Beetlejuice, X-Rated Cookies, Alec Baldwin & More

The Beetlejuice Beetlejuice star slid a bit into the background in some of the ensemble pieces, allowing the seasoned veterans to really shine. It was an interesting night, with some of the most popular performers like Kenan Thompson, Chloe Fineman, and even Bowen Yang almost taking a backseat, while others stood up and carried the show.

It was as if the show was shifting to fit the unique energy, cadence and delivery of its host, pivoting which players would work best with him. And it was a move that was mostly successful, both in spotlighting some of our favorites in the cast, and allowing Michael Keaton to shine with a youthful vigor and energy that belies his 73 years.

On the opposite end, newcomer Emil Wakim got his big chance to shine at the “Weekend Update” desk. He delivered strong material with great presence, but the audience just wasn’t sure how to take him. Still, we’ve now seen moments like that for both Jane Wickline and Emil, and he was definitely more successful in seizing that first-impression opportunity.

As usual, we’re ranking all the sketches from worst to first, including the Monologue, Cold Open, “Weekend Update” and any sketches that were cut for time but made their way online. We’ll skip the musical guests, because they’re not usually funny — unless Ashlee Simpson shows up. We wrap up with a look at the cast-member who had the strongest week.

Michael was definitely not comfortable up there alone, leading to a fidgety, awkward, stilted opening few moments before Mikey Day showed up as the first of two Beetlejuices for him to play off of. We appreciated Keaton calling out how Andy Samberg — who showed up moments later — is usually in the Cold Opens as Doug Emhoff, with Andy quipping they couldn’t figure out how to shoehorn him in there. Did that mean Jim Gaffigan was going show up elsewhere, too? Ultimately, it was a little playful with the Beetlejuices, and the bonus comment about Sarah Sherman’s style, but this was definitely a bit of a letdown as far as monologues go.

Michael Longfellow and Marcello Hernández were excited about their doctor costumes, until everyone thought they were dressed as the Menendez brothers from their trial. After marveling at how much more popular their new costume are, the boys then started sharing some other classic costumes that are now being completely misinterpreted due to the current political climate and news cycle. We loved that Colin Jost seemed to have no idea where a lot of this was going, but the gags peaked early and we ultimately could see why it wasn’t quite strong enough to make the live show.

The execution of this could have been a little stronger, but we appreciated the concept of being trapped in your Uber and having to listen to whatever conspiracy theories the driver believed and decided to share with you. Sarah Sherman and Bowen Yang were great as the two different ways a passenger might react to this new “game show,” but Ego Nwodim’s characterization as the driver wasn’t doing much for us, and Michael Keaton didn’t add anything at all to the sketch when he randomly showed up halfway through.

Mikey Day and Michael Keaton were great as Michael Myers and his monster instructor in this scene about making a murder scene in a Halloween movie. Every choice they made for how Michael should move was wrong and then even more wrong. Andrew Dismukes held it down as the frustrated director, while Chloe Fineman finally started to break as the silliness went on. Luckily, it stopped just before it got repetitive and annoying with an ending as silly as the whole premise. Not a classic, but certainly funny enough.

Well, we did not see that coming! This was a great return for the PDD boys with two of them as best friends ready to go skydiving for a birthday surprise only to find out their dive instructors — well, something just isn’t feeling right. Throw in Emil Wakim as their first-time pilot and you’ve got a recipe for all kinds of second, third, and fourth thoughts about the jump. The rising absurdity was signature PDD, while the culmination of this journey — well, it was worth the wait.

A fun return of this sketch where all the products look like something x-rated — or “TV-MA” in this case, we suppose — as Mikey Day and Heidi Gardner are horrified, and the guest is oblivious. It was a little obvious a second zombie eye cookie was coming out, but we didn’t anticipate the bonus icing, or the unexpected commentary by the hosts after they finally cut away from Michael Keaton’s happy baker. While we weren’t losing ourselves with this as much as a good “Delicious Dish” classic (hi, Alec Baldwin!), this nevertheless got a few chuckles and smiles out of us.

This was a strange, strange sketch about Michael Keaton’s father figure reminiscing about a woman he once was involved with when Heid Gardner’s waitress reminded her of him. They went back and forth in the most ridiculous exchange, each recalling memories from different people and different times, until it just kind of ended. The performances all around — including newcomer Ashley Padilla as Michael’s very confused wife — were fantastic, but it just didn’t seem like the piece had anything coherent to say. Still, it had a certain charm and humor in a slice-of-life way with some great performance work.

