Washington dreams again as Nate Bargatze hosts ‘SNL’
The comedian rescued the episode after its political cold open fell flat.
I loved having Nate Bargatze back this weekend. He scored the No. 2 spot on my rankings of Season 49 hosts, and he didn’t disappoint when he hosted the show for the second time. And, yes, he brought “Washington’s Dream” back too.
While Bargatze didn’t disappoint, the episode kicked off with the latest wave of celebrity cameos — and they’re already looking threadbare.
Turning SNL over to celebrity cameos was always a risky move. This was a lesson that Lorne Michaels should have learned after things soured with Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump, Jim Carrey as Joe Biden and the countless celebrity cameos that took over SNL during the 2016/2020 era.
Celebrity cameos are not a sustainable game. The celebrity cameos are bad. And yesterday’s cold open proved that.
After people were sucked in last weekend with those cameos from Maya Rudolph, Andy Samberg, Jim Gaffigan and Dana Carvey, the bottom fell out of the celebrity cameo game this weekend. With the buzz of the season premiere gone, everything in the cold open either felt forced or fell flat.
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