November 17, 2012 – Jeremy Renner / Maroon 5 (S38 E8)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

BOOKNOTES
Paula Broadwell (CES) reads from her salacious David Petraeus biography

— Some laughs from the very raunchy, glorified erotica that Cecily’s Paula Broadwell is reading from the All In book, made funnier by the very professional, straitlaced manner she’s reading it in.
— The audience members eventually walking out in droves is pretty funny.
— A huge rarity in SNL’s recent years like this one to have “Live from New York…” be delivered by an off-camera voice-over (Jim Downey, in this case).
STARS: ***

MONOLOGUE
host plays piano & sings songs he wrote for action movies he starred in

— Hmm, not too sure about Jeremy Renner’s delivery so far.
— When going to the piano, Jeremy says “Once again…I cannot believe I agreed to do this”, then proceeds to chuckle nervously for an extended amount of time. I’m finding that to be half-charming and half-worrying.
— A big gaffe, as there’s no sound coming from the piano when Jeremy starts playing, leading him to make awkward ad-libs towards the audience. Then he humorously says a cheerful “Oh, thank you!” to seemingly an off-camera stagehand who has fixed the problem.
— Jeremy now chuckles nervously for an extended amount of time again, then makes a nice ad-lib by saying, in regards to the piano blooper, “Good way to start the show, right?”
— Didn’t care for the first song, but the “Captain Amer” bit in the second song is pretty funny.
— An okay laugh from the third song just being a blatant “Use Somebody” knock-off.
— The brief Mission Impossible song was pretty funny.
— Overall, despite the piano blooper and Jeremy’s worrying nervousness in certain parts, this monologue was decent enough and had a bit of a charm to it, even the aforementioned blooper and nervousness.
STARS: ***

YOUR HOMETOWN
staying with your parents during a trip home makes for an unfun vacation

 

— A very relatable premise.
— A good laugh from the visual of Bill in those high-waisted briefs.
— I absolutely love the way that the mundane aspects of coming home for the holidays is comically being presented in the style of upbeat tourism ads. The execution of this is great.
— There’s that lovable Tim Robinson goofiness that I always enjoy, even when he plays a non-speaking role like this one.
STARS: ****½

THE CALIFORNIANS
Stuart mulls Southland geography & learns he has a son

— (*groooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaan*) Plus, didn’t they just do this sketch a few episodes prior?
— At least they’re doing something different with Vanessa’s maid character, who usually just announces when a guest has arrived.
— Much like the first installment of this sketch, Fred is very giggly in this installment so far. Unlike the first installment, none of the other performers are joining Fred in his laughing, not even the easy-to-break Bill.
— After the first scene, Fred seems to have gotten his act together in terms of his giggliness.
— Whoops, spoke too soon, as Fred has suddenly started giggling again for no apparent reason during the reveal of the baby photo. I think Fred’s giggling at his own delivery in general (especially that “seating arrangement” line that he delivered in a particularly exaggerated, awkward-sounding Californian accent, even for this sketch’s standards), further proving how annoyingly self-indulgent this recurring sketch (and so many other Fred Armisen-starring things from Fred’s later seasons) is.
— I did kinda chuckle at how one of the typical sequences of the camera showing mock-dramatic close-ups of each character during a shocking reveal includes a mock-dramatic close-up of the smiling baby photo.
— Fred has now started giggling even more in the scene currently taking place, and again, for no apparent reason, and with none of the other performers joining in on it.
— Feels odd seeing Taran play a different character than the effeminate character he usually plays in this recurring sketch.
STARS: *½

THE SITUATION ROOM WITH WOLF BLITZER
Tampa inquiry fails to shed light on Petraeus scandal

— Cecily playing both Paula Broadwell AND Jill Kelley in the same night?
— Funny bits involving The Situation Room only being able to show the one clip of Cecily’s Jill Kelley that’s available. It especially gets funny when they start playing with the footage, such as showing it in reverse.
— A huge laugh from Tim in drag now doing a dramatization of the one Jill Kelley walking-down-the-stairs clip that was shown repeatedly.
— Jeremy’s getting some chuckles from me.
STARS: ***½

THE STAND OFF
(TAK), (BOM), (host) keep guns aimed; Adam Levine cameo

— At least this is something that Jeremy is certainly in his element in, unlike some of the other stuff he’s appeared in in this episode.
— Very funny visual of Jeremy, Taran, and Bobby keeping their guns aimed at each other in that stand-off posture while cramped in the back of a taxi.
— More hilarious situations that Jeremy, Taran, and Bobby continue to hold their stand-off posture towards each other in, such as when Jeremy’s reading his daughter a bedtime story, when grace is being said at a Thanksgiving dinner, when they’re relieving themselves at urinals, and when they’re joyfully ice skating with each other.
— A good laugh from Bobby suddenly getting coldly gunned down by Jeremy and Taran while in the middle of a touching speech about how meaningful his time with Jeremy and Taran has been the past few days.
— Overall, this season continues its huge winning streak with their post-Lonely Island short films.
STARS: ****½

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “One More Night”

WEEKEND UPDATE
SEM groups stakeholders in Petraeus scandal into Winners & Losers

self-described pimp Katt Williams (JAP) explains his erratic behavior

bossy but grateful Chris Christie [real] addresses Hurricane Sandy clean-up efforts

