Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
PARALLEL EARTH
on a parallel Earth, everything is great under president Al Gore [real]
— Right from the opening intro sequence of this, it looks like we’re in for an out-of-the-ordinary cold opening.
— Very fun concept of the real Al Gore being president in a parallel universe, and Gore has proven himself in the past to be a good presence on SNL.
— So much great and inspired ironic humor here, and this is both very well-written and well-performed.
— Ha, there goes a lockbox mention.
— A particularly funny line about California no longer existing, and having been replaced by Mexifornia.
STARS: ****½
MONOLOGUE
Jason Alexander [real] thinks JLD has broken the Seinfeld [real] curse
— It feels very nice to see Julia Louis-Dreyfus back on SNL for the first time since her departure from the cast in 1985.
— I like that Julia starts this monologue by bringing up the little-known-among-more-casual-viewers fact that she was once an SNL cast member. I wish she talked a little more about that here, but she would later do that in her season 41 monologue.
— We also get a mention that Julia has the honor of being the first female cast member to host. I remember how, before this, a lot of online SNL fans were surprised that in SNL’s then-31 years on the air, there had yet to be a female cast member who has come back to host. Thankfully, after Julia’s hosting stint in tonight’s episode, there have been much more female cast members who have hosted.
— Very funny mockery of men’s maturity levels with the various working titles Julia says that her show The New Adventures Of Old Christine originally had.
— I absolutely LOVE how we’re getting a Seinfeld-esque pre-taped outdoors scene with Julia and Jason Alexander.
— Great scene with Julia and Jason, especially the sudden car collision ending.
— Now we get a Jerry Seinfeld cameo! Even the odd raspiness in his voice here is making me laugh a lot.
— A noticeable absence of a Michael Richards cameo. Either he wasn’t available, or SNL somehow looked into the future and saw that he was soon going to gain extreme notoriety with his infamous Laugh Factory incident later in this same year.
STARS: ****½
TECH PACK
wired vest organizes electronic devices but looks terroristic
— I recall this getting cut from many dress rehearsals this season before finally making it on the air in tonight’s episode.
— I like how the only performers in this are two of the newbies.
— Amusing how the Tech Pack that Jason is demonstrating to Kristen looks unintentionally like a terrorist’s bomb strap, complete with a detonator.
— Very funny ending with Jason running through the airport with his bomb strap-looking device, scaring the hell out of the other people at the airport.
— Overall, short and sweet.
STARS: ***½
BUM ATTENTION
insecure (JLD) is upset she isn’t being harassed by a lewd bum (BIH)
— Feels interesting seeing Julia paired with this female cast after having gotten so used to seeing Julia’s female cast mates being Mary Gross, Robin Duke, etc. when I reviewed her SNL era earlier in this project of mine.
— Julia’s disappointment at not getting sleazily hit on by Bill’s disgusting hobo character like her friends did is very funny.
— A great crass performance from Bill.
— I love the long, suspenseful buildup to the comment Bill is going to make to Julia.
— A hilarious dirty line that Bill eventually says to Julia, much to her poorly-disguised pleasure.
STARS: ****
THE MORNING SHOW
everything goes wrong during live television broadcast
— It certainly feels odd but interesting seeing this pairing of Kristen and Horatio front and center in this sketch. Watching back this season in retrospect years after it originally aired, it kinda blows my mind now that Kristen and Horatio’s SNL tenures overlapped for a season, as that’s easy to forget when watching this season, partly due to them rarely interacting with each other onscreen, partly due to the very different SNL eras they represent respectively, and partly due to how Horatio’s presence has gradually diminished this season while Kristen’s presence gradually increased.
— I absolutely love how literally EVERY SINGLE THING is going wrong in this morning show. SNL has done this premise with some other news or morning show sketches (e.g. a sketch from Britney Spears’ season 27 episode, and one from Andy Roddick’s season 29 episode), but it’s being particularly executed well here.
