Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
VMAS BACKSTAGE
backstage at the 2013 VMAs, host’s new image has former self (VAB) leery
— I don’t like how the typical pointless, unnecessary audience applause that always follows the first line delivered at the beginning of a cold opening (which has become a regular thing for SNL since sometime around the mid-2000s) forced Kenan to awkwardly repeat his “raccoon meat” line to Noel.
— Our obligatory spoof of Miley Cyrus’ VMAs incident. At least this means we’re not getting a political cold opening in this episode.
— Not a bad premise, and at least it’s a way to use Vanessa’s Miley impression without doing another Miley Cyrus Show sketch.
— A decent and well-timed part with both Mileys reciting the exact same speech in unison, which also reminds me of when Calista Flockhart and Rachel Dratch’s Ally McBeal did that in Flockhart’s season 26 monologue.
— Taran’s Robin Thicke, to Miley: “You ready to start grabbin’ at my junk while I half-sing?”
— Comically emotional outbursts from a teary-eyed Bobby never fail to kill.
— Good lines from Jay’s Will Smith.
STARS: ***
MONOLOGUE
for her SNL gig, host nixes Hannah Montana, twerking, BOM’s wrecking ball
— Pretty much immediately in this monologue, Miley promises no twerking tonight. Hmm, we’ll see.
— Uh…okay at Miley’s point-blank reveal that Hannah Montana was murdered.
— Hilarious cutaway to a shot of Bobby ready to do a Wrecking Ball spoof, only to be told there won’t be one.
— Wow, this monologue is over already? This was seriously only about a minute-and-a-half long. Easily one of the shortest monologues in recent years.
STARS: **½
FIFTY SHADES OF GREY AUDITIONS
screen tests for Fifty Shades Of Grey movie feature unkinky celebrities
— I love Noel’s Emma Stone impression.
— Taran’s Christoph Waltz impression is priceless, made even funnier by the fact that Taran presumably developed this impression from having worked with Waltz for a week earlier this same calendar year (2013) when Waltz hosted SNL. I always like when someone on SNL does an impression of a then-recent host or musical guest.
— Feels odd seeing Beck do a Philip Seymour Hoffman impression, because 1) that was one of the signature impressions of the recently-departed-from-SNL Jason Sudeikis, and 2) Hoffman would sadly end up passing away just a few months after this episode.
— Very strange how Aidy’s Rebel Wilson “impression” features her doing and saying nothing, aside from occasionally muttering half-audible “Yeah…”s. The Kristen Stewart impression that Noel did earlier in this pre-tape also featured her doing and saying nothing, but that was clearly the point of that impression. Aidy’s Rebel Wilson doing and saying nothing just shows that both Aidy and SNL were presumably aware that Aidy must not have been able to do a good Rebel Wilson impression and was seemingly only cast in the role because of her size.
— As usual for SNL’s screen test pre-tapes, this is lots of fun, even if nothing will ever match the Star Wars screen test pre-tapes from 1997.
STARS: ****
GIRLFRIENDS TALK SHOW
hip-hop wannabe (host) draws Kyra’s attention
— I’m not caring at all for Miley’s performance here.
— Geez, only one sketch into tonight’s episode, and Miley ALREADY breaks her promise of “no twerking tonight”.
— As usual, Aidy has the funniest moments here, especially her comments about consoling a divorcee, and the part with her making up a song.
— Another funny “My boyfriend’s crazy” story from Cecily.
STARS: ***
WE DID STOP
John Boehner (TAK) & Michele Bachmann (host) in “We Did Stop” music video
— The first of many music videos in this SNL season.
— Very fun idea to do a topical government shutdown-related spoof of Miley’s “We Can’t Stop”. I’ve never seen the music video for that song of Miley’s, but that’s not hurting my enjoyment of this spoof at all.
— Taran is a riot in his John Boehner performance here. He has an endless amount of funny moments all throughout this music video, and is displaying lots of Will Ferrell-esque fearlessness.
— Lots of fun visuals throughout this.
— Great shot of Jay’s President Obama peeking through the window with a worried look on his face.
