Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
KIM JONG-UN ADDRESS
Kim Jong-un (BOM) lifts ban on same-sex marriage; Dennis Rodman cameo
— DAMMIT! After I was pleasantly surprised in the preceding episode that what initially seemed to be a translator cold opening ended up going a completely different route, the very next episode does end up having a full-fledged translator cold opening. Just my motherfucking luck.
— What in the world is the audience laughing so much at? Nothing intentionally comedic has even been said yet. Are they laughing at just the fake Korean gibberish that Bobby’s speaking in under the audio of Nasim’s American translation? Geez, is the audience that easily amused?
— Yeah, so far, this is just as awful, droning, and laughless as these crappy Jim Downey-written translator snoozefests typically are. Thankfully, this may be the last time I ever have to review one, given the fact that Downey leaves the writing staff at the end of this season.
— This even has Bobby’s Kim Jong-un asking himself, “Let’s see, what else, what else?” at one point, which was already done in a previous translator cold opening, the one with Fred as Moammar Gadhafi in the season 35 premiere.
— At least we get something kinda interesting with Dennis Rodman making his first SNL appearance since way back in 1996.
— Ha, my only laugh of this entire cold opening ends up being from something that wasn’t even in the script, nor was intended to be comedic: Rodman mush-mouthing his delivery of LFNY, rendering it unintelligible (“LOVE AND NEW YORK, IT’S SOLLDIE NAAAAUUUGHT!”).
STARS: *
OPENING MONTAGE
— After being out for three consecutive episodes due to an injury he suffered at home, resulting in a few people (Bill Hader, Darrell Hammond) filling in for him as SNL’s announcer, Don Pardo has returned.
MONOLOGUE
host’s platform heels leave her unable to walk, much less dance with TAK
— Wow, a huge change of pace for a monologue entrance in this SNL era, with the premise of Melissa McCarthy not being able to walk down the stairs on the home base stage, due to the pair of high heels she’s wearing. I love this. It feels like something from early SNL eras (70s and early-mid 80s), which weren’t afraid to occasionally play around with the formula of stuff like monologue entrances. I also love how Melissa makes the SNL Band play the ending portion of the theme music a second time, which is also something that hadn’t been done in ages.
— Some good physical work here from Melissa in her struggles to get to the front of the home base stage.
— When laying flat on the floor by the SNL Band, I like Melissa saying, “This smells like a lot of musicians.”
STARS: ***½
OUTSIDE THE LINES
coach Sheila Kelly (host) abuses basketball players
— A promising, fun, and topical idea to have Melissa play a female equivalent to infamous college basketball coach Mike Rice. Melissa was born to play this role.
— I’m loving the pre-taped footage of Melissa’s character physically and verbally abusing her basketball players, especially the shot of her using a t-shirt cannon to shoot a t-shirt up at the frightened team, who’s collectively bunched together in a corner at top of the bleachers.
— Now this is getting even funnier with the absolutely insane pre-tape of Melissa violently interrupting her players in their classroom. I especially like her occasionally using a taser on Bobby as the teacher.
— Good shot of Melissa in the window behind Bill, non-verbally threatening Jay during his interview.
— Funny little touch at the very end with Bill’s character giving a little hearty chuckle after announcing the horrifying sports story they’ll be covering next.
STARS: ****
THE VOICE
unlike celebrity coaches, singer (host) knows she lacks talent
— Fairly funny impressions of The Voice judges.
— When Melissa discloses the fact that she lives in a basement with no roof, I like Jason’s Blake Shelton responding “So, you…you’re talkin’ about a hole.”
— Despite some laughs, something about this sketch is leaving a little to be desired for me.
STARS: **½
HONEY BAKED HAM BAKE-OFF
at an annual ham bake-off, perennial also-ran (host) adds choreography
— A fun sudden turn with the ham-themed dance number Melissa, Bobby, and Taran do.
— Oh, I absolutely love when the music in the dance number suddenly turns to Salt-N-Pepa’s “Push It”. As I said in a previous episode review (when covering one of the Spartan Cheerleaders sketches, I believe), I’m always a sucker for “Push It”.
— This sketch continues to be a lot of fun, and Melissa is great here.
STARS: ****
BATHROOM BUSINESSMAN
the Bathroom Businessman in-stall office setup evokes a plea for decency
— Kenan’s intentionally cheesy delivery of “I’m flushing my career down the toilet!” cracked me up.
— Blah at that fart gag & sound effect.
— A good comedic conceit with the long, complex set-up of the Bathroom Businessman product while Kenan desperately has to go to the bathroom.
— The sudden “Decency” bit at the end was a pretty solid surprise twist.
STARS: ***½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Entertainment”
WEEKEND UPDATE
Jacob’s scripted account of Passover includes lighthearted family foibles
the Final Four has contributed to Charles Barkley’s (KET) gambling debt
Drunk Uncle bemoans tax season with his brother-in-law (Peter Dinklage)
— Wow, feels kinda surprising and unexpected in 2020 seeing a 2013 mention on Weekend Update of “California attorney general” Kamala Harris.
— I love Vanessa-as-Jacob’s Jewish-accented pronunciation of “rock music”.
— With this being only Jacob’s second Update commentary, I’m not QUITE as sick of the very thin formula of his Update commentaries as I know I’m eventually going to be. However, I’m already beginning to really hate that repetitive gag with him always going back to reading from his speech whenever Seth asks him a question. They don’t need to repeat that gag 100 freakin’ times in every single Jacob commentary.
