Month: January 2021

Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars

PRESS CONFERENCE
mistress (SAZ) & Dennis Rodman (JAP) stand up for Donald Sterling (BOM)

— Very funny line from Taran’s Adam Silver gloating that he received more high-fives from black people this week than any other time in his life.
— Interesting voice from Bobby as Donald Sterling, who has some good lines here.
— Jay’s Dennis Rodman impression has improved from the previous time he played him, though I keep hearing a bit of Will Smith in his voice this time.
— All of Kenan’s “Look……….”s and “Come on…….”s during his speech are cracking me up, and is exactly the type of thing Kenan always knows how to make funny. It would’ve been funnier, though, if his scene consisted of him literally only saying “Look……….” and “Come on…….”, and then walking off without having said anything else.
STARS: ***

MONOLOGUE
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 co-stars Emma Stone [real] & AIB advise host

— I always forget Andrew Garfield is British until I hear him speak in his real voice.
— Another monologue where the premise is the host being upstaged by a cameo. Normally, I’d gripe about this like I did in my review of the preceding episode’s monologue, but at least this particular Emma Stone cameo makes sense in terms of the host, and Emma is always good on SNL, and thus, I can’t really complain about her presence here.
— Good bit regarding Emma assuring Andrew that the SNL Band laughs at anything during monologues, only for them to be stone-faced when Andrew does a bad attempt at a joke.
— A pretty funny clip of Aidy’s blink-and-miss-it appearance in the new Spider-Man movie.
STARS: ***

STANX
odor lock technology of Stanx expandable underwear contains (BEB)’s farts

— Season 39’s penchant for juvenile humor strikes ONCE AGAIN. Since I actually found some of this season’s juvenile humor pieces to be surprisingly not bad (e.g. the Jim Parsons elevator sketch), I’ll remain open-minded towards this commercial.
— A very blah sight gag of Beck’s Stanx wear constantly inflating while he’s farting in a laid-back demeanor. Certainly not a great sight gag to base an entire commercial around.
— Ha, an actual funny conclusion with Beck’s apartment exploding when he removes his Stanx after it contained his farts all day.
— I love both Beck’s intentionally cheesy delivery and (especially) facial expression when saying “Thanks, Stanx!” (the last above screencap for this commercial). He’s one of the only performers who could sell a line like that.
STARS: *½ for the first two-thirds of this commercial, ***½ for the last third, **½ for this commercial altogether

CELEBRITY FAMILY FEUD
Justin Timberlake (host) dominates matchup of musicians

— Odd how the first installment of this sketch had Justin Timberlake playing that night’s SNL host, Jimmy Fallon, and now the second installment of this sketch has tonight’s SNL host, Andrew Garfield, playing Justin Timberlake. Does this mean that, in the next installment of this sketch, someone will play Andrew Garfield? (I already know in hindsight that the answer is no.)
— Another display of Nasim’s love for playing short men.
— Kenan’s Steve Harvey, to Noel’s Reba McEntire: “I seen your sitcoms. They are to white people what The Wayans Brothers are to black people – we’ll watch it…but we ain’t gonna TELL nobody about it.”
— A good Drake impression from Jay, and, as I mentioned in a recent review, I always love when a cast member impersonates a then-recent host, as I always like to assume that said cast member developed that impression from having worked with that host for a week.
— Not the most spot-on Timberlake impression in terms of voice or physical mannerisms, but Andrew’s at least doing a spot-on spoof of Timberlake’s penchant for being a screenhog who’s in love with himself.
— As usual, Kenan’s Steve Harvey has tons of hilarious lines throughout this sketch, especially “Show me ‘Fiddlin’ with ya giblets’!”, a line that has stuck in my memory over the years.
— Taran’s singing as Russel Crowe is priceless, as is the fact that it alone receives three Family Feud “X”s.
STARS: ***½

OLIVER TWIST
self-centered woman (CES) horns in on Oliver Twist’s (host) gruel query

