Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
THE LAWRENCE WELK SHOW
(host)’s daughter Dooneese frightens (WLF)
— For once, I actually got a chuckle from something Fred’s Lawrence Welk said, when pointing out how odd it is that he can pronounce the “th” in “mother”, but not the “th” in “thank you”.
— Deservedly huge applause for the first appearance of tonight’s special host, Betty White.
— We also get nice applause for the special return of former female cast members Tina Fey, Molly Shannon, Rachel Dratch, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, and Ana Gasteyer. Their presence tonight gives a fun novelty to the already-special feel of this Betty White-hosted episode.
— All that being said about Betty and the returning former female cast members, we unfortunately still have to see all of them get stuck playing second fiddle to a one-note Kristen Wiig character.
— Nothing to say about the Dooneese portions of this sketch. Same-old, same-old routine.
STARS: **
MONOLOGUE
host thanks Facebook for the gig but prefers traditional youth activities
— Already such a charm to the opening spiel of an overwhelmed Betty.
— Funny line about how, unlike live TV shows in her day, SNL has no excuse to be live instead of taped.
— A much-deserved thanks Betty gives to Facebook for campaigning for her to host SNL.
— So many laughs from a lot of the things Betty’s saying here.
— I know a lot of SNL fans find Betty’s line about her needing a Ouija board to connect with old friends to be really groan-worthy, but it made me laugh, perhaps just due to my goodwill towards Betty and her comic timing.
— Betty wistfully mentioning the historic things she’s lived through in her long life, then gratefully saying she’s here because we wanted her here is actually making me feel emotional.
STARS: ****
MACGRUBER
Grandma MacGruber (host) insists on “thank you” & “please” and tells embarrassing stories
— Our final set of MacGruber shorts to ever air on SNL. These can also be considered the real last hurrah of Will Forte, given the fact that he sadly gets no noteworthy roles in his final episode the following week, as you’ll see when I review that episode.
— Good laughs from the embarrassing things about MacGruber’s childhood that his grandma is revealing.
— I love Will’s extremely angry outburst.
— A very standard ending compared to some of the more noteworthy endings of MacGruber shorts, but still a funny one.
STARS: ****
THE DELICIOUS DISH
Margaret Jo & Terry celebrate dietary fiber with (host)’s famous muffin
— Wow. Feels very special and refreshing to see this recurring sketch back after so many years.
— So nice to see that Molly and Ana have not lost their touch at all with these great characters.
— Ah, a variation of the legendary Schwetty Balls installment of this recurring sketch, I see.
— While none of the Schwetty Balls sequels or variations will ever measure up to the original, in my opinion, all of the “dusty muffins” puns in this sketch are hilarious and hold their own pretty well.
— Betty: “As I used to say to my loving husband, Irving, of 55 years: What are you waiting for, stupid? Eat it!”
— I love Betty’s very deadpan delivery of “Not a fan” upon hearing that the topic of the next episode will be pork buns.
STARS: ****
THE MANUEL ORTIZ SHOW
Latin vibe permeates a love quadrilateral
— Ugh. This sketch has officially become recurring.
— Maya is at least a natural for this sketch.
— A very funny and memorable visual of Betty sloppily attempting to do the traditional dance of this recurring sketch. Easily the funniest thing to ever happen in any installment of this sketch.
— I like the awkward look on Ana’s face when the music stops very short while she’s doing the traditional dance.
— Will’s parents, upon finding out he’s gay: “That explains why he doesn’t like tacos!” Ugh. Hacky joke alert.
STARS: **
MACGRUBER
Grandma MacGruber tells more embarrassing stories & plays dead
— Solid bit with playing MacGruber’s grandma playing dead and MacGruber calling her out on it.
STARS: ****
GINGEY
only (host) sees folly of feminizing Antebellum lesbian grandkid (AMP)
— An oddly Chucky-from-Child’s-Play look for Amy’s character.
