Saturday Night Live Season 49 Ranked: From Emma Stone to Jacob Elordi (2024)

Posted in: Current News, NBC, Opinion, Peaco*ck, Review, TV, TV, YouTube | Tagged: nbc, peaco*ck, Review, saturday night live, season 49, snl

With NBC's Saturday Night Live not returning until March 30th, we're looking back at the past 14 shows and ranking SNL Season 49 (so far).

After host Josh Brolin, musical guest Ariana Grande, and the cast of NBC's Saturday Night Live took their final bow last weekend, the long-running sketch comedy/music series headed off into a break until the end of the month. When SNL does return on March 30th with Ramy Youssef & Travis Scott, it will be the first of three new shows – withKristen Wiig & Raye set for April 6th and Ryan Gosling & Chris Stapleton set for April 13th. So with some time to kill, we thought that we would offer a rundown of our Season 49 reviews so far – ranked from best to basem*nt based on our "out-of-ten" rating and other factors – with the overall season coming in at around a 7.4/10.

Saturday Night Live: Season 49 So Far…

A quick note before you jump in. In instances where shows tied within their review scores, I applied the completely unscientific approach of going back to review their respective SNL YouTube playlists and then ranked them based on how much each of them had me laughing on rewatch (since we're talking about splitting hairs). Along with a link to each review, we have a quick ten-second thought as well as a look at each respective host's monologue:

(9) S49E06: Saturday Night Live: Start Fitting Emma Stone for "Ten-Timers" Jacket: Emma Stone could be an SNL cast member just like that (snaps fingers). Yeah, she's that good…

(9) S49E14: Saturday Night Live Hits Big with Josh Brolin, Ariana Grande (REVIEW): A man who initially comes across as so serious has no right to be the level of talented goofball that Josh Brolin is…

(9) S49E04: SNL Cast, boygenius Guarantee Chalamet's "5-Timer" Future: Review: Timothee Chalamet has a likable charm that pulls you in and comedic skills that continue to get stronger with each passing sketch.

(9) S49E07:: Adam Driver goes dark in all of the best ways possible in a twisted antidote to the holiday season.

(8.5) S49E03:SNL: Nate Bargatze, Foo Fighters Set Season 49 Back on Track: Review: Nate Bargatze already proved himself as a stand-up comic, but this show gave him a chance to show off more of his comedic acting chops.

(8) S49E08: : Kate McKinnon & Billie Eilish should be allowed to co-host one episode every season moving forward.

(7.5) S49E13:Saturday Night Live Gets Back to Having Fun with Sydney Sweeney's Help: After an odd run of shows and behind-the-scenes drama, Sydney Sweeney helped SNL remind us that it knows how to have fun.

(7.5) S49E10:Saturday Night Live Season 49 Back on Track with Johnson, Timberlake: A solid effort, but Dakota Johnson appeared to struggle in sketches that needed the host to broaden their comedic range a bit more.

(7.5) S49E01:Saturday Night Live: Pete Davidson, Ice Spice Lead Solid Season: Pete Davidson's return to Studio 8H to kick off the season wasn't perfect, but it was a strong start to the season after a strike-shortened 48th season.

(7) S49E11: SNL Distractions Undercut Efforts; Ayo Edebiri, J.Lo Deserved Better: Though some of it was self-inflicted, Ayo Edebiri deserves a do-over because this show was too overshadowed by real-world drama.

(7) S49E05:Saturday Night Live Needed More SNL, Less "The Jason Momoa Show": Jason Momoa needed to lose himself more in the sketches instead of making it seem like he always needed to remind us that he was in on the joke.

(6) S49E12:SNL, Shane Gillis Left Us Wondering Why This Show Even Had to Happen: Once again, I'm still not sure what the purpose of this was except to show us that Shane Gillis didn't deserve to be fired from SNL – because he shouldn't have been hired in the first place.

(5) S49E02:Saturday Night Live Cast Can't Save Show from Bad Bunny, Guest Stars: I'm not exactly sure what the reason was – maybe it was nerves, maybe it was being stretched too thin during a very busy week – but Bad Bunny seemed lost through most of the show.

(3.5) S49E09:SNL Cast/Writers, Jacob Elordi Do Right By Bad Bunny But Not Viewers: A show that was pretty much a bunch of different variations of one joke: "Isn't Jacob Elordi hot?" Not helping matters was Elordi, who came across as bland and vanilla in how he approached each sketch.