Coming out on top, we have the second musical performance from Jake Gyllenhaal, after the actor delivered a ballad during the monologue (which we’ll get to in a moment). Honestly, this almost felt like it should have been a 10-to-1 sketch, because it’s a little bit weird. This parody of the musical “Follies” has touches of the Lawrence Welk sketches that featured Kristen Wiig as the peculiar performer Dooneese, who just so happens to have a massive forehead forehead, a baby’s hands, and a prominent snaggletooth. But instead of leaning into the comedic bit of three regular characters and one weirdo, we’ve got a whole cavalcade of awkward boys. It’s almost like a blend of the “Little Buff Boys” sketch from “I Think You Should Leave” mixed with the sexless kids from last weekend’s landscaping commercial sketch with Maya Rudolph (which we didn’t have a full review for, sorry).
Aside from the humor that comes from the physical appearance of the beautiful boys and their classic song and dance, there are also some cheekily naughty lyrics that veer away from actually being inappropriate at the last minute. Though Gyllenhaal was more than a little over the top throughout most of this episode, this was the one sketch where it felt like his performance worked in his favor. The presentation certainly helped, especially with that sudden overhead camera angle. And finally, the escalation of putting Kenan Thompson into the middle of the musical number ended on a high note (figuratively and literally).
