Ramy Youssef Gets Political on Middle East

It’s odd to think that Ramy basically disappeared in this episode, because we didn’t see the cast stepping up and really shining, either. Instead, it was an outing that was so forgettable at times that we found ourselves forgetting it even as it was happening.

That’s not to say that every sketch was a misfire. The Please Don’t Destroy boys had one of their most viral-bait songs yet, featuring musical guest Travis Scott, while “Weekend Update” delivered some of its strongest jokes of the season — if not it’s special guests.

James Austin Johnson got to step up again with his Donald Trump impression to make fun of the former president’s Bible shilling skills, while Ramy Youssef shared a prayer for god to “free the people of Palestine” and celebrated how much easier a holy month of fasting can be with Ozempic for Ramadan.

So yes, there were some laughs throughout the night, but they were fewer and further between than we would have ever expected. As a hint of what an odd night it was, the show saved one of its best sketches — and Bowen Yang’s only appearance — for the final slot of the night.

You’ll see!

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.

The tepid audience response was about right for this backyard talk show led by Marcello Hernández as another grizzled father next to Ramy Youssef and Kenan Thompson as immigrant parents. The only part of this sketch that worked was when there was strong contract to their mentality about hating their sons after Mikey Day came in as a new dad to the neighborhood who loves his son, played by Andrew Dismukes. The immigrant reaction to the father-son duo kissing on the lips was very funny. The problem was there was way too much set-up before Mikey came out and none of it was particularly funny. The banter about Kenan’s kids was way, way too obvious. It’s clear this was an attempt at a recurring sketch, but it was barely funny enough to hold itself together this one time. Plus, we weren’t buying Marcello’s portrayal as a middle-aged father at all. The costuming was sloppy and his portrayal wasn’t selling it.

Fasting and Ozempic. It’s almost too logical, which is why this fake ad made perfect sense. The problem was that it had almost no jokes in it beyond the original one that is its premise. Sure, Kenan slipped in a subtle joke about white women asking for salmon from his cart and the bit about you possibly going to hell if you use it was amusing, but it really felt too straightforward overall. If you’re going to parody something — and especially something as controversially omnipresent as Ozempic — you can come out swinging a lot harder and sharper than this.

This sketch tried to have too much going on, though we did appreciate the ongoing deranged cards by Ramy Youssef’s husband character, terrified that he’d be wrongly accused of his wife’s death if she ever perished in an unusual accident. At the same time we were going down this rabbit hole, Heidi Gardner and Mikey Day seemed to only exist to offer additional disconnected answers that distracted from the main story. Add to that James Austin Johnson playing it totally straight as the host and there was a missed opportunity for even sharper laughs in this game show sketch.

Ramy Youssef delivered a very calming and confident stand-up monologue that leaned into his religion and the spirituality of this weekend. “We’re in the holy month of Ramadan,” he said. “Tomorrow is Easter and yesterday Beyonce released a new album. There’s just so many religions celebrating all at once.” He made the bold claim that the next president should be a trans woman because they can really speak about change. He wrapped it up by talking about prayer, noting that he prays for all his friends. In this, he couched a sincere message about the Middle East in with a prayer for his friend’s dog. Sharing what he said to God, Ramy said, “Free the people of Palestine, please. And please free the hostages. All the hostages, please. And while you’re at it, I mean, free Mr. Bojangles.” This is the kind of content SNL used to never shy away from, with a strong point of view and unafraid to court potential controversy. Ramy also pointed out that the South isn’t this mythical place, but just 45 minutes from the “bubble” you live in — assuming you live in a liberal city. Ultimately, it was an unassuming delivery, which is a smart move when your content can upset people, which set the stage well.

Michael Che got a huge reaction from his joke about Joe Biden being a “lesser known celebrity,” which just proves it hasn’t been the audience to this point but rather the lackluster content they’ve had to sit through. Colin Jost then got a similar reaction to his joke about Ron DeSantis banning social media for young teens. Their best joke, though, was when they brought up LA Dodger’s Shohei Ohtani firing his translator for illegal sports betting, with Che saying that Ohtani said “something in Japanese.”

We had hopes that TikToker Piper Dunster’s hot takes would be a little hotter or at least a little funnier when she came out to address the Kate Middleton conspiracy backlash after the Princess revealed her cancer diagnosis. Instead, we got a bunch of lame TikToks (lame as in not funny) from the past several years covering all kinds of various topics. We’d have rather seen how far down the Kate rabbit hole we could take this. Again, parody and satire are so much funnier when you go way harder than this.

Che quickly got more audience grounds for his joke about bars playing women’s basketball games, while Jost really left the crowd (and Che) shocked with his sriracha/Stranger Things joke that you’ll just have to watch because we really don’t want to even allude to it more than this. We will say, Che got a well-deserved reaction laugh to his joke about Oppenheimer finally opening in Japan … “without warning.” Okay, it’s horrible, but it’s also kinda funny.

