SNL Season 40 Ep. 13

SNL was a bit of a mixed bag this week, although it did have some good elements. Time for a review.

The cold open saw a "Super Bowl Shutdown" show featuring Richard Sherman (Jay Pharoah) and Marshawn Lynch (Kenan Thompson). It played up to the player's caricatured mannerisms in a somewhat boring way. There wasn't any real point to it at all (although Taran Killam was pretty good as Seahawks coach Pete Carroll).

The monologue saw JK Simmons dive into his "Whiplash" role as Fletcher, auditioning a bunch of different cast members as a drummer. While this was predictable, Leslie Jones stood out talking back to Simmons. And Fred Armisen made a cameo showing his natural talent on drums, so that was a win.

Next was an ad for "Totino's Activity Pack" (for her, during the big game). This ad hit on all of the stereotypes and sexism that exists with football ads, and just the culture in general. Vanessa Bayer played the wife, and she was just brilliant here. Her portrayal hit the nail on the head, 

The first skit was a pretty odd one to be featured first. It saw Simmons hosting the "Miss Trash 2015" pageant. This whole sketch just seemed like a waste. It never really went anywhere. Vanessa Bayer was the only semi-good part of this skit, playing Miss Vermont (who was unaware she had signed up). But all in all, this was a complete dud.


Next up was a TCM style skit "Cinema Classics" with an alternate ending to Casablanca. Simmons played Rick, and Kate Mckinnon was Ilsa. In this ending, Ilsa (upon hearing she could wind up in a concentration camp) is incredibly eager to get on the plane, but is stalled by a monologue by Rick, This skit is SNL at its finest. Just a really creative idea that worked perfectly. McKinnon really is a treasure.





Following that was a music video on "Teacher Snowdays" (timely, given the winter storms the east has seen this past week). This was rather predictable to start, but picked up when Simmons arrives...without pants. All in all, this went a little long, but was still amusing.


Colin Jost continues to falter on Weekend Update. Maybe he works in dress rehearsal, but once the cameras roll, he gets trapped into Seth Meyers land. Michael Che continues to show promise (especially with guests).

The One-Dimensional Female Character From A Male Driven Comedy (Cecily Strong) returned. This was a much better appearance, as there was actually a point to be made here.

Cecily Strong

Finally, we got Jebidiah Atkinson back (Taran Killam) to talk about the upcoming Grammy Awards. He plays this character up to the audience really well.

Jebidiah Atkinson



Following Update was an "office assistant" skit, that kind of seemed like 15yrs too late. Simmons is trying to type up a letter, but the word processor assistant (Pushy) keeps arriving (Bobby Moynihan), messing up the letter. Despite the outdated technological references here, Moynihan really made this work as Pushy.


Mike O'Brien returned with another short, this time a white-washed version of "The Jay Z Story". Just the idea of this was great. Jason Sudeikis made a cameo as Kanye West, and Simmons was Nas (with Mike O'Brien as Jay Z of course). It went on a bit much, but hopefully Mike O'Brien keeps churning out these shorts for the rest of this season.





I decided to feature the 2nd performance of the musical act this week from D'Angelo. His first performance was just alright, but this one was out of this world. He even channeled Lenny Kravitz a little bit. From the band wearing "I Can't Breathe" and "Black Lives Matter" shirts, this performance was incredibly powerful.

D'Angelo "The Charade"



The show closed out on another weird skit that fell flat. It was career day, and Simmons was some weird Japanese fetish, bib wearing food taster, or something. This whole skit seemed to just be bizarre just for the sake of being bizarre, with nothing in between. A weak skit to end the show on.


So all in all, this week was kind of hit or miss. You could tell that writers and the crew were spending their time preparing for the massive SNL 40 special in 2 weeks. But this wasn't a half bad episode (certainly an improvement from last week with Blake Shelton).

Avg. Score: 7.18 (each segment was scored out of 10, and averaged, including the musical act).

Bill Hader - 8.06

Martin Freeman - 7.56

Kevin Hart - 7.51
Chris Pratt - 7.50

Woody Harrelson - 7.42

Amy Adams - 7.19

JK Simmons - 7.18

Sarah Silverman - 7.15

James Franco - 7.07

Jim Carrey - 7.01

Cameron Diaz - 6.81

Blake Shelton - 6.60

Chris Rock - 6.52