Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
PIERS MORGAN LIVE
Chris Christie (BOM), Alex Rodriguez (host), Justin Bieber (KAM) respond to their scandals
— This ends up being the final appearance of both this recurring sketch and Taran’s Piers Morgan impression.
— I got a laugh from how one of the “positive” New Jersey qualities that Bobby’s Chris Christie lists off is “a vague chemical smell”.
— Drake already showing what a fun host he’ll be tonight, as he’s doing a solid job here in his scene as Alex Rodriguez.
— The debut of Kate’s Justin Bieber impression, back in the days when Kate playing a male in a cold opening was actually rare.
— Kate is absolutely priceless and spot-on in her Bieber impression here, especially the gestures.
— Kate’s Bieber, when asked what his age is: “I think I’m 40. Maybe I’m 5…I don’t know, my brain is broken.”
— That LFNY from Kate seemed abruptly thrown in out of absolutely nowhere. Makes me wonder if this wasn’t originally the cold opening in dress rehearsal. The fact that Drake appears in this supports that theory of mine, given how rare it is for hosts to appear in cold openings in recent SNL eras.
STARS: ***½
OPENING MONTAGE
— Sasheer Zamata has been added to the cast tonight, as SNL’s answer to all of the criticisms they faced this season for having no black women in the cast while hiring an overabundance of new white cast members.
MONOLOGUE
black & Jewish halves of host’s family commingle at his bar mitzvah
— Drake is immediately coming off very likable here.
— A rare instance of a sketch within a monologue, utilizing a different set and everything. This could be fun.
— Some good corny lines from Vanessa and Jay as Drake’s parents.
— I like the little bit with Drake’s mom making him change his new “Drake” moniker to the Jewish-sounding “Drakob”.
— It sure didn’t take them long to drop the comical pretense of this bar mitzvah taking place in 1999, as the rap that Drake is doing is oddly making references to celebrities like LeBron James, Kim Kardashian, and Kanye West, none of whom I believe were famous yet in 1999.
STARS: ***½
HIP HOP CLASSICS
hip-hop artists got started on unlikely TV shows
— A fun and promising concept.
— Taran’s Eminem impression always cracks me up, and his “CHOOSE YOURSELF! YOUR INTERNSHIP’S IMPORTANT!” line from this sketch has stuck in my memory over the years.
— Boy, does this Family Matters spoof really take me back to my childhood in the 90s.
— Kenan’s Carl Winslow/Reginald Vel Johnson voice is absolutely spot-on and hilarious.
— The spoof of the Blossom opening credits is something else that’s taking me back to my 90s childhood.
— Jay’s 2 Chainz is very funny during his angry confrontation of Kate and Noel.
— The Wonder Years/Flavor Flav scene is pretty awful, and is kinda hurting the momentum of an otherwise good sketch.
STARS: ***½
NANCY GRACE
to Nancy Grace (NOW), legalized Colorado marijuana is a cause for alarm
— A rare Noel Wells showcase. It’s about damn time, SNL.
— Is Drake going out of his way to do ALL of the impressions from Jay’s repertoire? (Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, and now Katt Williams.) Drake has been funny in all those roles, though, so I’m not complaining.
— As much as I want to root for Noel, I’m having very mixed feelings towards her Nancy Grace performance here.
— I’m also noticing that the audience isn’t all that into Noel’s performance either. They’re laughing less and less at her as this sketch progresses, to the degree that her last “WHAT ABOUT THE BABIES?!?!?!?” outburst receives a long, uncomfortable stretch of absolute dead silence from the audience. Ouch! If this sketch had any chances of convincing SNL to give Noel more airtime, the bad audience reaction must’ve put the kibosh on that fast. This would sadly end up being her final lead role on SNL, despite the fact that the woman still has, you know, HALF A SEASON remaining on the show. While I’m iffy on her performance in this sketch, she still deserved another chance to prove herself after this.
STARS: **½
RESOLUTION REVOLUTION
(TAK), (host), (JAP) undergo willpower failure
— Very catchy opening song from Taran. I kinda wanted it to go on longer before it cut off.
