February 1, 2014 – Melissa McCarthy / Imagine Dragons (S39 E13)

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

HALFTIME SPECTACULAR
Broadway performers are last-minute Super Bowl halftime show replacements

— Kyle’s delivery in the beginning of his appearance cracked me up.
— Funny how the preceding episode’s cold opening had a gentle, fancy sport (ice skating) being presented in an uncharacteristically masculine way, while tonight’s cold opening has a masculine sport (football) being presented in an uncharacteristically gentle, fancy way.
— It’s sadly on-brand for SNL that they don’t even bother putting any lighting on poor, neglected John Milhiser in the close-up of him during his brief appearance (the fifth above screencap for this sketch).
— Meh, I’m finding myself losing interest in this as it goes on. This Broadway Super Bowl halftime show concept would’ve been funnier as some kind of quick cutaway gag rather than an actual full-length cold opening.
STARS: **

MONOLOGUE
host & BOM settle an old score by fighting while suspended from wires

— A funny backstage pre-tape of Melissa McCarthy and Bobby, and I like how we get a rare instance of the traditional backstage Abraham Lincoln, showgirls, and/or llama actually being acknowledged by someone, with Melissa rudely shoving Lincoln and randomly taking the llama with her as she exits the building.
— Boy, was that cutaway back to Bobby live in the studio after the pre-tape really awkward.
— Ooh, I like this out-of-the-ordinary monologue concept, with Melissa and Bobby engaging in a battle while raised in the air on wires. Some pretty fun visuals and humor here.
STARS: ***½

CVS
girlfriends hate Some Dumb Little Thing From CVS for Valentine’s Day

— Am I crazy, or can you hear a crying baby in the background when Taran realizes at CVS that he forgot Valentine’s Day?
— A solid spiritual successor to the Teddy Bear Holding A Heart commercial from season 31.
— I love Bobby’s smug, shameless delivery of “One minute ago” when Aidy asks him, regarding her cheap Valentine’s gift, “When did you get this?”
— Good voice-over work from Cecily throughout this.
— Absolutely fantastic delivery from Aidy when frankly telling Bobby, “You have hurt me today.”
STARS: ****

DELAWARE 1 NEWS SPECIAL REPORT
newscast airs video of congresswoman Sheila Kelly’s arrogant rampage

— I like that they’re trying to make it a running thing in Melissa McCarthy-hosted episodes to spoof a male figure currently in the news for aggressive, abusive behavior by using Melissa’s Sheila Kelly character as the female version of that figure. This running theme stops after this episode, but in a lot of ways, the Sean Spicer sketches that Melissa would later do are like a repurposed version of these Sheila Kelly sketches.
— Funny escalation to this with the succession of different types of cameras filming Sheila Kelly.
— According to the Camera Blocking Rundown sheet shown during the teaser in the middle of the preceding commercial break (screencap a little below), Melissa was originally going to make a live appearance at some point in this sketch (Melissa and Taran are the only people in the Camera Blocking Rundown sheet’s cast list, which means that the cast list was excluding the pre-taped portions of this sketch, which had various cast members), but her planned live appearance seemingly got scrapped after dress rehearsal.

— Overall, this wasn’t quite as strong or memorable as the basketball coach version of this sketch from Melissa’s season 38 episode, but this was still fine and enjoyable.
STARS: ***½

WOMEN’S GROUP
(host)’s vengeful goals are out of place at housewives’ group meeting

— A huge rarity in recent SNL eras for two full-length live sketches to air back-to-back without a commercial break separating them (even if a majority of the preceding sketch was pre-taped).
— A laugh from how the darkness of Melissa’s character’s opening reveal about herself contrasts with the other women at this group meeting.
— Very funny part with Melissa randomly having yogurt as part of her disturbing, violent collage, like Nasim did.
— Melissa is selling this dark humor well with a solid understated performance.
— I love the reveal from Melissa that the box she brought to the meeting consists of “mostly ears and one penis”
— Melissa, to Vanessa: “How do you feel about gunfire in your home?” Vanessa: “Well…I asked you to take off your shoes, so…”
— A questionable decision to end this sketch by immediately following Melissa jumping through the living room window by showing the same exterior shot of the house that this sketch opened with (a staple of director Don Roy King), where we can clearly see that there’s no shattered living room window.
STARS: ****

PROMO

— Well, this may be a first in SNL history: the “Next live episode” promo just has “SNL” listed in place of a host or musical guest. Obviously, the show must not have had the next host or musical guest booked yet by this point, and I guess the only reason they’re showing this promo tonight is to have Don Pardo’s voice-over let us know the date that SNL returns live after the month-long hiatus they’re about to take due to the Winter Olympics.

