If you’re reading this recap, you probably know that Tracy Morgan was involved in a terrible car accident in June 2014 that left the former Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock star in a coma for two weeks and killed fellow comedian James McNair. Fans and friends were unsure if Morgan would recover and court documents from Morgan’s lawsuit against Wal-Mart, the company who operated the semi that collided with Morgan’s van, revealed that he was still undergoing speech and physical therapy in November 2014.
In June, Morgan tweeted for the first time since the accident, and two months later he was announced as the host for the third episode of SNL’s 41st season. Between the announcement in August and Saturday night, Morgan appeared on Today, the Emmys and just last week, on stage at the Comedy Cellar in New York City. It was his first appearance in a comedy club since the accident 16 months earlier.
With only those couple of appearances to use as a guide, many of his fans were left wondering how Morgan would perform within the high-tension atmosphere of SNL, and if the accident had left him with any lingering effects that could hinder his performance. Thankfully, those worries were quickly tossed aside when Morgan addressed them comically in his monologue and then tore through the best SNL of this very young season.
Cold Open: Democratic Presidential Debate
Morgan’s return was almost overshadowed, and possibly was overshadowed, by this all-time great cold open. Larry David returned to SNL and absolutely killed as Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders. David’s impression was so great that the Sanders campaign recognized it on Sunday in a tweet:
Best line of the night: “BernieSanders.com check it out. It’s a mess.” #DebateWithLarry #DemDebate https://t.co/CYKf6WCIWV
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) October 18, 2015
David, before Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm, was a writer at SNL for one season (season 10), and famously only ever had one sketch appear on the show along with some Weekend Update jokes. In the book Live From New York, David reveals that many of his unaired sketch ideas (and even the one that did air) later became premises for Seinfeld episodes.
Best Sketch: Yo! Where Jackie Chan At Right Now?
I love the absurdity of this sketch because a quick Google search will let you know that Jackie Chan has a new movie, Dragon Blade, that also stars John Cusack and Adrien Brody… what? Morgan and Kenan Thompson are great as the two hosts attempting to locate the whereabouts of Chan and get their only lead from Leslie Jones, which they add to the file that holds all they know about Chan including, “He is somewhere between four and seven feet tall.”
Second Best Sketch: The Standoff
I thought about bumping this down a notch for Taran Killam’s awkward “word” line, but it’s still a really well done sketch that spins the whole “Do you want to tango?” question on its ear a bit.
Weekend Update Moment: Tina Fey
Fey returns to Weekend Update to discuss the recent news that Playboy will stop featuring nude pictorials. She had dreams of posing with a bale of hay, but she can always fall back on her own website miltbfw.org (?), “because it’s for your org.” Michael Che’s neighbor, Willie (Thompson), returned with his life coach Woodrow (Morgan), who was a recurring character of Morgan’s, most famously appearing with Britney Spears back in 2000.
Che and Jost were a little off this week, but did another monologue on the topic of how people become presidential candidates. SNL continues to make these available as stand-alone videos, so it would seem that we’ll continuing seeing these each week on Weekend Update.
Best Classic Morgan Sketch: Brian Fellow’s Safari Planet
Along with Woodrow, Saturday night’s episode also saw the return of Astronaut Jones and Brian Fellow. The Fellow sketch gets the edge over Astronaut Jones (which featured musical guest Demi Lovato as a Martian) because of Elizabeth, a camel who gave one camera a nudge and tried to block out both Morgan and Aidy Bryant from all of the other cameras. That Elizabeth is always trying to steal the spotlight.
Other Notes:
This episode was delayed by almost 10 minutes because of the Notre Dame-Southern Cal football game.
Beck Bennett didn’t appear in last week’s episode, and managed to only appear in the “Fake Cocaine” commercial parody this week.
“Brian Fellow’s Safari Planet” first appeared during an episode hosted by Sarah Michelle Gellar on May 15, 1999, or when Pete Davidson was five years old.
Saturday Night Live returns live on Nov. 7 with host Donald Trump and musical guest Sia. The National Hispanic Leadership Agenda has asked SNL to remove Trump as host, and a petition on MoveOn has received almost 120,000 signatures.