STARS: ****
PIERS MORGAN LIVE
many Hillary Clinton biopics are in development
— Taran’s Piers Morgan: “Good evening, I’m Piers Morgan, and if I were in a cartoon, I would be the voice of a fancy hedgehog.”
— Feels odd seeing Nasim’s Arianna Huffington appearing outside of Weekend Update for once. By the way, it’s good to see Nasim getting some noteworthy roles tonight after being almost non-existent in the preceding week’s season premiere.
— Holy hell! I (and I’m sure just about everybody else) completely forgot until now that Beck played Bill Clinton once, early in his SNL tenure. Wow. It feels utterly bizarre seeing a post-1995 episode have anyone other than Darrell Hammond play Bill Clinton. This reminds me of that forgotten-among-SNL-fans one time in 2005 when George Bush Sr. was played by Fred Armisen (doing an actual accurate impression) instead of Dana Carvey.
— Beck’s not doing the best Bill Clinton I’ve ever seen, but man, it’s such an interesting novelty seeing him do this impression.
— An even more noteworthy moment right now, as we get the debut of Kate’s Hillary Clinton impression, though the only reason she’s playing her in this specific sketch is because this sketch has several different women portraying Hillary in separate biopic spoofs. Vanessa is technically still SNL’s regular Hillary impersonator at this point, and would remain so until the following season, where Kate officially takes over the impression.
— I could do without Nasim’s Huffington constantly calling Taran’s Morgan flirty pet names, as it’s just a rehash of when she does that towards Seth in her Weekend Update appearances.
— The concept of having various women portray Hillary Clinton in individually-themed biopic spoofs is pretty fun, and reminds me of how the season 18 Danny DeVito episode had a very fun running theme where, throughout the episode, each female cast member played Amy Fisher in individually-themed TV movie spoofs. I kinda wish these Hillary spoofs were done in the same manner as those Amy Fisher spoofs, with each spoof airing as its own individual sketch in separate parts of the show.
— Good bit at the end regarding Taran-as-Morgan’s accent being fake.
STARS: ***½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
host performs “Wrecking Ball”
WEEKEND UPDATE
SEM & CES group government shutdown constituencies into Winners & Losers
Connecticut mom Pat Lynhart (KAM) loves being wild in Grand Theft Auto V
lip-smacking Shannon Sharpe (JAP) gets hyperbolic about NFL happenings
Jacob won’t deviate from script presenting Shabbat origin & light comedy
— Aww, they’re back to using a burgundy color motif for this season’s Update graphics. I preferred the new blue color motif they used in the preceding week’s season premiere. Why’d they change it back to burgundy after only one episode?
— Much like in the preceding episode, I’m still very iffy on Cecily’s general delivery of Update jokes. However, I absolutely loved her sly delivery of “That’s good weed” at the end of her weed-on-the-bus joke.
— Hmm, Cecily getting involved in a Winners/Losers segment, a segment that Seth usually does by himself.
— An overall good Winners/Losers segment tonight, and Cecily surprisingly fit well into it. I wonder why her delivery worked well there, but not so much when telling regular Update jokes.
— Kate is fantastic in this Grand Theft Auto commentary. When this originally aired, I was so wowed by her performance in this. Unfortunately, it would later become rather cliche to see Kate play this type of hardass, which kinda takes away the novelty of this Grand Theft Auto commentary of hers. It’s definitely still working for me, though.
— The goofy voice, constant lip-licking, and general gestures that Jay’s doing as Shannon Sharpe are cracking me up (and, yes, the real Shannon Sharpe’s voice truly does sound like that), and he has some funny lines here.
— I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s a certain something Cecily keeps doing at the end of a lot of her jokes that I dislike.
— Blah, the same-old same-old Jacob routine that, while it worked in his first Update commentary, never changes in his subsequent Update commentaries and gets increasingly old with each passing appearance. And, as I said in my review of the last Jacob commentary prior to tonight’s, I’m starting to really hate the constant (and I mean CONSTANT) gag within every one of his commentaries in which he never responds to Seth’s questions and instead just goes back to reading from his speech.
