Segments are rated on a scale of 1-5 stars
CNN ELECTION CENTER
Ted Cruz (TAK) & Mitt Romney (JAS) weigh in against Donald Trump (DAH)
— The debut of Beck’s Jake Tapper impression.
— A good laugh from the conceit of Bobby’s Chris Christie shamefully acting submissive towards Darrell’s Donald Trump.
— Decent speech from Kate’s Hillary Clinton.
— A funny beginning to the Taran-as-Ted-Cruz interview, with the uncomfortably-close initial shot of his face, and Beck’s Tapper being startled by it.
— There’s that maniacal, over-the-top laugh from Taran’s Cruz again, which I never care for, partly because it feels to me like Taran’s trying too hard (he also did a very similar laugh as Peyton Manning a few episodes prior), and, as I said in a recent review, kinda signifies the fact that his SNL tenure is coming to a close, despite him not even knowing that. And in general, I just have a hard time buying him as Ted Cruz.
— Whoa, Jason Sudeikis cameo as Mitt Romney. I had no prior memory of that being in this episode.
— I like the callback to a previous Mitt Romney appearance of Jason’s, with him referring to rappers as “rapsters”.
— Some okay lines from Jason’s Romney here, and Jason’s giving his usual solid performance.
STARS: ***
MONOLOGUE
host fights career slump by performing “Jumpman” with musical guest
— Boy, we’re ALREADY launching into an audience Q&A, only 10 seconds into this monologue.
— Kyle, as an audience member: “Hey, Jonah, medium fan here.”
— A pretty funny and unexpected reveal of Kyle actually playing himself. I’d like to think that’s SNL’s self-deprecating way of making fun of how they’ve strangely taken to using cast members as fake audience members in Audience Q&A monologues in recent years. (Seriously, why’d they stop regularly using writers for those roles?)
— Jonah Hill, to Kyle, after Kyle passive-aggressively insulted him: “I love your videos that you make. They remind me of how much I miss Andy Samberg.”
— The Jonah/Future duet isn’t doing a thing for me.
— That’s the whole monologue? Aside from the funny back-and-forths between Jonah and Kyle at the beginning, this monologue felt like a whole lot of nothing, though it wasn’t horrible.
STARS: **
RACISTS FOR TRUMP
a variety of things make Donald Trump an attractive candidate to racists
— Given the nature of the set-up, the reveal of Taran wearing a swastika armband and Vanessa knitting a KKK hood is hilarious.
— Sadly, the shock value of the reveals wore off fast. After the big laughs from the first two reveals with Taran and Vanessa, this commercial had no other place to go. By the time they got to the final scene with Kyle, the reveal in his scene barely even registered.
STARS: **½
FOND DU LAC ACTION NEWS
off-topic personal items guide small town report
— A fairly amusing concept of a Midwestern folksy approach to presenting the news.
— Pretty funny how Aidy’s remote “report” just consists of Cecily and Jonah speaking to each other while Aidy silently stands there.
— There’s our obligatory display of Jonah cracking up, which seems to happen at least once in each of his hosting stints.
— Taran steals this sketch in his Lotto Picks scene.
— Overall, decent execution of a premise that I initially didn’t think would have the legs to sustain a full four-minute sketch.
STARS: ***
THE CHAMP
newscast details how much of a loser high schooler (host) is
— Unexpected twist with Jonah finding out the real reason behind the special treatment he received from his peers.
— There’s our obligatory display of “Jonah Hill plays a character who gets called out on a bathroom-related embarrassment”, which, much like him breaking out into giggles during a sketch, seems to happen at least once in each of his hosting stints.
— Kenan apparently doing an homage to Fred Armisen’s stereotypical Spanish-accented roles, I see. Kenan’s even using the same vocal inflection Fred would’ve used had he played this particular janitor role.
— The random bit with it being disclosed that Eric McCormack had just committed a murder next door made me laugh.
— The more this short goes on, the less I’m liking the mean-spirited tone of it. I can certainly get behind mean-spirited humor when done right, but this ain’t it.
— Great delivery from Cecily on the following breaking news she gives about Eric McCormack: “It’s twiiiiiins!…that he murdered.”
STARS: **
STUDENT AUCTION
Qatari emissary (host) bids for viral videomakers at high school auction
— Jonah looks like he’s struggling so hard to keep up that Middle Eastern accent he’s doing.
— Cecily, after being told that she and Sasheer will be made to prepare the evening’s feast: “(confused) I don’t know how to cook…” Jonah: “THEN YOU WILL LEARN!”
— A good laugh from Beck suddenly changing his tune in regards to his daughter going to the Middle East unsupervised after he hears how much he’s going to get paid for it.
— Not sure I need Taran in this.
— Overall, I feel like this sketch should’ve ended after the good first half. The second half, after the Cecily/Kyle/Sasheer group exited, was pretty blah for me.
STARS: **½
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest & The Weeknd [real] perform “Low Life”
WEEKEND UPDATE
The Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started A Conversation With At A Party is a pompous mess
News From The Future- musical guest declines to participate
110 Year-Old Flossie Dickey (KAM) wants no part of an interview with VAB
JAP uses impressions to recreate a secret meeting of black comedians
— Interesting hearing Michael do a Ben Carson vocal impression. Not bad.
— Cecily’s Girl At A Party, to Michael: “Just so you know, if it were up to me, every year would be Black History Month.”
— Michael: “So are you voting democrat or…?” Girl At A Party: “Why do we have to labia everything, Michael?!?”
— Girl At A Party, in a request to Michael: “Just slap me really hard. It’s about Wall Street.”
— The usual hilarious overall commentary from Girl At A Party.