Another appearance we were optimistic about, but let us down, was Sarah Sherman as Flaco the owl’s widow. The premise was already pretty bizarre, and then it didn’t seem to really work in execution at all. We’re not even talking about Sarah cracking herself up with the “who” of it all, but rather that the writers didn’t really seem to have anything for her to say in this character. It was also too much of a creative stretch (apparently) to effectively twist this into another Sarah-bashes-Colin appearance, which are always fun. All in all, it left us disappointed.

Another fun Trump ramble from James Austin Johnson, this time spotlighting the “very real” Bibles he started hawking. We always wonder just how much of this is scripted and how much is James just going off the cuff and ad-libbing the general spirit of a script. He has such a natural cadence of ridiculousness, we find ourselves nodding along and laughing at some of his more ridiculous claims and asides that might seem random — like his long discussion of the members of Destiny’s Child — but it comes back multiple times as he asks someone to pay his “Bills, Bills, Bill” — and then quotes it during “The Lord’s Prayer.” It was short and simple and effective. While you don’t want to rely on James too much, with an impression this strong, he’s such an easy way to assure laughs in the Cold Open (which they still seem to think has to be political almost every time).

12 years after the series finale of CSI: Miami, Andrew Dismukes picked up David Caruso’s sunglasses for a rockin’-bad pun at a crime scene. The sketch progressed with Andrew upset at not getting laughs for his bad joke until Ramy Youssef did get one for his pun. It was all a little obvious, but there was a certain silly charm to it. When Sarah Sherman showed up as the victim’s widow, it was clear that she was still chuckling (as she’d been during her Update appearance), and Andrew was going to milk that for all it was worth, trying to get her to break even more … with great success. It doesn’t always enhance a sketch, but in this case, a middling sketch on an even more middling night benefitted from a little off-script giggling.

Dumped in the 10-to-1 spot at the end of the night, this piece was among the most together live pieces on the night. The band itself was pretty inconsequential, but we loved Bowen Yang’s character (in his first appearance of the night?!) as a 35-year-old intern who’s upset about all the “ruckus” in the office. Sarah Sherman and Michael Longfellow (in his first appearance, too) as NPR employees watching the show create a nice foil for Bowen’s obnoxious intern, who manages to find laughs with his ridiculous podcast aspirations, while Ramy Youssef counters successfully in an understated manor as a musician who just wants to play his set, man, and maybe find their break.

Kenan Thompson was the perfect choice for the “pervert” basketball coach who accidentally sent his cat furry pics and videos to the team group chat instead of to his wife. But even funnier was Devon Walker as a member of the team, and his son. The sketch did a great job of slowly doling out the full extent of what happened, while Kenan tried to downplay his team’s impressions that it was weird — as well as the ensuing response from the students’ parents and the opposing team. It was all so random and unexpected, but perhaps there’s a lesson for all of us. And that lesson is to be very, very careful to whom you’re sending your pictures and videos. We could also say something about grace for very human mistakes, but we think it might be better to just be very, very (did we mention very) careful.

A very Travis Scott vibe throughout this hip-hop number as Ramy Youssef and the PDD boys went out and got high — or did they? — with Travis Scott. We weren’t sure where they were going to go with the fact that Ramy didn’t even smoke anything, but while the boys were lamenting, “I think we got too high,” Ramy started fretting about wearing shorts, bringing his rolling backpack, and a weird phrase he said at the top of the sketch. This was sharply written, beautifully shot and was a pretty damned catchy song … even if the ending felt inevitable. Still, it’s nice to see the boys back on their game with the most consistent bonus content (so to speak) on SNL since the “a digital short” era.

What a lackluster and overall disappointing night. The cast felt underutilized throughout the night, with Ramy Youssef’s monologue melancholy unexpectedly carrying through the night. Is his chill vibe that powerful that it sucked the energy out of the whole show? That would be okay if we’d have still gotten some big laughs, but it didn’t happen.

Many of the players showed up only once throughout the night, with poor Molly Kearney only making it for the goodbyes. At the same time, if you’re going to miss out on a show, this isn’t a bad one to be able to say you weren’t a part of it.

For those who were, it definitely came down to James Austin Johnson and Andrew Dismukes for us as the cast members who really gave it their all and represented throughout the show. James showed off a lot of diversity with different roles after his Trump opening, while Andrew saved his best for last as the cop who made Sarah Sherman crack.

Sarah had some good moments herself, but her big showcase appearance on “Update” didn’t work at all for us, while Bowen’s one appearance was a scene-stealer, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the night that James had. He’s been growing by leaps and bounds this season, stepping out of his stellar impressions and showing off a very diverse comedic voice of his own.

“Saturday Night Live” returns next week with host Kristen Wiig and musical guest Raye.