— Two hilarious running gags throughout this sketch, one with a deceased staff member and another with the show’s theme song randomly playing at the wrong times.
— A rare solid performance from Horatio at this late stage of his SNL tenure.
STARS: ****½
MYSPACE SEMINAR
students in (ANS)’s Intro To MySpace class are mostly sexual predators
— In retrospect, an interesting time capsule of the MySpace craze still going strong at this time.
— Great reveal of the class being mostly full of sexual predators in their 40s.
— Is Will playing an early version of Jeff Montgomery, his later and well-remembered sex offender character from season 34 (most famously in a sketch with Jon Hamm where Montgomery is a trick-or-treater)? Will’s even wearing the exact same jacket in this MySpace sketch that he would later wear in the Jeff Montgomery sketches.
— Oh, that’s right, Seth Meyers is still a cast member. Lately, he’s been joining Maya and Horatio in the “They’ve been appearing on the show so little lately that it feels like they’ve already left the cast” department.
— I love Seth’s line about using 1991 in his username because 1,991 is supposedly his favorite number.
— Hilarious bit with Will pretending to type on this laptop when he says he’ll change his “NaughtyGirlHotStuff” username after being told that username will attract a lot of teenage boys.
— Seth’s Dateline question is fantastic.
— Ha, something about Chris’ mere delivery and facial expression during his bit about having his face altered is cracking me up.
— I love all the guys immediately clearing out of the room in a panic when a cop shows up.
— After the cop leaves, we get an absolutely priceless reveal of Horatio hiding very poorly behind a small potted plant. Speaking of Horatio, wow, between the Morning Show sketch and now this, he’s having by far the best night he’s had in a LOOOOOOONG time.
— Overall, such a perfect sketch.
STARS: *****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “How Can You Live In The Northeast?”
WEEKEND UPDATE
AMP & Al Gore [real] do a Point-Counterpoint about global warming
TIF’s grandfather (FRA) tries to sign up for Medicare benefits via phone
FIM gives fashion tips to young men regarding appropriate prom attire
David Blaine (ANS) fails in his attempt to hold his breath for 9 minutes
— A big laugh from the mostly-blacked-out global warming report that Al Gore displays.
— Ugh, words cannot express how much I absolutely HATED Amy “flipping” the “You ignorant slut” routine when Gore was about to say it during his and Amy’s Point-Counterpoint. Amy’s corny, cutesy delivery of “You ignorant slut” didn’t help. Way to piss all over a great, long-standing SNL tradition, Amy.
— A somewhat interesting change of pace for Update with the segment involving Fred as Tina’s grandfather, Wolfgang.
— I admit to getting a cheap laugh from Fred’s Wolfgang muttering “I got the damn cleaning lady” when the phone operator speaks in Spanish.
— Finesse appears in his final Update commentary.
— I loved Finesse’s “You are a magician” bit, as did the audience. The rest of this commentary, on the other hand? Meh. At least it’s not as painfully unfunny as Finesse’s last Update commentary before this about angry black women.
— I like Rachel’s lines as the phone operator in the second segment with Fred’s Wolfgang.
— This Update feels like it’s going on FOREVER.
— The whiny, gaspy voice Andy is using after he as David Blaine failed to complete his magic trick sounds very Adam Sandler-esque.
— Andy’s David Blaine commentary is pretty dumb on paper, but it’s the kind of dumb that Andy can execute well (which is another similarity Andy has to Adam Sandler), which he is doing here.
— Tired, past-their-prime, and about-to-leave SNL veterans having a better night than usual seems to be a theme tonight, because not only has Horatio been having a surprisingly strong episode, but Tina has had what is probably her best night in a while in tonight’s overall Update, though it’s still a far cry from her glory days on Update back in 2000-2002. Amy, on the other hand, was as horrible tonight as she usually is in the Fey/Poehler era of Update, maybe even moreso, especially that absolutely god-awful dolphin joke of hers tonight.