— The abruptness of the cutaway to Jay’s sex doll-humping scene is very funny.
— I like the randomness of how extended the cosplay scene goes on, and how that scene starkly contrasts to the rest of this music video.
STARS: ***½
SLUMBER PARTY
at a slumber party, Melanie (AIB) yearns for girl’s (SAZ) dad (host)
— Drake is surprisingly PERFECT as a cheesy middle-aged dad. And I’ll never forget some people on an SNL board jokingly referring to his character in this sketch as “Black Ned Flanders”, based on his look.
— Interesting kid voice from Kate. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her use that voice before or after this.
— Aidy’s doing well in this, and has good lines all throughout.
— Very funny ending regarding Aidy suggestively lying face-down on a beanbag with her hands under her body.
STARS: ***½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
host performs “Started From The Bottom” & “Trophies”
WEEKEND UPDATE
spacey Jacqueline Bisset (VAB) has trouble getting from audience to stage
Arianna Huffington (NAP) mulls Hillary Clinton’s presidential viability
— I’m loving Vanessa’s bit as Jacqueline Bisset in SNL’s audience, spoofing Bisset’s appearance at the then-recent Golden Globes. This is not only funny and features solid execution by Vanessa, but the studio audience setting is a refreshing change of pace for an Update segment.
— For the second time this season, my growing tolerance towards Cecily as an Update anchor unfortunately gets set back by her regressing, though I don’t put the blame all on her this time. She’s been saddled with a lot of corny, weak jokes tonight that I’m not sure any Update anchor could’ve made work.
— This ends up being the final appearance of Nasim’s Arianna Huffington.
— As usual, some good comments from Nasim’s Huffington, even if I feel she’s had some better commentaries in the past.
— Given the trend the last few Updates prior to this of Update guests getting emotional over Seth’s soon-to-come departure, and also given the trend of Nasim’s Huffington always flirting with Seth, I’m surprised tonight’s Huffington commentary went by without her saying anything about how much she’s gonna miss Seth. Maybe SNL felt they overdid the “guests emotionally say goodbye to Seth” thing in the last few Updates, especially since Seth ends up staying a little longer than SNL originally expected, reportedly.
— A good continuation of Vanessa’s Jacqueline-Bisset-in-the-audience bit.
— Cecily’s punchline to the news story about a man who experienced an erection for five weeks after falling off of his mountain bike: “So…I know what I’m gettin’ my boyfriend for Valentine’s Day…..” Ugh. While that’s actually a funny joke in itself and Cecily’s delivery sold it, it’s a little disturbing when you realize Cecily’s real-life boyfriend at this time was her castmate Mike O’Brien. And thus, that mountain bike/erection joke of Cecily’s plants an image of Mike in my mind that I could’ve happily lived the rest of my life not ever having.
— The conclusion to the Jacqueline Bisset runner was somewhat predictable, but Vanessa executed it well.
STARS: **½
DISNEY WORLD SHOW
at Disney World, language barrier hamstrings would-be Indiana Jones (NAP)
— Nasim, upon her entrance, constantly repeating “I…am…Rahat” to increasingly dead silence from SNL’s audience makes me worried for what kind of sketch awaits me.
— And now, we get another often-repeated line from Nasim’s character: “This is my rice.” Blah.
— Most of Nasim’s character pieces work for me, but this is a big ol’ miss for me.
— Drake gives yet another fantastic performance tonight, and he is spot-on as a typical upbeat amusement park host (whatever the official title for that occupation is). He’s making me laugh far more than the actual main comedic focus of this sketch: Nasim’s Rahat character.
— Great line from Drake about a video of this whole Rahat situation being put up on YouTube.
— The ending was just plain dumb. And why did Nasim fall down a full second BEFORE the boulder “knocked her over”? And then she gets up and randomly throws herself onto the boulder??? Why???
STARS: *½
DETENTION
Miss Meadows brings her love of poetry to students serving detention
— A cute and oddly likable character from Vanessa the first time she appeared earlier this season, but I’m not sure I needed a second appearance from her, especially one that’s in the exact same classroom setting as last time.
