Saturday Night Live took on the documentary The Last Dance. The popular documentary took the internet by storm last year and was about Michael Jordan’s career with the Chicago Bulls and beyond. You may have seen the memes, mainly Jordan sitting in a chair with a glass of scotch beside him as he’s talking on an iPad and saying things like “...and I took that personally.”
So last night, during Keegan-Michael Key’s episode of the popular sketch comedy show, they took aim at Jordan and The Last Dance and they didn’t miss!
The sketch shows Jordan playing Quarters with his security guard John (Heidi Gardner) and when John beats him one time, Jordan takes it... well, personally. The “lost footage” has Jordan and John having fun playing quarters and slowly it turns into mounting debt for John, the loss of his pants, and Charles Barkley (Kenan Thompson) coming in and joining up to play with a bet of $5,000.
The problem? John doesn’t have the money or the resources that Jordan and Barkley have so he just keeps losing his belongings. From Jordan offering him $5,000 to John losing his pants and then glasses, it was poking fun at Jordan’s desire to win but also that he would take something away from John the Security Guard just because he beat him in one single game of Quarters.
I, personally, did not love them poking fun at amblyopia (also known as a Lazy Eye). I have one and seeing John lose his glasses and suddenly have amblyopia and turning into a bigger “woe is me” character felt out of nowhere and sort of ruined a sketch that I was enjoying otherwise. But, besides that, the sketch overall was a fun look at The Last Dance and the way the documentary focuses on Jordan’s “competitive” nature.
Overall, it was a pretty incredible episode for Saturday Night Live and it definitely helps to have a powerhouse like Key leading the episode. Whenever Key is involved, you at least know you’re in for a laugh but at least, with Saturday Night Live, he was there and ready to play a big game.