— I’m not caring for Cecily’s character, nor do I care for that…that voice she’s doing. I remember, when this sketch originally aired, this was around the time I came to the conclusion that SNL was spreading Cecily too thin this season, pushing her too much, and starring her in lots of lousily-written big character showcase pieces, some of which she herself co-wrote with James Anderson and Kent Sublette. I remember all of those things caused me (and certain other online SNL fans) to kinda turn against Cecily at this time and worry that SNL was making the same mistake with her that they previously made with Kristen Wiig, in terms of overusing her, misusing her talents, and giving her lots of lousily-written big character showcase pieces. Over the following seasons after this one, where SNL stopped pushing her as the new “star” of the cast, Cecily would slowly win me back, to the degree that I now look at her as being a very valuable and underappreciated utility player, one with a timeless quality that feels like she would’ve fit into a lot of SNL eras, such as the prestigious late 80s era. However, even looking back at season 39 nowadays, I still feel this season wasn’t always the best use of Cecily’s talents, especially not with her Weekend Update anchoring gig and how bad some of her big character showcase pieces were, including this sketch.
— I laughed at Kate’s quivery-voiced, British-accented delivery of “I do the whippings!”
— Cecily finally got a laugh from me, when saying, during her claim that she’s not afraid to give people whippings, “And FYI, I whip the face!”
— The bit regarding Cecily eating all of Andrew’s soup fell very flat.
— Welp, folks, this ends up being John Milhiser’s final live role on SNL. And, being completely on-brand with his general airtime this season, his role in this sketch is a very small one with only one line. (*sigh*) Even though there are two episodes remaining this season, John does not make a single live appearance in either of them. He’s completely absent in the penultimate episode, and in the season finale, he (and all of the other featured players who get fired after this season) only appears in a non-speaking bit role in a pre-taped Lonely Island Digital Short that he dies in. Poor, poor John. He has one of the saddest SNL tenures I’ve ever witnessed. So much potential completely wasted by SNL.
STARS: *½

THE BEYGENCY
(host), (Kiefer Sutherland), (Mary Lynn Rajskub) are targeted for dissing diva Beyonce

— A famous Chris Kelly/Sarah Schneider-written pre-tape that went very viral back at this time in 2014 and was considered a season highlight, deservedly so, in my opinion. I recall this short being a masterpiece.
— A very funny exaggerated dark turn after Andrew confesses he’s not crazy about Beyonce’s “Drunk In Love” song.
— Dramatic exchange between Taran and Jay’s agent characters: “It’s time to go to work.” “Work with an ‘e’?” “Of course.”
— After the tense “I like most of her music!” “MOST?!?” exchange between Andrew and Bobby, I love Bobby immediately whipping out a shotgun and aiming it at Andrew.
— Even the cameos in this are fun, with Kiefer Sutherland and Mary Lynn Rajskub playing their “24” characters. I especially love how, after calling one of Beyonce’s songs “the only good one!”, they’re both immediately shot in the back of the head by two bullets from off-camera. That also results in an absolutely hilarious muted, long, high-pitched scream from Andrew.
— Everything about the movie trailer aesthetic this is going for is absolutely perfect, from the way it’s shot, to the acting, to everything else.
— A particularly classic part with the hilarious visual of Taran and the other manly agents doing the Single Ladies dance in unison.
— A solid comically-unsettling performance from Kate. Even though it’s just a small role, it’s Kate McKinnon performances like this that made me start to realize back at this time in 2014 that she seemed to be on her way to becoming my personal favorite member of the then-current cast. It turns out, she would indeed go on to become my favorite then-current cast member the next few seasons (seasons 40-42), which feature her at her peak.
— The audience applause at the end of this short is so enthusiastic and premature that it drowns out Kate’s ending line, “(singing) Who run the world? (speaking) She does.”
— Overall, this short absolutely still holds up for me.
STARS: *****

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Magic”