— Amy’s cheesy old-timey way of playing this character is pretty funny, and is right in her wheelhouse.
— Very one-note lines from Betty, but as usual, her delivery is tickling me.
— I particularly like Betty disclosing the fact that she wouldn’t miss balls if she could go back in time and “lez it up”.
STARS: ***
MACGRUBER
Grandma MacGruber accepts her grandson’s marriage proposal
— MacGruber’s comedic throwaway line about going through a gay phase in his past felt unnecessary. Between these past few sketches and shorts tonight, tonight’s episode seems to be doubling down a little too much on lolgay jokes.
— An absolutely hilarious turn with MacGruber’s “It’s a shame you can’t marry your own grandma…or can you?” I especially like the cutaway to Kristen’s smile fading during that.
— Very funny ending with MacGruber and his grandma’s romantic kiss getting cut off by what ends up being our final end-of-MacGruber-short explosion. (*sigh*) These MacGruber shorts had such a great run, and I’ll miss them.
STARS: ****½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs a medley of his hits; Bridget Kelly cameo
WEEKEND UPDATE
Whitney Houston (MAR) fails to rebut bad reviews of her comeback tour
Sally O’Malley’s 90 year-old counterpart (host) likes to stand, bend, sit
incredulous SEM, AMP, TIF say “Really!?!” to anti-terror schemes & Greece
— Seth’s Iceland volcano joke suddenly gets interrupted by an appearance from Maya’s Whitney Houston impression. I got sooooo sick of this impression during my coverage of Maya’s later days on SNL, but I’ve at least gotten a long break from it since then.
— There goes Maya’s usual extended dance-mugging as Whitney. That and lots of the other ad-libs Maya’s making here is making this commentary go on awfully long.
— This Whitney commentary is whole bunch of nothingness. Maya’s frequently ad-libbed lines and dancing, which themselves aren’t doing anything for me, are the only thing standing out here, as the written material isn’t up to anything at all.
— Okay, at least the bit with Maya’s Whitney instantly being out-of-breath when trying to sing “How Will I Know” is something different, but it’s still doing nothing for me.
— Ah, a Sally O’Malley appearance. My opinion of her is the inverse of me going from tolerating Maya’s Whitney Houston shtick in its earliest appearances to eventually getting sick of it, in that I couldn’t stand Sally O’Malley when I covered her first few sketches, then I came around on her in both her appearance in Molly’s final episode as a cast member and the episode that Molly hosted in season 32.
— A change of pace with Sally O’Malley getting interrupted by Betty playing a fun 90-year-old counterpart to O’Malley.
— The topics that tonight’s “Really?!?” segment is focusing on aren’t all that great compared to some of the past topics covered in this segment, but Seth and Amy are making a lot of good points here, and their comments are getting funnier as this goes along.
— Ah, now Tina joins in on tonight’s “Really?!?” to add a Greek flavor.
— At the very end of this Update, right before the camera fades to black, we get a very charming ending shot of a smiling Seth lowering his head in an overjoyed manner when Amy and Tina are embracing him (screencap below). You can tell it means a lot to him being surrounded at the Update desk by Amy and Tina.
STARS: ***
SCARED STRAIGHT
disobedient teens turn deaf ears to Lorenzo McIntosh & his grandma (host)
— Very funny visual of Betty in that wig.
— I know I keep pointing out Kenan’s weight loss this season, but it’s particularly noticeable here, compared to how he looked in the installments of this sketch from previous seasons.
— The usual laughs from the movie plot and prison rape references in this recurring sketch.
— There goes Bill’s obligatory character break whenever Kenan and the host gang up on him in these Scared Straight sketches. Jason makes it funnier this time by playfully throwing a shoe (the same one taken off of Bobby earlier in this sketch) at him from off-camera. Humorously, somebody on an SNL board back at this time in 2010 was really put off by that thrown shoe bit, because they mistakenly assumed the shoe was thrown by an unruly audience member. I remember that board member saying something like “This Betty White episode is getting a little too rowdy. Now we’re having audience members throwing shoes at performers during sketches?!?”
