Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
BIPARTISANSHIP
vengeful Nancy Pelosi (KRW) rejects Harry Reid’s (FRA) bipartisanship
— Some mild chuckles from Kristen-as-Nancy-Pelosi’s sarcasm and snarkiness.
— Overall, not a bad premise at all, but the result was fairly meh and forgettable. There wasn’t anything I found to be all that noteworthy in this.
STARS: **½
MONOLOGUE
host demonstrates evil bully acting techniques; James Lipton cameo
— A funny clipshow of a young, intensely-stone-faced Bradley Cooper as an Inside The Actor’s Studio audience member during his days as an Actor’s Studio student.
— An okay-though-generic sequence from Bradley breaking down how to play a movie bully.
— In typical Andy Samberg fashion, Andy made the best of his brief bit.
— James Lipton cameo!
— Pretty funny how eager Bradley was to cut Lipton’s bit short.
STARS: ***
TODAY
Kathie Lee Gifford (KRW) tests Hoda Kotb’s (MIW) professionalism
— (*groan*) This sketch has officially become recurring. I disliked this enough the first time.
— A reminder of the Snuggie craze from around this time. You can even hear a woman in SNL’s audience excitedly squeal “Oh my god! It’s a Snuggie!” as Michaela’s Hoda brings out a Snuggie.
— I realized one of my main problems with these Today sketches: they feel way too much like how I would imagine the real Kathie Lee/Hoda-hosted Today show is, without much comical exaggeration. And Kristen’s CONSTANT mugging as Kathie Lee is more annoying than funny.
— Yikes, they botched the bit where a stage light from above is supposed to fall on Kristen-as-Kathie-Lee’s head. It ended up falling IN FRONT of her instead of on her head, resulting in a very awkward, long pause from Kristen, who just stands there lost, not knowing what to do, before ad-libbing a goofy, hammy dance. Michaela’s Hoda then says the scripted line “How is she still alive?!?”, referring to Kristen’s Kathie Lee getting hit in the head, but the line doesn’t make any damn sense due to the fact that we didn’t see Kristen’s Kathie Lee getting hit in the head.
STARS: *½
I’M GONNA HAVE SEX WITH YOUR WIFE
emcee (host) cuckolds contestants
— An interesting and promising concept.
— A very funny grumpy look on Bill’s face when the camera first cuts to him. The fake mustache he’s wearing helps add to the comical look.
— Will’s slow burn during the off-camera sex sequence between his wife and Bradley is fantastic.
— I love the now-stern, unamused look on Fred’s face when Bradley goes up to him after the first sex sequence.
— Funny twist in regards to Bill’s character’s divorce.
— Good ending gag with the so-called “home game” version of this game show.
— The day after this episode originally aired, SNL would put up the dress rehearsal version of this sketch online (I can’t remember if that dress rehearsal version was also shown in reruns of this episode, but I’ll assume so). The most noticeable difference I can remember is that Will had a completely different look, with a messy hairstyle and a goatee, IIRC.
STARS: ****
I’M ON A BOAT
ANS, Akiva Schaffer & T-Pain [real] sing about their nautical exploits
— The very first Digital Short to have all three Lonely Island members in the lead role.
— Hilarious random inclusion of T-Pain as the second person who Andy decides to bring with him on his boat ride, completely leaving out Jorma.
— A fucking EPIC music video with Andy and Akiva musically bragging about being on a boat. This would become one of Lonely Island’s most famous and popular music video Digital Shorts.
— One of my favorite and most-remembered lyrics of this short: “I’m flippin’ burgers, you at Kinko’s straight flippin’ copies!”
— So many great and funny visuals to go along with this very catchy song.
— Very good solo number from T-Pain towards the end of this.
— Kinda odd how they’re blurring out the mermaid’s breasts as if she’s topless, despite the fact that we can CLEARLY see under the blurring that she’s wearing a white bra.
STARS: *****
SONG MEMORIES
“To Be With You” evokes awful tales by (host) & other icky reminiscers
— So far, the punchlines to the stories in tonight’s Song Memories sketch feel meh and kinda half-assed compared to the punchlines in some of the other installments of this recurring sketch.
— Adding to the half-assed feel of the writing of tonight’s Song Memories installment, none of the guys are making an addendum to their story after singing the “To Be With You” chorus in unison with each other. Those addendums are usually a tradition of these Song Memories sketches, and usually provide the biggest laughs.
— I gotta say, despite my disappointment with the writing, I love the energy of the guys’ performances tonight, especially during their final singing of the “To Be With You” chorus. Their energy is even better than it was in previous installments of this sketch. I only wish the writing of tonight’s installment matched that great energy.
— The pallbearer twist ending was okay.
STARS: **½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Golden Age”
WEEKEND UPDATE
Mark Spitz (ANS) hypes himself amidst Michael Phelps weed controversy
a week after his Super Bowl TD, James Harrison (KET) is still winded
incredulous SEM says “Really!?!” to criticism of Michael Phelps
Bjork’s (KRW) thoughts on Iceland’s financial crisis are not helpful
— Andy’s mere look as Mark Spitz is amusing, and he has several funny dirty, smug lines.
— Pretty funny commentary from Kenan’s James Harrison, still out of breath from his famous 100-yard interception run in the previous Sunday’s Super Bowl.
