah actually see through those googly eyes somehow?? She did an amazing job of navigating that set while presumably blind.

I thought this was a poor episode but I loved Gleeson being game for anything. The photography studio sketch, the stick-a-tube-up-a-cast-member-sleeve-to-spew-liquid sketch, even his hilarious tone of voice for the new eyes sketch—he was fantastic.
posted by ejs at 3:39 PM on October 9, 2022


I wasn't sure the constant tuning was part of the bit or if he was really stalling while tuning.

As a mandolin player, I can assure you that the tuning was real. The joke with mandolins is that you spend half of your time tuning and the other half playing out of tune.
posted by transient at 4:10 PM on October 9, 2022 [3 favorites]


I was entertained, so I agree with the B grade. Gleeson's reporter in the Try Guys was funny for real, though I'm not familiar with the TGs much less the controversy enough to gauge the impression of the guys. I'm inclined to guess it was bad, but the actors were on the verge of cracking up a few times so I may just be old on that one.

I liked New Eyes a LOT and it ticked up my like for SS a few notches. Perhaps the best 10-to-1 since The Poddys with Liev Schreiber. Blood Oath was no Theodoric of York.

I was surprised to be impressed by Wililow. Dunno if she's writing and arranging her songs, but there's something going on there that I haven't heard before. I saw descriptions of it as "pop punk," which added a second surprise. "The future itself has a future," as Derrida said.
posted by rhizome at 1:25 AM on October 10, 2022


The try guys sketch was ick, especially given that it was minimizing and one of the writers is a friend of Ned’s. I think there’s jokes to be made about the absolute chokehold this had on certain segments of the media/online landscape but “oh he just cheated?” ain’t it.
posted by jeoc at 8:53 AM on October 10, 2022 [6 favorites]


I think Sarah was essentially sightless...which in addition to moving around the space and hitting a few physical cues...she also didn't have access to the cards nor could she use play off the physicalness of her scene partners for line timings. That's very, very hard.
posted by mmascolino at 7:29 PM on October 10, 2022 [1 favorite]


I follow an SNL FX artist on Instagram and they showed an early version of the eyes with the caption "The rough sculpt of the google eye prosthetic on @sarahsquirm . Next part was figuring out how to make it so she could still see and read the cards"
posted by bondcliff at 7:03 AM on October 11, 2022 [5 favorites]


I feel like of the three episodes so far, which I watched very close to one another, this was the best. It gave the newbs each time to shine and not have it be one of their standup bits behind the WU desk. And Molly Kearney flung the door open on that one, and I hope the producers let them on often. At first when they announced the new kids, I thought, "Oh a nonbinary Aidy Bryant type," but no, this was way more of a "Melissa McCarthy Meets Chris Farley" vibe. And, overall, and excellent intro to the noobs.

The rest of it I vaguely remember as "good, except Chloe's Marilyn Monroe didn't cut the mustard". And that Willow HAD ME UNTIL SHE SMASHED THE GUITAR INTO THE FAKE TV. How does this happen. People should not be allowed to attempt to smash guitars on Saturday Night Live. They do it wrong. Until that point, I thought, "Gee, Willow [I had no idea who she was at the time] may be onto something here." until the fake TV.

Still. The episode after this one suffered from too-long sketches, and the one before this one was a workhorse good first step with a cast turnover.

AND MORE PUNKIE PLEASE!
posted by not_on_display at 10:36 PM on October 27, 2022


Gleeson's reporter in the Try Guys was funny for real, though I'm not familiar with the TGs much less the controversy enough to gauge the impression of the guys. I'm inclined to guess it was bad, but the actors were on the verge of cracking up a few times so I may just be old on that one.

Their impression was pretty okay. The general thrust of the sketch, though, was pretty damn gross - it tried to laugh the whole controversy off as "these guys are having a hissy fit because one of their buddies smooched a girl", when it actually was "one of the co-chairs of a business got caught having an affair with a woman who WORKED for him, and the other three co-chairs had to kick him out and deal with the fallout".

I usually catch up on SNL skits when they're posted after the fact on Youtube, and that was one of the few where I've said "oh HELL no" and skipped it when I saw the premise.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:24 AM on January 23, 2023


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