WEEKEND UPDATE
Olya Povlatsky expects Russia-Ukraine tiff will make her life even worse

large-framed LEJ figures she would’ve been in demand during slavery

Jebidiah Atkinson has nothing nice to say about Tony Awards & theatre

— Lots of meh Update jokes so far tonight, from both Cecily AND Colin. (Usually, it’s just Cecily who gets the worst jokes.)
— Kate’s Olya Povlatsky character is always so fun and likable, but I hope they’re not starting to rely a little too frequently on her.
— Even SNL’s overused “foreigner makes dated pop culture-references because their country is decades behind on American pop culture” trope is made funny in this Olya Povlatsky commentary, with the solid Full House bit.
— I like Olya Povlatsky’s facial reaction to Cecily telling her the very tame “problems” that make Americans say “F my life.”
— Cecily’s “George Clooney engaged” joke is one of her stronger Update jokes this season.
— A very noteworthy moment right now, as we get our very first Leslie Jones SNL appearance, back when she was just a writer on the show.
— It feels really significant hearing Leslie Jones’ distinctive voice for the first time in my SNL project. Just one of those special moments that makes me realize I’ve officially reached a certain big SNL period/era. This also occurred when I first heard the comforting voice of Phil Hartman and Bill Hader (and a few other cast members who I can’t remember right now) when I reviewed their respective first episode.
— Ah, there’s our very first “Leslie hits on Colin” moment, which already feels fully-formed even in this first instance of it. I especially love the back-and-forth between Leslie and Colin during the second “Who would you pick…?” question she asks him.
— Leslie is so good here that she’s actually bringing out some personality in Colin, which is rare to see in these early days of Colin’s Update stint.
— A particularly memorable part of Leslie’s commentary, in which she demonstrates how frequently she would’ve had “superbabies” in the slavery days: “Shaq! Kobe! LeBron! Kimbo Slice! Sinbad!”
— Leslie, at the end of her commentary: “Can a bitch get a beef bowl?!? CAN A BITCH GET A BEEF BOWL?!?”
— Leslie absolutely knocked it out of the park in this overall commentary. She definitely made her presence known right out of the gate. One of the most impressive SNL debuts I’ve ever seen a performer make. I recall thinking back at this time that Leslie displayed far more comedic prowess in one appearance than Sasheer did in the entire second half of this season (I find Sasheer more likable in my re-watch of this season, even though I still find there’s too much of a blandness to her as an SNL performer, and I feel that SNL just wasn’t the right venue for her talents), and that a standout performer like Leslie being stuck in the writers’ room while the unmemorable and less-funny (to me back in 2014) Sasheer got to be in the cast was akin to 10 years prior where standout performer J.B. Smoove was stuck in the writers’ room while the unmemorable and less-funny Finesse Mitchell got to be in the cast. Leslie’s onscreen debut in this episode would not only go on to be much talked about (including some controversy caused by the slavery subject matter Leslie focused on), but would lead to her making more uncredited onscreen SNL appearances early the following season, which themselves would be so well-received that SNL would finally add her to the cast four episodes into that season.
— The punchline to Colin’s “Cheerleading has been made an official high school sport” news story being him saying “……Dad” in a defensive manner is something that would go on to be a running punchline he’d use over the years. As I said in a previous review, Seth Meyers was actually the first Update anchor to use that punchline, years prior to this.
— Cecily and Colin’s Update jokes have been improving over the course of tonight’s Update, after a bad start. Even Cecily’s corny “loaded potato” joke was the good kind of corny, and I especially like her jokingly-smug “You’re welcome” ad-lib afterwards.
— Jebidiah Atkinson!
— Jebidiah Atkinson, on the play Of Mice And Men: “The only thing slower than this play was Lennie…and at least someone put him out of his misery!”
— As usual in these Jebidiah Atkinson commentaries, we get a fantastic ad-lib from Taran at one point, this time when correcting himself after his “Tony/Tommy” slip-up.
— Jebidiah Atkinson, on the play Annie: “Sing as loud as you want, honey – your parents ain’t comin’ back!”
— Jebidiah Atkinson, on the play that Abraham Lincoln was attending when he got shot: “It may not have gone over that well in the orchestra…but it KILLED in the balcony!”
— I absolute love how Taran ends tonight’s Jebidiah Atkinson commentary by saying “Can a bitch get a beef bowl?!?”, as a callback to how Leslie Jones’ commentary ended earlier in this Update.
— Tonight’s overall Update was easily the best one of this troubled Update season so far.
STARS: ***½