— Oh, we actually get something different for once in a Jacob commentary, with his endearingly nervous, unsure reaction when meeting Seth’s new co-anchor, Cecily. Although this moment is only brief, it’s a nice change of routine for this Jacob character.
STARS: **½
CHEER SQUAD
during practice, (host) sees fellow cheerleaders abducted by alien (KET)
— A laugh from the “I like to cheer – deal with it, dad!” lyric at the end of Taran’s cheer.
— Aww, the copy I’m currently watching of this episode must be the West Coast airing, as it’s missing a really bad technical error that happened during the live East Coast airing. (My memory of the technical error is fuzzy, but from what I recall, at one certain point of this sketch when the camera was on a close-up of Miley, the camera started glitching, making the screen flicker a green color, which forced SNL’s control room operators to hastily cut to a different camera, which then accidentally revealed an SNL stagehand on the set applying Nasim and Noel’s wires that will be lifting them in the air later in the sketch.) Call me crazy, but I was kinda looking forward to seeing that gaffe again. From what I recall of this sketch, the technical error was the only interesting thing in what was a painfully unfunny sketch.
— So far, I’m not caring at all for where this sketch in general is going, though, contrary to my negative memory of it, this sketch actually has a few amusing lines, mostly from Taran. Not enough to save this sketch, though.
— Now we get an alien appearance? Yeah, this sketch is NOT working for me.
— The whole bit with Kenan’s alien character announcing his demands in the style of a cheerleader-esque cheer is awful.
— A blah ending.
STARS: *½
MORNIN’ MIAMI
anchors (host), (BOM), (KAM) parcel jollity for Mornin’ Miami promo shoot
— A good laugh from the first instance of Miley, Bobby, and Kate following the director saying “Cut” by immediately slamming their coffee mugs down onto the table, dropping their cheery facades, and angrily sitting in miserable silence.
— The promos are increasingly hilarious and random, particularly the ones that Kate’s doing, as her delivery of them is great.
— Despite the constant repetition of the aforementioned gag with Miley, Bobby, and Kate sitting in miserable silence in between promos, it works as an amusing contrast to their cheery attitudes during their bizarre promos.
— During one of the “sitting in miserable silence” sequences, I love Bobby immediately cutting off Kate’s singing of “I’ll Stand By You” by telling her “Oh, shut it!”
— A particular funny promo from Kate about a racist foley artist
— Hilarious ending reveal of Bobby’s character’s “B.F.” nickname standing for Bitch Fantastic.
STARS: ****
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
host performs “We Can’t Stop”
POETRY CLASS
Miss Meadows (VAB) tries fueling high schoolers’ interest in poetry
— Good delivery from Mike on his “I have a job interview, thank Christ” line.
— Funny little mumbling Vanessa’s lightly doing at the end of her sentences. Not sure what to make of that loud, sharp sound she occasionally makes, though.
— Okay, I’m starting to find Vanessa’s odd characterization in general here to be cute and likable, even the aforementioned loud, sharp sound she occasionally makes.
— Some laughs from Kenan’s “Where my weed at?” poem.
STARS: ***
MILEY SEX TAPE
KYM’s unfounded hesitancy costs him perfect girlfriend host
— Ah, our very first Beck/Kyle short!
— I wonder if it’s intentional to have Bobby basically be a Nick Rutherford (the Good Neighbor member who SNL initially didn’t hire with his partners Beck and Kyle) surrogate here, given the fact that, at this early stage of their SNL tenures, Beck and Kyle were probably still so used to having Rutherford teamed up with them. I also wonder if they put Bobby in this role because they figured having a recognizable cast member like Bobby in a co-starring would help this inaugural SNL short of theirs make it on the air.
— This inaugural Beck/Kyle SNL short is displaying the usual quirky and fun brand of Good Neighbor-style humor, and I really like the fast-pacing of the gags in this. A pretty solid way to introduce Beck and Kyle’s humor to general SNL audiences.