GUESS THAT PHRASE!
weird contestant (host) completely fails at game show

— Meh, not caring for this character piece for Melissa, basically being one of the lesser-quality instances of the all-too-familiar “Melissa McCarthy plays an awkward weirdo” trope that dominated her previous two hosting stints. Quite a number of these “Melissa McCarthy plays an awkward weirdo” showcase pieces tend to blend together way too much, as is the case here.
— Beck is a solid straight man game show host here.
— Vanessa, in a consistently cheery manner, regarding what letter she’s picking: “Well, my daughter’s name is Erica, so I’ll pick ‘e’. (a beat) Uh, screw my daughter! ‘T’!”
— I did get a laugh from Melissa discreetly disclosing to Beck the dirty meaning behind the “Pass the mash” phrase.
STARS: **

28 REASONS
high school Black History Month report has slavery rebuke

— A huge laugh from how, after the very lighthearted first reason to hug a black guy, reasons 2-28 are a very-bluntly-and-sternly-delivered-by-Jay “SLAVERY.”
— Between the Resolution Revolution short from two episodes prior and now this short, SNL seems to be trying to make it a regular thing for Sasheer to sing the chorus of their music videos.
— A hilarious twist to the “Raise your hands in the air” part, with Kenan suddenly changing his tune and sternly telling the hands-still-raised-in-the-air white students, “Keep ’em up if your ancestors OWNED US.”
— Great part with a stiffly-rapping Bobby starting to play devil’s advocate, only for Kate to immediately put an end to that.
— I’m loving the cutaways to Kate’s various non-verbal reactions to the song.
STARS: ****

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest & Kendrick Lamar [real] perform “Radioactive”

WEEKEND UPDATE
Buford Calloway (TAK) dramatically recalls two inches of Atlanta snow

AMP, Stefon, ANS, David Paterson (FRA) wish SEM farewell on his last SNL

— Seth’s final Weekend Update, after a whopping 8 years behind the desk.
— Taran is always killer in his Update appearances around this time.
— I like Taran’s Southern gentleman character referring to Seth as “Sethory” throughout this commentary.
— I absolutely howled at “Obama’s white friend” being one of the names Taran’s Southern gentleman calls snow.
— Taran’s delivery is tickling the HELL out of me throughout this commentary. He is priceless here.
— Ah, Seth’s final Update joke, which Cecily acknowledges right afterwards. Speaking of which, Seth actually kinda flubbed that final joke of his, mistakenly pronouncing “police” as “poluce”, but I’m glad he didn’t acknowledge that minor flub (or maybe he didn’t even catch it), as acknowledging it would’ve put a damper on the special-ness of it being his final Update joke.
— The initial transition to Seth’s special farewell segment feels kinda awkward and forced, though I know SNL means well here.
— Bill Hader in his very first cameo after leaving the cast.
— I like Stefon’s callback to the club name “…………..(*looks around in a concerned manner*)…………Kevin????”, originally mentioned in one of Stefon’s previous appearances.
— I love Stefon’s various catty, jealous outbursts towards Cecily.
— Andy Samberg out of nowhere, joining in on the Seth farewell.
— Andy’s innocent “It’s your last show???” question after singing a brief farewell song to Seth gave me a pretty good laugh.
— A nice heartfelt goodbye speech that Seth delivers into the camera, and I like the continuity of him referring in passing to Stefon as his husband.
— Amy’s voice is noticeably very hoarse all of a sudden when it’s her turn to say her sign-off at the end of Seth’s goodbye speech. That speech of Seth’s must’ve made Amy get choked-up. I know she and Seth are close friends, which could account for her emotions here, but I wonder if a bigger reason for her getting choked-up is because she and Seth joined SNL together, and, for that reason, perhaps she feels a special connection to Seth saying goodbye.
— And we close out Seth’s farewell by having Fred Armisen’s David Paterson showing up out of nowhere, doing his usual “pop up lost in front of the camera” bit right before the screen fades to black. A very random but decent way to get Fred’s Paterson involved without giving him any actual lines, and this is probably the only one of Fred’s many season 39 cameos that I’ll be tolerant of.
STARS: ***