— A pretty funny passing mention of Jacob’s cat being named David Ben-Purrion.
— Hmm, I have no memory of this episode having a Kenan-as-Charles-Barkley commentary on Update.
— Kenan-as-Barkley’s line about Michael Jordan being the Michael Jordan of gambling too much was pretty funny.
— I laughed at the long, awkward pause between Kenan and Seth after Kenan’s Barkley mentions one basketball player recently broke his leg simply because “………….he jumped………….”
— Drunk Uncle: “Huey Lewis and the Jeeewwss!”
— Drunk Uncle, after making an offensive comment towards Native Americans: “You’re welcome, Chief Pays-No-Bills!”
— Nice to see a cameo from Peter Dinklage as Drunk Uncle’s brother-in-law Peter Drunklage, as what ends up being the first of several instances of a guest star or host playing a relative or friend of Drunk Uncle’s.
— Peter Dinklage is fantastic here. You’d think he’d been playing this character for a good while like Bobby has.
— I love the “Marco?” “Rubio!” bit between Drunk Uncle and Drunklage.
STARS: ***
MILLION DOLLAR WHEEL
awful fill-in letter turner (host) wrecks game show
— I love Bill’s cheery delivery of “Suzette left because of an alcohol problem – MINE!”
— I remember an online SNL fan back at this time in 2013 pointing out how Victoria Jackson-esque Melissa’s voice and characterization came off here. Yeah, I can see it.
— An extremely thin sketch so far, like some Melissa-plays-a-wacky-character sketches tend to be.
— Yeah, as this sketch goes on, it’s becoming more and more clear that this ain’t working for me. Melissa’s been given practically NO material here, like that awful Turner Classic Movies sketch from her previous episode where she played an actress who kept falling down the stairs over and over and over and over.
— I did get a laugh just now from how, after Melissa has revealed all of the letters on the puzzle, Fred (in his first appearance all night, by the way, which is yet ANOTHER obvious sign that he’s on his way out this season) says “I’d like to solve the puzzle”, only to foolishly end up getting the answer completely wrong.
STARS: *½
PIZZA BUSINESS
loan officer (JAS) denies funding for (host)’s pizza eating business
— Some of Melissa’s characterizations tend to come off awfully similar to each other. Her character in this sketch, for example, feels like a hybrid of her character from the ham sketch earlier tonight and her character from the (overrated, in my opinion) Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing sketch in her preceding episode.
— I like the running gag with Melissa offering Jason a pen when he already clearly has one.
— Despite Melissa giving a very lived-in, established performance as usual in her character pieces (which is something I can often admire about a lot of her characterizations, even when some of them come off too similar to each other and/or don’t make me laugh all that much), and despite me getting a laugh here and there, her constant ramblings in this sketch are becoming white noise to me, which was one of the problems I think I recall having with the aforementioned Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing sketch.
— I actually love the ending, with Melissa returning to the room in slow motion to grab the pizza box after the realization Jason just had. I’ve heard a theory from an SNL fan that Jason truly wasn’t expecting Melissa to do that, because the dress rehearsal version of this sketch reportedly ended differently (with a screen crawl epilogue, I believe), and the shocked & gleeful reaction Jason had to Melissa’s slow motion return in the live version of this sketch looked genuine to that SNL fan.
STARS: **
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Trying To Be Cool” & “Drakkar Noir”
THE ART OF THE ENCOUNTER
videos depict strategies for landing Mr. Right
— So far, this is filled with typical James Anderson/Kent Sublette tropes, especially the very questionable gag names all the characters have (ugh).
— Melissa has an ability to get the audience so on her characters’ side that the audience collectively goes “Awww” whenever her characters experience a letdown. This sketch contains the third separate instance of that happening in this episode alone.
— Despite all the Anderson/Sublette-ness of this sketch, the absurdity and comical awkwardness in this sketch is starting to work for me more and more.
— I love the odd way Taran “gets into place” for Melissa to do the splits on his face.
STARS: ***½
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A very mixed episode. As you can see from my reviews of the two episodes Melissa McCarthy has hosted by this point, I run extremely hot-and-cold on the sketches that are a big showcase piece for her. That was especially on display in this episode, where I seemed to find tonight’s big Melissa showcase pieces to be either a blast (Outside the Lines, Honey Baked Ham Bake-Off) or a repetitive bore (Million Dollar Wheel, Pizza Business). There was almost no middle ground for me. Her sketch comedy seems to be very polarizing among people in general (which is something she has in common with her friend and Bridesmaids co-star Kristen Wiig). Some of the big Melissa showcase pieces that I liked in these first two episodes she hosted, I’m sure quite a number of people dislike, and I’m sure quite a number of people like some of the big Melissa showcase pieces in these two episodes that *I* disliked. Of all the episodes Melissa has hosted (as of 2020), I personally prefer her final two (2016 and 2017), because, IIRC, SNL moves away a little from focusing so heavily on one-note Melissa-plays-a-wacky-character sketches. My memory of the sketches those two episodes actually contain is admittedly very fuzzy, so I might feel a bit differently about those episodes when I eventually review them. We’ll see.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
Outside The Lines
Honey Baked Ham Bake-Off
Monologue
The Art Of The Encounter
Bathroom Businessman
Weekend Update
The Voice
Pizza Business
Million Dollar Wheel
Kim Jong-Un Address
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Justin Timberlake)
a slight step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Vince Vaughn