— Another Winners/Losers segment, fairly soon after the last one. I guess I can’t complain, given how strong I found the last one.
— Tonight’s overall Winners/Losers segment was decent, if nothing special or particularly noteworthy.
— The debut of Jay’s spot-on Katt Williams impression.
— Though it’s just a little thing, I love Jay’s delivery of the “This right here…this right here…this right here” bit.
— Some other laughs from Jay’s Williams commentary.
— A cameo from the real Chris Christie.
— Christie is actually coming off really natural and loose in his delivery, not being stiff at all like some non-actors tend to be in SNL cameos.
STARS: ***

THE AVENGERS
Hawkeye (host) is the least-useful Avenger when he runs out of arrows

— A few laughs here and there so far, but this sketch is both slow-paced and awkwardly paced. Maybe that’s to be expected for an action-heavy sketch like this that’s being performed live. Perhaps this would’ve benefited from being pre-taped instead.
— What was with Taran openly breaking when Jeremy popped back into the scene after being used as a weapon by Hulk? Jeremy also botched his line right afterwards.
— That’s…that’s it??? That’s the whole sketch? That was a little bit of laughs and a WHOLE LOT of nothing.
STARS: *½

MOVIE SET
actor (JAS) bungles a scene in which he’s supposed to be slapped by host

— “Wes Underballs”? Is this character of Bill’s supposed to be related to Bill’s Mike Underballs character?
— The reveal of Jason’s Dick Fuel character’s real name being Dick Juice is so juvenile and stupid, but I strangely kinda chuckled anyway.
— So far, the writing of this is questionable and quite dumb. In fact, it feels like the type of horrible “an actor keeps ruining the filming of one scene” sketch that Horatio Sanz would’ve done in his later seasons, where his shtick was beyond tired (e.g. that awful Zorro sketch from the season 31 Antonio Banderas episode). However, Jason is doing far more for this material than Horatio ever would have.
— Yet another dumb and juvenile part of this sketch, with Jason’s Dick Fuel randomly asking the others about the Kim Kardashian sex tape and complimenting Ray J on the size of his “piece”, but Bill actually made me laugh a lot when agreeing with Dick Fuel on Ray J’s “piece”, by saying an amused “It’s all true, it’s quite something.”
— Just now, Jason genuinely messed up by accidentally calling Jeremy by his real first name during the movie scene being filmed, before correcting himself in a somewhat amusing manner.
— Now Jeremy’s the one who genuinely messes up, by referring to Bill’s character’s surname as “Wonderballs” instead of “Underballs”.
STARS: ***

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Daylight”

MIDNIGHT SNACK – COOL DRONES
by Zach Kanin & Rob Klein- deadly pilotless flying weapons also constitute a boy band

— Oh, I completely forgot about this until now, much like the Fred Wolf-made American America cartoons from season 36. SNL attempts a new brand of cartoons, Midnight Snack, made by SNL writers Zach Kanin and Rob Klein. And much like the aforementioned American America cartoons, this attempt ends up being short-lived, even moreso, with only one Midnight Snack cartoon making it to air.
— I love the opening Midnight Snack title sequence, with a creature being shown eating a snack while watching TV.
— Feels kinda fun hearing the current cast’s voices as various characters in this cartoon.
— Not too crazy about the 90s-style boy band concept.
— I’m liking the animation here, though part of the reason for that could be because it’s such a rarity to see animation in this SNL era.
— Other than that one drone’s constant lines about booties, I’m not getting much laughs from this cartoon so far.
— The extended gun-firing sequence is fairly funny, especially the part with the goat.
— That’s the whole cartoon? Hate to say it, but this was really meh and forgettable. As much as I’d have loved to see SNL’s Midnight Snack segment take off and become SNL’s new TV Funhouse, it’s probably a good thing that never happened if all the Midnight Snack cartoons were going to be as mediocre as this.
STARS: **

CORONER
in the morgue, (host) can’t grasp the concept of body identification

— I laughed a lot at Jeremy matter-of-factly saying, when identifying the dead body, “It’s Steven Tyler.” The audience reaction to that is SO dead that you can clearly hear a giggling woman in the otherwise-silent audience repeat the “It’s Steven Tyler” line to herself in amusement.
— Okay, the audience is getting more into this now.
— Kinda like the Movie Set sketch from earlier in this episode, this premise is dumb, but the execution is making it work.
— Very funny ad-lib with Bill musically patting his hands on the body of Taran, who’s playing a dead person. If Bill’s attempting to get Taran to break, it doesn’t work.
— Bill’s “I kinda wanna see what he’s gonna say” line made me laugh, even if it felt like a variation of something he said in the courtroom sketch from the preceding season’s Eli Manning episode.
— I love the rapid succession of guesses Jeremy is now making on the dead body’s identity, as if it’s the speed round of a game show.
— Jason is a fantastic straight man.
— When Jeremy says, regarding the dead body, “It’s his (Bill’s) brother”, I love Bill foolishly responding “Dennis?!?” while looking at the body in a shocked manner.
— This sketch is getting funnier and funnier. I’m loving this.
— Even the detail of the voice Taran’s using is great.
— When the “dead” body comes back to life and Jason gives Bill a puzzled look, I got a huge laugh from Bill innocently saying “He said he was dead!”
STARS: ****½

GOODNIGHTS

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IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A better episode than I had remembered. However, for this season’s standards, this was a very unremarkable episode, though with a few really strong highlights. Kind of a messy-feeling episode, too, with all the gaffes.

MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS

RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
Your Hometown
Coroner
The Stand Off
The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer
Booknotes
Weekend Update
Movie Set
Monologue
Midnight Snack – Cool Drones
The Avengers
The Californians

HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Anne Hathaway)
a step down

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW
Jamie Foxx