SPIDER-MAN KISS
host & Emma Stone [real] kiss awkwardly on The Amazing Spider-Man 2 set

— Not one of the funnier premises for the ol’ SNL trope of “someone has a very difficult time doing a very simple thing during the filming of a movie/commercial/etc.”, but Andrew and Emma’s performances are somewhat fun.
— Taran’s a solid straight man here.
— Seeing Andrew, Emma, and Chris Martin onscreen together makes me realize that the last time both Andrew and Emma appeared together on SNL prior to this, when Emma hosted in season 37, Coldplay was the musical guest in that episode, too. Interesting coincidence.
— Aaaaaaand we go the cheap “men kissing each other for an easy, unnecessary laugh” route. As unfunny as that certainly is, I will at least say that Chris Martin is coming off very game and natural here, making me wish SNL gave him better material than this and that damn Garth & Kat commentary from the aforementioned season 37 episode that Emma hosted.
— What’s with Jay’s extremely goofy, muggy facial expression when he briefly re-entered the sketch to hand Chris Martin a blonde wig (the third-to-last above screencap for this sketch)? Even the way he handed Chris Martin the wig was done in a very silly, exaggerated manner. Was all of that Jay’s unscripted attempt to make something out of a nothing role? If so, the way he did it feels kinda unprofessional, but I’m probably making too big a deal out of nothing.
— Aaaaaaand to make this sketch even worse after that “men kissing each other for an easy, unnecessary laugh” turn, we close this sketch with an always-lazy “spinning newspaper headline” ending, one that somehow manages to be even weaker than usual. Man, this sketch really went to hell after a tepidly-written-but-affably-performed first two-thirds.
STARS: **

WEDDING
best man (host) expresses love for bride (CES) at her wedding reception

— I laughed out loud at Kenan’s shocked delivery of “Aw, dayum!” when Andrew confesses he’s still in love with his ex, Cecily, who’s the bride at this wedding ceremony.
— I love the very-realistically uncomfortable turn this sketch takes when Cecily breaks Andrew’s heart by disclosing that she doesn’t reciprocate his love and, in fact, barely even knows him. Andrew is great at pulling this uncomfortable turn off while his character tries to remain jovial.
— Oh, an absolutely priceless reveal that Andrew is the best man of this wedding, and now has to give a toast RIGHT AFTER his embarrassing moment where he confessed his love to the bride and then got his heart broken by her.
— Another absolutely priceless reveal, where we find out that the maid of honor, who’s standing next to Andrew right now after all the things he had just said about the love he has for the bride, is actually HIS WIFE. Wow.
— Man, this sketch is keeping the hilarious shocking reveals coming. This is amazing.
— Yet another line delivered excellently by Kenan, this time at the end of this sketch when Andrew tries to go back onstage once again after the announcement of the garter toss: “HEY, HEY, BOY, SIT YO ASS DOWN!”
— Overall, a forgotten and underrated masterpiece. And, would you know it, much like tonight’s other masterpiece, The Beygency, I’m pretty sure this Wedding sketch was written by Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider (though I’m not sure if that was ever confirmed, so my apologies if I’m incorrect), further proving that those two are by far the MVPs of SNL’s then-current writing staff, and should’ve been promoted to head writers much earlier than they ended up being (which turns out to be in season 42, and ONLY season 42, because they both end up leaving the show after that season, which further proves my point that SNL waited too damn long to make those two head writers).
STARS: *****

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “A Sky Full Of Stars”

THE BIRD BIBLE
Rerun from 3/1/14

GOODNIGHTS

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— This episode contained three very noteworthy segments (The Beygency, Wedding, and Leslie Jones’ onscreen debut), all of which are season highlights and bolstered the quality of what was an otherwise average episode. Andrew Garfield was a likable host and did a particularly strong job in the Wedding sketch. He even came off very endearing during his goodnights speech.

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

RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
The Beygency
Wedding
Weekend Update
Celebrity Family Feud
Press Conference
Monologue
Stanx
Spider-Man Kiss
Oliver Twist

HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Seth Rogen)
a step up

My full set of screencaps for this episode is here

TOMORROW
Charlize Theron