— A classic “Wizard of ASS!” line from Betty, especially when she comes back to repeat it in an emphasized manner at the end of this sketch.
STARS: ***½
CSI: SARASOTA
(RAD) & David Caruso’s aunt (host) in geriatric procedural
— Of all the returning female cast members tonight, it feels like Rachel’s been somewhat shafted in this episode. Up until this sketch, she hasn’t felt as visible or prominent as the other returning females tonight. She did have a cut-after-dress-rehearsal Debbie Downer sketch that would be posted online sometime after the show, (along with several other cut-after-dress sketches from this episode).
— Rachel appears to be playing her Abe Scheinwald character from back in the day, but her character is given a different name in this sketch.
— Betty’s David Caruso-esque one-liners into the camera at the end of each scene are pretty fun.
STARS: ***
THANK YOU FOR BEING A FRIEND
cast members’ “Thank You For Being A Friend” precedes host’s metal version
— This tender singing of “Thank You For Being A Friend” by the cast and returning former female cast members is putting such a big smile on my face, and it’s so fun seeing this mixture of then-current and former cast members.
— A priceless turn with a masked Betty performing a wild and violent metal version of the song.
— I love the brief shot of Nasim screaming in absolute horror when she gets splattered by some blood from a hit-in-the-face-with-a-bat biker.
— Great shot of an intrigued Jason starting to film these wild actions on his phone.
STARS: ****½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest & Mr. Hudson [real] perform “Young Forever”
THE CENSUS
census taker (TIF) records apartment dweller’s (host) crazy responses
— Much like how we got a variation of the classic Schwetty Balls sketch earlier tonight, we’re now getting a variation of the classic Census sketch from Christopher Walken’s season 25 episode.
— It makes sense that Tina’s playing the Tim Meadows role in tonight’s variation of the Walken-starring Census sketch, as Tina wrote that Walken sketch, and I assume she also wrote this one.
— Tina: “How many people live at this residence?” Betty: “Uh, zero.” Tina: “You don’t live here?” Betty: “Oh, including me? Three.”
— Very funny bit about Betty not being able to tell if the cats living in her home are really cats or just homeless guys in fur coats.
— Betty: “Ah, ascertain – that used to be my stripper name.”
— Overall, much like the variation of Schwetty Balls earlier tonight, this doesn’t compare to the original, but was still a strong sketch in its own right.
STARS: ****
GOODNIGHTS
— Such a wonderful way to end tonight’s special episode, with Betty being presented with two bouquets of flowers. The live version I’m watching of this episode cuts these goodnights off VERY early while the camera is on a close-up of an overjoyed Betty holding her two bouquets of flowers (the last above screencap for these goodnights), but that’s a strangely fitting, significant, and heartwarming image to end this episode on.
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— An episode deserving of its high acclaim. While not without its issues, this episode as a whole was a lot of fun, had a very special and unique feel, and contained a good number of strong pieces. The return of the former female cast members contributed to the important feel of this episode, and it was an interesting novelty seeing them interacting with then-current cast members throughout the night’s sketches. And the esteemed Betty White lived up to people’s high hopes by doing an excellent hosting job and even managing to appear in every single segment of this episode (not including Jay-Z’s musical performances), all of which is an impressive feat for someone her age.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
Thank You For Being A Friend
MacGruber 3
Monologue
The Delicious Dish / The Census (tie)
MacGruber 1-2 (tie)
Scared Straight
CSI: Sarasota
Gingey
Weekend Update
The Manuel Ortiz Show
The Lawrence Welk Show
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Gabourey Sidibe)
a big step up
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Season 35 comes to an end, with host Alec Baldwin. It’s the final episode for veteran Will Forte and newbie Jenny Slate.