IN MEMORIAM
a photo of Pete Seeger marks his passing

Not included in the copy I’m watching of this episode

ART EXHIBIT
museum technician (host) disrupts Frida Kahlo portrayer (NAP) in live art exhibit

— Ooh, I recall this being a notorious, absolutely dreadful sketch. A part of me is morbidly fascinated to review this.
— Yikes, the awkwardness of Melissa’s entrance is ALREADY setting a bad tone for this sketch, as SNL keeps mistakenly cutting to the wrong camera, causing Melissa to not even be visible onscreen for the entire first 15 seconds she’s in this sketch while angrily ranting to someone.
— This tense back-and-forth between Nasim and Melissa is going absolutely NOWHERE and isn’t remotely funny. In fact, a lot of it isn’t even coming off like it’s intended to be comedic, though I’m sure it IS intended to be. I will say, though, that I did like Nasim’s very pissed-off delivery of “I’m Frida Kahlo, you FULL IDIOT.”
— Not only is Nasim and Melissa’s back-and-forth bickering continuing to be comedy poison, but something about the raw tenseness of it is getting downright uncomfortable to watch.
— What is with all of Melissa’s damn references to this mysterious “Danny Tranz” character? That’s yet ANOTHER aspect of this sketch that’s going absolutely nowhere and is resulting in zero laughs.
— And now this sketch has progressed to Nasim and Melissa’s characters physically fighting each other? In a non-comedic way, to an uncomfortably dead audience? Man, this sketch just gets harder and harder to both figure out AND sit through. I also recall one online SNL fan being under the impression that this physical fight between Nasim and Melissa was actually REAL, instead of being part of the sketch. You see, shortly after the next new episode, when some people on IMDB’s (now-defunct) SNL message board were wondering why Nasim made only a brief, non-speaking appearance that entire night, and some people speculated that that brief, non-speaking appearance of Nasim’s may not have even been live (she was said to be busy that week filming the pilot of John Mulaney’s doomed then-upcoming sitcom, which Nasim would soon leave SNL altogether for after this season ends), the aforementioned online SNL fan said the reason for Nasim making her only appearance of the night in a possibly-pre-taped brief shot was because SNL was punishing her for getting into a real fight with the preceding episode’s guest host, Melissa McCarthy, on live TV. Wow. I know that Nasim/Melissa fight had an uncomfortably believable vibe in how straight and humorless it was being played, but geez, it actually made an SNL fan think that it was REAL? That two utmost professionals like Nasim and Melissa got so angry with each other during a sketch that they came to GENUINE BLOWS on live TV? Heh, I find it far more amusing than anything in this actual sketch that an SNL fan took this obviously-scripted fight as being 100% real, almost like SNL was trying to pull some Andy-Kaufman-on-“Fridays” mess.
— And mercifully, this utter trainwreck of a sketch is now over, and absolutely lived up to my horrible memory of it. I’d really like to know what the flying fuck whoever wrote this sketch was attempting with this.
STARS: *

