Shane Gillis/21 Savage

Shane wasn't only offensive but he was straight up not funny. His jokes are true bottom of the barrel jokes that were unfunny even 10 years ago. This humor might be good enough for teenage boys who idolize Andrew Tate but for the rest of us it needs to be better quality. Reminds me of late 90's South Park. The cast was great though. Maybe they knew they had to be on their game to compensate for such a weak host who only does jokes at the cost of the disabled and minorities. I'm glad NBC fired this guy before he could be on the show because he would have just stank it up with his "comedy". Glad he is going back into his hole at loser mountain.

I came to give a lackluster rating for a lackluster episode of Saturday Night Live, only to find a great number of ratings either 10/10 or 1/10. So clearly another bit of entertainment that has succumbed to the political culture wars. Whatever this episode was, it wasn't the greatest moment in comedy ever, nor the worst. Those extreme ratings are dissociated from reality.

I knew when the host made a point about being fired and that 'you shouldn't google him', that the episode was likely to involve more un-pc insult humor than normal. I don't know who Shane Gillis is, but from how dull the humor was, I'm not likely to bother finding out more. The monologue just wasn't very funny. You can change the targets of the jokes to whoever you want, politically okay or not, but they still aren't very sharp.

As for the episode, as usual, some brief moments were decent. But a lot of filler. What let me down the most was Weekend Update, which felt formulaic, and also suffered from weak random character interviews. I.e., the Truman Capote shtick did nothing for me.

So, for folks who haven't been ideologically blinded to what is actually in front of their eyes, all in all perhaps just slightly lower than the usual SNL quality. Meaning not that great. But hope lives on.

Shane's opening monologue was great.

He was himself, didn't hold back and addressed his being fired from SNL with humour and head held high. While jokingly saying to not google him, he clearly knows that people will.

Retuning to host after being fired because people who have no send of humour and can't live life without crapping on things that just aren't for them was a bold move and a testament to what a solid guy he is.

His skits were great, he demonstrated to the cast what they missed out on and could have had on the team.

Despite SNL he has created a lane of his own and been killing it. This was the first time I watched SNL in realtime in years. Shane was the reason I set a reminder, I'm glad that I did.

The one thing I've learned after watching this episode is this: Unfunny people like to review-bomb too. This episode is a 10/10. From a great monologue, funny sketches, and hilarious bits that didn't even make it to the show (Limu Emu), Shane Gillis carried this entire series in his first episode since his firing. He made SNL and Michaels & Co. Really regret their decision. This felt like SNL in the 90s. It was funny, it was silly, it was everything you hoped for and looked forward while the weekdays moved closer to Saturday night. Controversies aside, whether they were even valid or not for the punishment, this episode was a win for comedy.

Shane Gillis as a host helped the show get back some of the fire its been missing. The political sketches besides the cold open didn't feel one sided or like the jokes are for people who constantly watch MSNBC. The normal sketches had darker premises and didn't care about being offensive to play that into the joke against the individual. Weekend update was solid as always. 21 Savages performance was okay. The monologue was better than the actors but wasn't the best out of recent comedians. I appreciated it matched his stand up by not steering away from uncomfortable topics to give a different perspective to land a difficult premise in an unoffensive way, I just felt that having a cleaner set didn't help him. This was the most memorable episode I seen in a while. Best of the season.