STARS: ****
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— Although not as strong as the season premiere, this was a pretty good episode, and had a few great highs. I wasn’t too thrilled with Miley Cyrus’ performance as a host in this episode. There was too much of a same-iness to some of the obnoxious roles she played, and I felt she both came off more likable and blended in with the show better in her previous hosting stint.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
We Did Stop
Mornin’ Miami
Fifty Shades Of Grey Auditions
Miley Sex Tape
Piers Morgan Live
VMAs Backstage
Girlfriends Talk Show
Poetry Class
Weekend Update
Monologue
Cheer Squad
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Tina Fey)
a step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Former one-time host Bruce Willis makes his return 24 years after his previous hosting stint
Yeah Miley claiming Hannah was murdered really emphasizes where she was at this point in her life. She seems to look back fonder on the era now (and has since about 2017), probably with this phase out of her system
That was honestly my biggest laugh from Miley all night. It didn’t come as dark to me, I guess, more just like a tongue in cheek ‘fuck you’ to Disney.
I’m with Tony; Miley was most controversial pop singer of 2013, and she hosted partially to prove she wasn’t just some wholesome Disney starlet. I suppose there was also some fear that Miley would turn into Amanda Bynes, whose career-ending meltdown was just a couple months before this.
This episode was just fine, but I remember it mostly for the botched alien sketch and Bobby’s omnipresence.
This is a solid episode–I agree Miley is annoying, but I don’t think she dragged anything down. I would have liked to have seen more of a build up of the big intro the new cast members got last episode. Until the Beck/Kyle thing at the end, they really only get a few scenes in that 50 Shades sketch (and are fine).
There’s a few things in this episode that are “best of the season” for me–We Did Stop reminded me of Mad TV in a good way, as I generally enjoyed their music video parodies. Kate’s Update commentary is probably a strong example of her being able to pump slight premises with a lot of funny energy. Mornin’ Miami is a quiet gem–there’s a TON of surreal, bizarre lines (I forget what Vanessa says is the reason why they are skipping Thursday), and I died laughing the first time I heard “Bitch Fantastic.” I appreciated the recurrent use of the phrase “actor Topher Grace” in later episodes.
Vanessa says that it’s a “leap week”.
Agreed on Miley being annoying, especially her cutesy “cigarettes” line in the cold open.
Michael, I guess it was seeing Bobby sitting there, but that made me think of Fox And Friends !
Girlfriends Talk Show is already feeling WAY too samey for me. Not a good sign, considering I remember it being this season’s Californians and repeating once every couple episodes.
Cheer Squad is a bottom 5 sketch of the whole season for me from what I remember. I can’t even abide the half star, I truly hate that one.
Between Morning Miami and Poetry Class we get the debut of a couple recurring sketches in this episode that have been forgotten by all but the SNL faithful (don’t both come back in Drake’s episode?) The Good Neighbor boys would also unwisely (in my opinion) attempt to do a sequel to Sex Tape in Miley’s next episode. Beck & Kyle actually do some of their best stuff this season.
The Congressional parody of We Don’t Stop is a blast (my favorite part is Taran’s very fun, very physical performance, although Jay’s Obama looking through the window forlornly is also a hoot), but the best part of this episode for me is Seth introducing one of Miley’s performances. Any time a soon-to-depart cast member gets to introduce an MG it makes me feel a tad emotional.
There was a Collider piece, I think, grading Beck and Kyle’s first few seasons, and they mention the death of Hoffman as well as the reviewer’s dislike of their shorts as reasons neither had quite fit in. I do wonder how fans felt about their early shorts. They’re very different for SNL, lots of playing with time and space and expectations, and not so much in the fun way of Lonely Island, which was still on the mind of fans. I think that their Youtube versions are better in a number of cases (I tend to prefer the late ’80s/early ’90s sitcom parodies they do, along with stuff like The Last Fry or the SoCal series), but it’s interesting to go back to the earliest days of their work on the show.
It’s too bad SNL didn’t hire Nick (they did bring him in as a writer in 14-15 but he only got one piece on [that was cut for time]). I think he would have been a good addition to the cast or the writers room. He’s done fine for himself, but it must be surreal for him to see how SNL changed the lives of everyone else in his group (Dave McCrary in particular).