GIRLFRIENDS TALK SHOW
Morgan’s divorcee friend (host) has Hawaiian beau

— Huh? What’s this recurring sketch doing on so late in tonight’s episode? All of the previous installments of this sketch aired in the very cushy, coveted post-monologue lead-off spot. Now, all of a sudden, it’s thrown on around the 12:40 timeslot, just 20-25 minutes before the show ends? Perhaps a sign that even SNL themselves are aware that this recurring sketch has lost the promising steam it started out with in its first two or so installments. Pretty telling for this recurring sketch that not only is it being buried unusually late in the show tonight, but that even the “Danny Tranz” debacle of a sketch somehow got a better timeslot in this episode than Girlfriends Talk Show did. Ouch!
— Ah, at least we get a change of pace with Aidy’s character finally getting to be the one to choose the guest, instead of being blindsided ONCE AGAIN by Cecily’s character choosing the guest without her knowledge. Not only that, but the guest Aidy’s character brings on is Donna, the adult divorcee character who was mentioned in previous installments of this sketch as someone Aidy’s character frequently hangs out with. Nice continuity. All that being said, I’m still very wary on know this sketch will turn out, given the fact that the last installment of this sketch prior to tonight’s episode tried to change up the formula a bit, and that still didn’t stop the sketch from feeling stale and old hat.
— (*sigh*) And, just as I predicted above, the “change of pace” in tonight’s installment ends up going the same damn direction this recurring sketch always goes in.
— Ugh, and there’s goes yet another beyond-tired staple of this recurring sketch, with Aidy and the guest each saying a different thing in unison when revealing what today’s topic is.
— I do like Aidy’s delivery of “That gay silver fox is miiiine!”, regarding her bedroom poster of Anderson Cooper.
— Solid ad-lib from Melissa when she has a hard time getting one of her lines out.
— Geez, did we need TWO instances tonight of the “Aidy and the guest each say a different thing in unison when revealing a topic on the show” trope?
— A good “5-0” double entendre from Melissa.
— Cecily’s obligatory “My boyfriend’s crazy” story is somewhat of a step up from the weak one she had in the last installment prior to this.
— Blah, unlike the aforementioned “5-0” double entendre, Melissa’s second double entendre, the “lei” one, was lame and cliched.
STARS: **

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Demons”

SUMMER IN A DAY
(BOM) romanticizes brief park bench encounter with obnoxious Diane (host)

— Meh, yet another “Melissa McCarthy plays a disgusting, awkward weirdo” sketch. I do kinda like the unusual format of this particular sketch, though.
— Bobby’s narration is decent, though the sketch itself isn’t making me laugh all that much.
— Melissa: “Watch my shit, I gotta pee.” Well, oooookay. A very casual and random s-bomb from a three-time host. I remember there was a little debate on SNL boards regarding whether Melissa said the actual ‘s’ word or just a similar-sounding substitute. Although she said it in a fairly mush-mouthed manner, due to having food in her mouth, that word sure sounds like “shit” to me, no matter how many times I watch it.
— Weak ending.
STARS: **½

SUPER CHAMPIONS WITH KYLE
in Times Square, doubletalking KYM interviews Super Bowl fans

— Yesss!!! Kyle doing his “awkward man-on-the-street interviewer” routine that he used to do pre-SNL on shows like Jimmy Kimmel Live and Sports Show With Norm Macdonald. Those shows were where I originally discovered Kyle, how I instantly became a fan of his oddball comedy, and why I was so happy a year or so later when it was announced he was joining the SNL cast.
— Kyle’s awkward mumbliness and bizarre interactions with people on the street are hilarious.
— A very funny touch with the incredibly bad, low-budget computer graphics shown during scene transitions, which also used to be a staple of this man-on-the-street routine of Kyle’s in the aforementioned shows he originally did it on.
— All of this is a true riot so far.
— I love Kyle’s “That’s not what he sounds like!” response in regards to the voice that the guy in the Super Mario costume speaks in.
— Unless I’m forgetting something, this is the first Good Neighbor SNL short to not have Beck in it.
STARS: ****½

GOODNIGHTS

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IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A mostly good pre-Weekend Update half, though not without its problems. But the show’s quality took a real dive in the post-Weekend Update half, including one of the most uncomfortable, unfunniest sketches (Art Exhibit) I’ve ever had to sit through for this SNL project of mine. And some of the same-ol’ problems that plagued the previous two Melissa McCarthy-hosted episodes crept up tonight, in which there’s an overabundance of “Melissa McCarthy plays an awkward weirdo” showcase pieces, which I always run extremely hot-and-cold on, and SNL having a night full of them starts feeling too same-y and tired. If those “Melissa McCarthy plays an awkward weirdo” showcase pieces at least had consistently good writing instead of being so wildly hit-and-miss, maybe I wouldn’t complain much about them dominating Melissa’s episodes.

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

RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
Super Champions with Kyle
CVS
28 Reasons
Women’s Group
Delaware 1 News Special Report
Monologue
Weekend Update
Summer in a Day
Girlfriends Talk Show
Guess That Phrase!
Halftime Spectacular
Art Exhibit

HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Jonah Hill)
a mild step down

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW
Jim Parsons hosts. We also get the addition of a new cast member/Weekend Update co-anchor.