Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY: THE FINAL INTERVIEW
despite Diane Sawyer’s (KRW) prodding, Dick Cheney (DAH) has no regrets
— Hoo, boy. I can already see the one-joke route this is going, with Darrell’s Dick Cheney answering all of Kristen-as-Diane-Sawyer’s questions by saying he has no regrets.
— Not even the turn with Kristen’s Sawyer asking Darrell’s Cheney increasingly off-topic questions is doing anything for me.
— Oof. This awful one-joke interview sketch is starting to bring back unwanted memories of that notoriously bad 20 Questions sketch from season 19, in which Tim Meadows’ Bryant Gumbel interviews Sara Gilbert by just asking her “Why?” over and over. The only difference is the audience of this Cheney/Sawyer cold opening is much kinder than the audience of the Gumbel/Gilbert sketch, who gave that sketch the dead silence it deserved (much to a sweaty Tim Meadows’ chagrin, as he would later disclose in the “Live From New York” book).
— Took them damn long enough, but I finally got a laugh towards the end of this interview, when Darrell’s Cheney immediately blurted out a hurried, unhappy, monotone “I DO NOT!” as soon as Kristen’s Sawyer starts to ask if he regrets shooting his friend in the face.
— Kristen’s Sawyer brings up the fact that Darrell’s Cheney has never been asked to say LFNY on SNL. Pardon my nitpicking, but Darrell’s Cheney said LFNY on multiple occasions in the past.
STARS: *½
MONOLOGUE
host thinks Fericito’s stereotypical Latino jokes are a step backward
— Surprising to see Fred’s breakout character, Fericito, back after a long three-and-a-half year hiatus. This ends up being his final appearance.
— Ugh, that Yale/jail groaner could be seen coming from a mile away.
— I’m very surprised Rosario Dawson didn’t do the obligatory “I’m just keeding!” thing at any point during this overall monologue. I thought her serious speech to Fericito about how far Latinos have come was setting up an “I’m just keeding!” from herself.
— Sorry to say, but absence has not made the heart grow fonder in regards to Fericito. I liked him in his first few appearances, back when Fred was a new cast member, but I think Fericito’s talk show sketches, which I never cared much for, permanently burned me out on the Fericito shtick. I now just roll my eyes whenever we get a zoom-in on Fred making that dumb “Ay dios mio!” face into the camera.
STARS: **
NORTH AMERICAN SAVINGS
conservative lending practices minimize risk at North American Savings
— An interesting different use of Darrell, especially at this late stage of his SNL tenure. And, boy, does it feel odd seeing him and Michaela in the same scene.
— The “REJECTED” montage is pretty funny.
— A noticeable use of a black female extra to play Kenan’s wife during the “REJECTED” montage, when all the other married couples in this montage are played by actual cast members. Yet another unintentional reminder this season of SNL’s lack of a black female cast member.
— A good laugh from the “safe and secure” place in the bank that Darrell places a customer’s money: in between a pile of old mattresses in a rusty storage room.
STARS: ***½
DA LEARNIN’ TRAIN
uneducative kids show appalls Harry Connick, Jr. (JAS)
— No idea what to think of the early portions of this sketch so far, but, knowing in hindsight how the rest of this sketch goes, I guess the early portions are just a long set-up for Jason’s Harry Connick Jr. to react to when he eventually enters.
— Fred’s attempt at an urban voice appears to be him doing a Cypress Hill impression. He also sounded like he was doing a Cypress Hill impression in the rap he did in that New Nightly News Theme Song sketch from the preceding season’s Brian Williams episode.
— Jason’s a very solid straight man as usual, and there are some laughs from him calling out all the wrong things about the show, but I’m still kinda iffy on this sketch as a whole. Not sure why it’s not working much for me.
STARS: **½
GUANTANAMO BAY GOING OUT OF BUSINESS SALE
torture devices available at Guantanamo Bay’s going-out-of-business sale
— Fun premise with the juxtaposition of Gitmo doing a going-out-of-business ad.
— Excellent lead performance from Jason as a typical over-excited going-out-of-business ad pitchman.
— Spot-on and funny graphics throughout this.
STARS: ****
ALADDIN ANNIVERSARY
marital woes mark ten-year anniversary of Aladdin (JAS) & Jasmine (host)
— Jason playing someone going through marital troubles and having thoughts about a possible divorce is interesting when you’re aware that Jason, in real life, had recently gone through a rough divorce around this time, as I mentioned in my review of this season’s Hugh Laurie episode. Is doing this sketch some kind of strange therapy for Jason?
— Another nice display of Jason’s singing voice.
— Jason as Aladdin: “I wish I was DEAD! But guess what? I already used up all my wishes!”
— Jason, continuing the strong night he’s been having so far in this episode, gets yet another good line in this sketch: “(to Jasmine) If you hate Genie so much, how come one of our kids is blue?!?”
STARS: ***½
A COUPLE OF HOMIES
FRA & ANS hangout session gets a soundtrack by WLF
— I love the random Will Forte-sung musical narration every time Fred and Andy do some mundane friendly thing together.
— The particularly random and brief “Backscratch!” song was HILARIOUS.
— The even-more-random D.A.R.E. ending is a very funny twist ending. And, for what it’s worth, we get our first of two season 34 sightings of Will Forte’s bare ass.
STARS: ****
GILLY
unremorseful bad seed Gilly (KRW) brazenly assaults classmates & teachers
— Ladies and gentlemen, we have a major recurring character debut! You know, I kinda hate that I’ve cornered myself into saying that excited-sounding catchphrase throughout this SNL project of mine, because I feel just plain stupid when I have to say it for the debut of a bad character who I and a number of others hate. And, boy, is Gilly a perfect example of a bad character who I and a number of others absolutely HAAAAATE.