Why was Nick not hired with the rest of Good Neighbor? He did one season as a writer, but it really should have been better to have all four from the group hired.
The face Jay’s Obama makes in We Did Stop makes the entire episode for me. So funny.
I wish they did more with Noël’s Emma Stone impression, but I don’t know what they could utilize that impression for without it turning into overkill.
I think one of the problems with Noel’s impressions are the same problems that Melanie Hutsell had in her SNL performances in that in order to get on the air, you make the face, and it gets laughs, and you’re stuck with that limited impression. Emma Stone is another like Reba where you get the face or a catchphrase and you don’t see the performer get the chance to do more and it veers very heavily toward shtick. Melanie seems to have found better success with impressions elsewhere (like her Paula Deen). I guess Noel has moved into other avenues.
@Anthony Peter Coleman, yes, Girlfriends Talk Show is one of the most brutally repetitive recurring segments. As time passes, Cecily’s nasal reminisces of her pervert boyfriend along with Aidy’s perpetual shock and embarrassment at being betrayed by her friend for the 4059th time really starts to grate. I have seen many say these sketches are true to their own lives, so at least the pieces have some honesty to them, but these never, ever needed to be on so many times.
Promo:
@John that’s one of the things I find so interesting about Chloe Fineman. She has a Fallon/Carvey way to really imbue her own personality in her impressions, which is very impressive.
Yea that pretty much sums up my feelings on Girlfriends Talk Show. We’re not quite at the point that I’m officially over it, but hearing Cecily’s nasally “awesome” one more time might do it.
A bit timely to have an episode focused on a government shutdown, considering they just passed a bit to keep the government open for at least one more week today. Just, an interesting coincidence.
I wish they had brought the entire Good Neighbor group just like they did with Lonely Island. As the GN been phased out over the years on the show?
As the episode, Miley gave a good performance and blended in with the cast very well. She would make a return when Edward Norton would host. That would not be well-received on the message boards, especially with that monologue featuring Alec Baldwin.
Dave McCrary began phasing out of the show several years ago – whether that is also why Beck and Kyle stopped doing their usual pre-tapes, or if they just felt they’d reached a creative end, I’m not sure. It feels odd when they appear together now because it’s never given the same focus; Beck tends to have taken up the utility role (as much as a cast of 20 can have a utility player) and he still does his own d-bag type pieces while Kyle still does his own insecure/awkward type pieces. I hope we get a few more of the old GN bits again before they go – they did have a few during the At Home episodes, I guess because that format pretty much begged for them.
If Emma Stone comes back to host, could Dave come back as a guest director since they are both married? I can see the two, along with Kyle and Beck, teaming up for for a short.
I’m sure he could, if Emma is able to return. Hopefully she will be a five-timer at some point.
@John,
I think it’s a matter of “when”, not “if”, Emma Stone becomes a member of the 5-Timers Club.
I’ll be interested when we get to Emma’s next episodes. “Wells For Boys” and “The Actress” are both all time favorite pre tapes for me, and she gives PHENOMENAL performances in both, but I also hate those stupid Poster sketches and her performances in them. I’m pretty fuzzy on the rest, though I think I remember them being slightly above average.
Vanessa said in a summer of 2019 sit-down promoting her kids’ book in her hometown of Cleveland that Miss Meadows was based on her 7th-grade English teacher.
Wow, and here I thought Kyle relegating his recent pretapes to backstage stuff was a detour he took at some point. I didn’t remember his and Beck’s first short being backstage. I would have guessed it was a soCal or ’90s sitcom one.
Man, it’s a shame this blog won’t cover Cut For Times, because the almost weekly cut GN sketches in the end of this season and in season 40 were typically the best parts of the week, for me.
Someone on the old s-n-l dot com board had wondered if Noel would have done better if Nasim didn’t come back (or if she got another season).
My thinking is for the cast of 20 in S46, they could be having those plug holes for those absent or trying to have longtime veterans have proper goodbyes. Those are my guesses.
“Poetry Class” debuts the set that is used for classroom sketches to this day
Shame on SNL for for getting some exposure from that awful VMA incident