STARS: **½
CHARADES
contestants’ (AMP) & (JLD) pantomime is sexually suggestive
— Fitting casting of Darrell as impressionist Rich Little.
— I like Chris always responding to Darrell-as-Rich-Little’s hacky and shoehorned celebrity impressions by immediately shutting him down or just quickly moving on in a clearly-unamused manner.
— Some good laughs from the increasingly suggestive-looking charade gestures Amy and Julia have to do, and how the celebrity contestants can easily guess Amy’s gestures, but constantly mistake Julia’s gestures for sex acts.
— Maya’s Charo is getting increasingly unintelligible as this sketch goes on.
— I love the look Kenan’s Nipsey Russell gives Maya’s Charo after she says “You are me – Charo!” (which makes at least one line of hers that I could decipher) in response to one PARTICULARLY dirty-looking charade gesture of Julia’s.
STARS: ***½
UNSOLVED MYSTERIES
Unsolved Mysteries re-enactor (JLD) doesn’t believe (KRW)’s alien story
— I remember the absolutely befuddled reaction among online SNL fans back at this time in regards to SNL’s decision to do an Unsolved Mysteries sketch in 2006, years after Unsolved Mysteries had stopped being relevant.
— I also recall how I and other online SNL fans back at this time got a VERY Mo Collins (from MADtv) vibe from Kristen’s twitchy, psychotic character in this sketch, back in the days before us SNL fans got very accustomed to seeing Kristen play twitchy, psychotic characters.
— It’s cracking me up how, among the cartoonish ghoulish off-camera voices, one of the voices is literally just saying “Ghoooosts” in a quivery, spooky voice.
— The increasingly bizarre movie characters showing up during the scene being filmed are pretty funny.
STARS: ***
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Outrageous”
PEYOTE
peyote leads to street-level suicide jump threat drama with (ANS) & (WLF)
— This is the ONLY time I can remember that a Lonely Island-made Digital Short, billed on the air as such with the “An SNL Digital Short” title screen, has ever aired as the last segment of an episode, but I can’t say for sure.
— A hilarious ending reveal of Andy not standing on the high ledge of a building like we were led to believe, but rather standing on a sidewalk against a building, and Will being crouched down right in front of him.
— Much like at the end of the Lettuce Digital Short from earlier this season, we get a very brief Jorma Taccone appearance as a passerby.
— Speaking of Lettuce, tonight’s short has a similar twist ending, with peyote being the subject matter instead of lettuce, which is very funny after the aforementioned reveal of Andy and Will both bizarrely being on ground level.
— This may be the shortest Lonely Island Digital Short of all time.
STARS: ****
GOODNIGHTS
(Not included in the copy I’m reviewing of this episode. For anyone keeping count, this is only the third time in my SNL project that the copy of an episode I reviewed cut off abruptly before its existing goodnights were shown. The previous two episodes were Christopher Walken’s season 21 episode and The Rock’s season 27 episode. Unlike those two, tonight’s episode isn’t followed by an Alec Baldwin-hosted episode, so at least I know there’s not some kind of curse going on.)
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A very strong episode, and one of the absolute best of this season. This episode was almost completely flawless, minus Weekend Update, though even THAT was a little better than it’s usually been in the Fey/Poehler era. The first half of this episode was especially phenomenal, with almost EVERY SINGLE SEGMENT receiving a rating ranging from 4-5 stars. Very impressive. Almost everything in the first half of this episode seemed so “on”, especially the inspired writing. And as I mentioned earlier, even some tired veterans in the cast had their best night in a while in this episode.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Tom Hanks)
a big step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Season 31 comes to an end, with host Kevin Spacey. It’s also the final episode for Rachel Dratch, Tina Fey, Finesse Mitchell, Chris Parnell, and Horatio Sanz, as well as the final episode of Seth Meyers’ tenure as a regular sketch performer.