You knew it was coming. After calling out differences in Kamala Harris and Donald Trump’s rally styles, Colin Jost offered up some clips from Trump’s dance-off, or as he dubbed it, “Now That’s What I Call Dementia, Vol. 1.” Michael Che got in a great joke about Black men and therapy that most of the audience did not expect or quite get, while Jost got a better response for his “Civil War settled” joke, and then left people a little unsure after he got Elon Musk’s hesitancy about trusting machines (i.e., Dominion voting machines). The boys were on fire this week, and we even got an “it’s the ’90s” callback!

No knock on anything Emil Wakim delivered, but we think a lot of his material was going over the heads of the audience, or they were sidestepping some of his punchlines. He waded hip-deep into Middle East and Arab commentary by speaking about his own heritage and people, and it’s just not an area most Americans have a lot of understanding of (over their heads) or are comfortable dealing with (sidestepping). We loved him blaming Colin when one joke fell particularly flat. It all just shows the importance of this kind of material so America can get over itself and better understand the things they’ve randomly decided to be afraid of or uncomfortable around (like an entire people).

Che was very proud of his National No-Bra Day joke and got an even better response (that Jost did not appreciate) for his Bath & Body Works KKK joke punchline. Jost then got a shocked reaction to his Peanut M&M’s joke, so the groans were about equal at that point. The jokes themselves, though, were fantastic — which is rare in a fourth-week-in-a-row scenario for “Weekend Update.”

At this point, any Sarah Sherman commentary appearance next to Colin Jost is guaranteed to be an absolute riot. Their banter is so funny, they can’t stop laughing, while Sarah’s constant insistence that Jost is obsessed with her never wears thin. On top of that, her criticism of Victoria’s Secret’s more inclusive Fashion Show was pretty hilarious, too. “Where my Midwest 4’s at?” she asked, lamenting that she wasn’t invited and going into extremely visceral, graphic, and disturbing detail about the kind of war-torn underwear she’d like to see on the runway.

Wow, SNL just went hard on Train’s “Hey, Soul Sister” by hilariously having Andrew Dismukes sing it in 1955 Detroit as a song he “wrote” to help people understand his love as a white man for the Black woman, Ego Nwodim, he wants to marry. It was presented before his parents (Heidi Gardner and Michael Keaton) and her father and brother (Kenan Thompson and Devon Walker), with the reactions you might expect. Andrew’s parents loved it, and even joined in on it. Ego and Kenan both struggled at times to keep it straight as Andrew got right in their faces with his passionate performance, but ultimately, their reactions to his attempt at crossing the racist divide was … misguided at best.

Rather than shoehorn everyone into the same scene, SNL had Dana Carvey and James Austin Johnson’s Biden and Trump, respectively, appear in clips played during Kamala Harris’ (Maya Rudolph) interview on Fox News with Bret Baier (Alec Baldwin). It was an easy way to keep them involved and spoof Baier playing the wrong clip of Trump. Some of these lines were lifted directly from the interview where Harris demanded she be allowed to finish, and Baier really did open by asking her how many murderers she and Biden had let into the country. We didn’t need the Mens Wearhouse back-and-forth, but for the most part, this was a lighter, more playful way to dig into the week’s topics — and we even got not one, but two Trump dance-offs!

Another great TikTok mashup that featured just about everyone, including this season’s political players, and had takedowns of all the best/worst cringe behavior that dominates the platform. There were some savage swipes at tradwifes with Heidi Gardner, while Chloe Fineman took a pretty funny shot at Call Her Daddy, Bowen Yang just had to sing for everyone, and we got a surprise “Domingo” callback from last week’s show. Fans of the political humor got even more gags with Maya Rudolph’s Kamala Harris recreating the “wrong rally” moment, while Dana Carvey’s Joe Biden worked on his core. These are always charming and funny, with the meta-commentary on top of it about screen addiction stronger than ever.

It really seemed like five members of the cast were really vibing with Michael Keaton’s energy as they carried the night opposite him. Ego Nwodim delivered one of her best performances with hardly any lines, just reacting to Andrew Dismukes ridiculous song, while Andrew was solid here and as the voice of reason in the horror scene sketch.

Sarah Sherman shined on update, but has really grown as a sketch performer and dynamic personality, she lightens every sketch she appears in. And then there’s Mikey Day and Heidi Gardner, who have become one of the strongest duos on the show. They were fantastic together on Shop TV, but had breakout moments of their own, too.

As much as Mikey was a hoot as a dancing Michael Myers (and a bonus Beetlejuice), Heidi practically carried that final slice-of-life sketch, elevating it as much as she could through sheer force of performance and presence. She can make any moment funnier and stronger just through her overall commitment, which gives her the slightest edge in a tight week.

Saturday Night Live’s 50th season returns November 2 with host John Mulaney and musical guest Chappell Roan.