— A funny idea to do a variation of “The Weeknd Update” bit that they did with The Weeknd earlier this season (funny how he also happens to be in this episode, too), and Future’s little delivery of “What’chall doin’?!?” at the end of his outbursts towards the camera particularly made me laugh.
— Interesting change of pace for Update with the segment with Vanessa interviewing Kate as the world’s oldest woman.
— Meh, as this Vanessa/Kate interview goes on, it’s not doing much for me.
— Okay, I did love Vanessa’s smiley delivery when asking “Oh, no?” after being told by Colin and Michael that she’s not quite done yet after she desperately tries to end the interview prematurely.
— As much as I’m not caring for Kate in this segment (another example of her “peak years” of 2014-2017 being more hit-and-miss than I had remembered), I did laugh just now at her deadpan, grizzled delivery of “Leave this place.”
— Vanessa continues to be the only consistent highlight of this overlong Kate segment. Vanessa’s selling her controlled frustration really well.
— Another interesting change of pace for Update, with Jay doing a commentary as himself that involves him doing a rapid-fire string of many vocal impressions.
— Pretty fascinating seeing Jay do his familiar celebrity voices while playing himself instead of playing the actual celebrities.
— Jay’s Kevin Hart impression has improved a bit from when he last did it in Hart’s season 40 hosting stint.
— This commentary of Jay’s is fun as hell. I’d say this is one of the best things he’s ever done on SNL, which is significant, as we’re nearing the end of his tenure.
— I like the new impressions Jay’s doing here that he never did on SNL before, such as Dave Chappelle and Hannibal Burress.
— Funny reveal at the end that Jay was making the whole event up.
STARS: ****
MURDER MYSTERY
(host)’s massive dump is revealed in course of murder mystery resolution
— A variation of the Couples Quiz sketch (a.k.a. the game show sketch where Jonah gets called out on clogging the toilet in the studio’s bathroom) from Jonah’s season 39 hosting stint. Is SNL freakin’ kidding me making this a recurring concept for Jonah Hill-hosted episodes? Plus, we just got a “Jonah pooping his pants” joke in that The Champ short from earlier tonight.
— I did at least crack up just now at Aidy’s quivery-voiced, British-accented, old-timey delivery of “Why…those are MINE!”
— Taran’s big line flub and subsequent brief giggling over it reminds me of a very similar blooper happening with him in that Murder Mystery sketch from the season 39 Jim Parsons episode, which is an eerie coincidence, as not only do that sketch and this Jonah Hill sketch both have the exact same title as each other, but both sketches even use a very similar-looking set.
STARS: *½
SIDE NOTE: At this point of the episode, just like something I pointed out towards the end of this review of Jonah’s season 37 hosting stint, we get a mid-commercial break shot of what appears to possibly be a red carpet awards show sketch being set up (screencap below), but when SNL comes back from commercial break a minute or so later, we instead get a pre-taped short. We end up never getting the sketch that was shown being set up.
INSIDE SOCAL
(host) reports on (CES)’s tragic breast-reduction surgery
— The third and final installment of this recurring short. Makes sense doing one of these tonight, given the fact the first installment was in Jonah’s season 39 episode.
— A very funny awkward “World News” segment about Indian food.
— Hilarious conceit to this short with Beck and Kyle mourning the loss of Cecily’s big breasts, as she’s getting a breast reduction. This comedic throughline makes this my favorite of all three of the Inside SoCal shorts.
— Funny visual of the hospital waiting room full of depressed bros, sad over the breast reduction surgery Cecily had just now.
— For once, an Inside SoCal short doesn’t end with Bobby entering the scene and sternly putting an end to the recording. The baby bit at the end of tonight’s short is pretty solid.
STARS: ****
MUSICAL GUEST INTRO
— A bit interesting how both of Jonah’s musical guest intros tonight have him so casual that he’s holding a Styrofoam cup that he was seemingly drinking out of before doing the intro. Channeling Elliott Gould, I take it?
MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “March Madness”
SILVER STAR CATERING
caterer (host) aggressively overstates the success of his food offerings
— Ugh at the main comedic character of this sketch being an EXTREMELY broad, obnoxious, and unfunny gay stereotype.
— An even bigger ugh at the comedic lines that Jonah’s annoying gay stereotype character is blurting out, especially when he starts using sexual terms to describe the manner that the food was eaten by the employees (including flat-out saying at one point that the food was “raped”). This sketch is painfully unfunny.
— As if the reliance on a broad gay stereotype character didn’t already clue you in on the fact that this sketch came from the pen of writers James Anderson and Kent Sublette, the pointless, needless side plot (a trademark of Anderson/Sublette sketches) with the guy who Jonah’s in a phone conversation with being robbed during the conversation makes it official that this is pure “Anderlette” at their worst.
STARS: *
GOODNIGHTS
IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— A weak episode. Jonah Hill’s episodes typically have a way of just washing over me without registering much, despite not being all that bad, but I felt this particular episode actually was all that bad. My problem with Jonah’s episodes isn’t with Jonah himself, as I don’t find him to be outright terrible as a host or anything, but he’s also not the kind of host who can salvage the bland or bad writing that dominates episodes like this.
— I just realized that, for the first time ever in a Jonah Hill hosting stint, we didn’t get the usual Six Year Old recurring sketch. I know some people really don’t care for those sketches, but they always really work for me, and an appearance from one tonight may have helped the quality of this episode a little.
MY PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS
RATED SEGMENTS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
Weekend Update
Inside SoCal
Fond Du Lac Action News
CNN Election Center
Racists For Trump
Student Auction
The Champ
Monologue
Murder Mystery
Silver Star Catering
HOW THIS EPISODE STACKS UP AGAINST THE PRECEDING ONE (Melissa McCarthy)
a step down
My full set of screencaps for this episode is here
TOMORROW
Ariana Grande