Emmy Episodes: Saturday Night Live

It’s always my policy to watch every Emmy-nominated episode each year, which leads me to sample a handful of shows that I don’t tune in to on a regular basis. For the sixth year in a row, I’m making a special effort to spotlight each of those installments to offer my perspective on shows that I don’t review each week.

Saturday Night Live: Season 46, Episode 13 “Host: Regé-Jean Page” (B)

It is always really a trip watching this show so many months after each episode airs, getting outdated news that often feels funnier in the context of what’s happened since then. Pete Davidson’s Andrew Cuomo, for instance, wasn’t so big on apologizing, and some might now see his resignation as a way of owning up to what he’s done, while others with surely take the accompanying denials of any wrongdoing as confirmation that he just isn’t willing to apologize for anything anyone believes he has done wrong. Another equally self-righteous individual is Ted Cruz, as hilariously portrayed by Aidy Bryant in that same opening sketch. That was a strong open for Bryant, who smartly chose this episode as her Emmy submission. She’s back in the race after a nomination for this show three years ago, and also contends in the leading category for her fantastic performance in “Shrill.” The only negative of this episode is that she’s not in all that much of it, but she was fun in the competition to get host Regé-Jean Page’s affection during his monologue. I just finished watching “Bridgerton,” and so it’s fun to see Page lean into other roles and a number of decent, slightly different American accents. I did like one where he used his natural voice and Kenan played Ice Cube pretending to be British, and he seemed generally game to do whatever he was asked in any sketch. The “Bridgerton” intimacy coordinator bit wasn’t all that creative, but direct parodies of a host’s show are rarely the best part of any episode of this series.