— This is the first of two consecutive episodes that feature the debut of a Kristen Wiig character who I consider to be the absolute bane of Kristen’s repertoire of recurring characters (which is certainly saying something). And if you think I hate Gilly enough, wait’ll you see my reaction to the certain Wiig character who debuts in tomorrow’s episode.
— Will, Bobby, and (especially) Kenan are providing some much-needed mild laughs for me in this otherwise insufferable sketch.
— Even the running bit with Will’s “Gillllyyyyyyyyyy” utterances, which usually amuse me somewhat, is going on too long right now.
— Casey’s “The bum’s ass” bit gave me my biggest laugh of this sketch so far.
— As a whole, this sketch actually featured funny work from most of the supporting performers, but the actual Kristen portions of this sketch were too hard for me to stomach. And I have Lord-knows-how-many-more installments of this sketch to suffer through.
STARS: *½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Mykonos”
WEEKEND UPDATE
glad-handing Bernie Madoff (FRA) unabashedly plies more pyramid schemes
ever-nervous Judy Grimes loquaciously blurs veracity & mendacity
Larry The Goose (ANS) disputes Captain Chesley Sullenberger’s heroism
— Fred’s Bernie Madoff commentary is absolutely dying a horrible death. And, much like his ad-libbed smiliness/giggliness towards Seth throughout his awful Boy George commentary from a few Weekend Updates ago, Fred’s ad-libbed touchy-feeliness toward Seth throughout this Madoff commentary seems to be Fred’s attempt at masking the lousy writing. Not working, Fred.
— This ends up being the beginning of a two-consecutive-episode run of a terrible showcase for Fred’s Madoff impression. (Interesting how both Kristen AND Fred respectively have a two-consecutive-episode run of something very unfortunate within tonight’s episode and the next one. Have we already reached the point where some people consider Kristen and Fred to be SNL poison?) I recall the Madoff sketch he does in the next episode being particularly awful.
— Another funny run of amusing rapidly-spouted-off silly statements from Judy Grimes. As long as this character’s actual dialogue remains funny, I’ll be able to continue tolerating the repetitiveness of Judy Grimes’ shtick.
— The debut of Andy’s very-occasionally-appearing Larry The Goose.
— This is the type of dumb humor Andy’s good at selling. I particularly like the line comparing the Sullenberger incident to Top Gun because “a plane went down and Goose died”.
STARS: ***
LA POLICIA MEXICANA
cop drama script written by 4th grade Spanish class
— An okay concept of a Spanish-spoken drama written by a 4th grade Spanish class.
— Bill steals this sketch in his brief walk-on as “El Jefe”.
— Overall, not sure at all how to feel about this sketch as a whole, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t care for it.
STARS: **
THE VIEW
Salma Hayek (host) & Ricky Gervais (JAS) weigh in on topics
— Interesting seeing Michaela do a Barbara Walters impression. Out of fairness, I’m not going to compare it to SNL’s two most legendary Barbara Walters impressions (Gilda Radner and Cheri Oteri), but, comparing it to the less-famous one Rachel Dratch previously did and the also-not-very-famous one that future cast member Nasim Pedrad later does, I kinda prefer Rachel and Nasim’s versions. Something in the voice Michaela’s doing isn’t working for me.
— Not caring much for this sketch so far, especially the political rants from Kristen’s Elisabeth Hasselbeck. The fact that this sketch went from appearing right after the monologue in an earlier episode this season to now appearing in the late 12:40 timeslot is proof that even SNL themselves are aware that tonight’s View sketch isn’t up to much.
— Jason’s great night continues, as we now get the debut of his Ricky Gervais impression, and he’s easily the only big entertainment I’m getting from this sketch.
STARS: **
BAND SHOT
— Another instance of SNL returning from a commercial break just to show an all-too-rare shot of the SNL Band immediately playing the show back to another commercial break, which is always a sign that a planned sketch got scrapped at the very last minute.
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Blue Ridge Mountains”
GOOD EXCUSE!
(WLF) & (KRW) concoct convoluted, implausible explanations
— A laugh from the horrible, convoluted excuse Will and Kristen give Kenan.
— Pretty funny how the audience of this talk show just consists of a few cats wandering around.
— I like the phone call from Jason (who’s, once again tonight, the best part of a sketch) as a disgruntled past guest, announcing to the hosts that he’s going to come over to the studio and kill them, an announcement that causes guest Rosario to immediately walk off the show.
STARS: ***
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A weak episode, and the first episode all season that I flat-out disliked. There were barely any big highs to be found, and, while the cold opening and Gilly were the only two things I’d call outright terrible (oh, and Fred Armisen’s Bernie Madoff bit, if we’re counting Weekend Update commentaries), there was A LOT of meh stuff in this episode. All of these things add up to a blah episode. The fact that I had so little to say about most of tonight’s sketches in my individual reviews of them is more evidence of what a blah episode this was. IIRC, this episode ends up being the beginning of a mid-season slump that lasts for four consecutive episodes (though thinking back on the Bradley Cooper episode that’s coming up two episodes from now, I actually can recall a lot of good stuff from it, and I’m now wondering if I and others underrated that episode back in the day).
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
Guantanamo Bay Going Out Of Business Sale
A Couple Of Homies
Aladdin Anniversary
North American Savings
Good Excuse!
Weekend Update
Da Learnin’ Train
La Policia Mexicana
The View
Monologue
Gilly
Vice President Dick Cheney: The Final Interview
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Neil Patrick Harris)
a big step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
SNL hosting legend Steve Martin makes his final hosting appearance (as of 2020)