— Oof, Brooks’ delivery of his one line in this sketch was pretty rough.
— When Vanessa’s Miss Meadows character asks if the students have any poetry-related questions, I love how the question Drake asks her is a concerned, “I’m just tryin’ to make sure, like, are you alright?”, in regards to her odd behavior and vocalizations.
— So far, this is way too much of a lazy carbon copy of the first installment of this sketch, right down to having the exact same two cast members (Aidy, Kenan) read a poem in front of the class. I did like Aidy’s poem in tonight’s installment, though.
— This continues to be a lazy carbon copy of the first installment, as Drake now reads a love poem that becomes increasingly clear that it’s about Miss Meadows, leading to Drake suddenly kissing Meadows on the neck, all of which Miley Cyrus previously did in the first installment.
— Continuing to show what an awkward live performer he is, Mike breaks in response to Vanessa’s over-the-top vocalizations while Drake is flirting with her.
STARS: **
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
host performs “Hold On We’re Going Home”
host & Jhené Aiko [real] perform “From Time”
MORNIN’ MIAMI
(host) & fellow Mornin’ Miami anchors are only sunny when the camera’s on
— Not only is this the SECOND consecutive sketch tonight that’s being brought back from this season’s Miley Cyrus episode, but these two consecutive sketches also aired back-to-back in Miley’s episode (separated only by a musical performance, much like tonight), though in the opposite order than they’re airing tonight.
— Unlike the Miss Meadows sketch, this retread is actually working, thanks to the fact that the bizarre promos that the three Mornin’ Miami hosts deliver into the camera are not only new in each installment of this sketch, but are hilarious. I especially like Bobby’s “One fish, two fish, red fish, Jew fish” line, and his mention of Orthodox fisherman Schmooley Majors.
— Like last time, I can forgive the repetitiveness of the sequences with the three hosts angrily sitting in miserable silence between promo shoots, but it was very unnecessary to repeat one particular gag from the first installment of this sketch, where Kate breaks the miserable silence by starting to sing, only to IMMEDIATELY get shut down by Bobby.
— I like the running gag this recurring sketch has with the mentions of “actor Topher Grace”.
— Like last time, we get a funny reveal of what Bobby’s character’s “B.F.” initials stand for. This time, instead of “Bitch Fantastic”, it’s “Burt Fingerblast”.
STARS: ****
I KNOW
(KYM) annoys (BEB) with nonstop casual claims of omniscience
— First time we’ve gotten a Beck/Kyle short in quite a while.
— A good and realistic situation for Beck and Kyle, and I’m enjoying all the fast cuts from Beck and Kyle at one location to another.
— I laughed at the intentionally bad, unconvincing way Kyle slipped on the floor.
— More laughs from intentionally bad cheesiness, this time with the visual of Kyle’s ghost and his stilted delivery.
— Speaking of Kyle’s delivery as his ghost, I like the little touch with the humorous “poignant” manner in which he says the word “smart” (“sss…mart”).
STARS: ***½
GOODNIGHTS
— Drake gives a special shoutout to newbie Sasheer, and asks the audience to give her a round of applause. Between the fairly large amount of appearances Sasheer made in this debut episode of hers, and now this special moment she gets during the goodnights, plus the special attention that her hire in general got in the media due to the many complaints SNL previously received for not having any black women in this season’s cast, I remember this episode made me think at this time in 2014 that Sasheer was a cast member we would be seeing PLENTY of over the years. Little did I know…….
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A mostly good episode, even if there were barely any segments that stood out to me as particularly great. Drake was a strong host, being fun, funny, and likable, and adding something to every single sketch. He even came off engaging during the longer-than-usual goodnights speech he gave, and even managed to throw in a funny mention of Lorne at the end of the second musical performance.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
Mornin’ Miami
Slumber Party
Hip Hop Classics
i know
Resolution Revolution
Piers Morgan Live
Monologue
Weekend Update
Nancy Grace
Detention
Disney World Show
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Jimmy Fallon)
a step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Jonah Hill