— Our very first solo Seth-helmed “Really?!?” segment, which feels kinda odd after having gotten so used to seeing Amy Poehler do these with him, and knowing in hindsight that Seth does some (or all?) future “Really?!?” segments with a special guest.
— Good breakdown from Seth on how stoner-friendly Kellogg’s unintentionally comes off.
— Wow, a heated and bitter final message from Seth in his “Really?!?” segment, ending with a sincere, salty, almost-non-comedic “You need to take a good, long look in the mirror, because you’re a dick!” towards the person who leaked the photo of Michael Phelps smoking a bong. Seth’s not wrong here, but I wonder if the reason for this sudden genuine saltiness from him is because he perhaps feels partial to Phelps after Phelps hosted SNL earlier this season.
— Kristen’s Bjork commentary is kinda washing over me, though it doesn’t seem all that bad in itself.
— (*groan*) I could do without Kristen’s Bjork breaking out into a musical number right now.
STARS: ***
LOCKER ROOM
after the hockey game, all players but one (host) awe young Keith (BOM)
— The first appearance of Bobby’s very-short-lived-but-somewhat-memorable “It’s okaaaaayyyyy???” little boy character, Keith.
— Bobby is both funny and adorable in this role.
— I like the contrast between Bobby’s freaked-out reactions to most of the hockey players and very unexcited, unimpressed reactions to Bradley’s character.
— (*sigh*) Another episode this season in which Darrell is relegated to making a brief walk-on in a non-impression, featured player-level bit role that he comes off very awkward and miscast in.
— Pretty funny how Bobby’s even having a freaked-out reaction to the trainer.
STARS: ***½
BAD GUYS, GOOD CONVERSATION
movie villains take up a few topics
— I love this concept. I’m not sure, and correct me if I’m wrong, but I think I recall hearing John Mulaney wrote this. If so, that definitely makes sense, as this feels in his wheelhouse.
— Clearly, someone at SNL agrees with me that Michaela bears a facial resemblance to Glenn Close, as this is the second time this season she’s been cast as a character Glenn Close played in a movie (the first time was in the J’accuzzi sketch from this season’s John Malkovich episode).
— Jason is absolutely hilarious as the villain sensai from The Karate Kid.
— Bill is PERFECT as Buffalo Bill from Silence Of The Lambs. My favorite portion of this already-fun sketch. If Mulaney indeed wrote this sketch, then this is yet another example of him perfectly utilizing Bill.
STARS: ****
INTERVENTION
squirt noises made by fluid pumpers (host) & (KRW) derail an intervention
— The comedic conceit of this sketch is lame as hell so far.
— Ugh, I’m now a few minutes into this sketch, and it is DREADFUL. The same basic unfunny joke is just going on and on and on and on and on and on. Awful. I hate how it’s officially become a weekly thing around this time for every episode to have at least one horribly-written Kristen Wiig showcase (TWO in tonight’s case).
— I did kinda chuckle at the bit right now with Bill revealing he has patients waiting in the van Kristen and Bradley are having off-camera sex on top of.
— Dumb ending with Andy being caught with a drink. And why does he keep looking up at himself in the monitor during this portion of the sketch?
STARS: *½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Dancing Choose”
NO BRUCE! LET ME FINISH! THE BEST OF CELEBRITY TIRADES
Christian Bale (host) on a celebrity tirade DVD
— The bit with Bradley’s Christian Bale initially being distracted by Will’s stagehand character (who’s oddly not even on camera yet when Bradley first starts reacting to him) is being executed very awkwardly, and has gotten this sketch off to a fairly rough start.
— Pretty funny and promising concept of a celebrity tirade tape, and this looks to be a fun showcase of celebrity impressions from the cast.
— What the holy hell is Kenan going for with that bizarre hokey voice he’s using as George Foreman?
— Abby finally makes her first appearance of the night…..in the 10-to-1 sketch. At least her Joan Cusack impression here is making me laugh.
— A funny subversion with the “angry” rant from the usually-loud-and-hostile Jim Cramer ironically turning out to actually be the one calmly-delivered rant out of all the celebrity tirades we’re shown.
— Bobby steals this sketch with his very funny Nathan Lane impression (which I think I heard he did at his SNL audition).
STARS: ***½
GOODNIGHTS
— Random Drew Barrymore out of nowhere. Well, Bradley did mention in the monologue earlier tonight that Drew is one of the co-stars of the movie he’s promoting (He’s Just Not That Into You).
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A pretty good episode, and, as I wondered in a recent review of mine, was a little better than I remember deeming it back when it originally aired. Between the not-as-bad-as-I-remembered Steve Martin/Jason Mraz episode and now this, the so-called four-episode mid-season slump of season 34 (from the Rosario Dawson episode to the Alec Baldwin episode) is much ado about nothing. That slump was known among a number of online SNL fans back in 2009, but it turns out that, aside from Rosario Dawson, none of the three episodes I’ve covered so far in that four-episode stretch were all that bad. Maybe this is just a classic case of certain SNL episodes coming off better when revisiting them years later.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
I’m On A Boat
Bad Guys, Good Conversation
I’m Gonna Have Sex With Your Wife
Locker Room
No Bruce! Let Me Finish! The Best Of Celebrity Tirades
Monologue
Weekend Update
Song Memories
Bipartisanship
Today
Intervention
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Steve Martin)
a slight step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Alec Baldwin / Jonas Brothers