SNL continued on its stretch spring run with Michael Keaton (who last hosted in 1992). Did Keaton still have it? Its showtime...........onto the review
The cold open was a very timely one, with the "road to the final 4". They even had the results to Wisconsin-Kentucky. Basically, they used this to mock the notion of "student athletes" with Duke's Coach K (Taran Killam) announcing that their star player was going to miss the championship game because of a biology test, so a 35 yr old student "Steve" (Bobby Moynihan) was going to take his place. It was mildly amusing (mainly because "Steve" looks like an actual player that was on Xavier's team), but John Oliver did a much better job tackling the notion of "student athletes".
The monologue saw Taran and Moynihan singing to Michael Keaton about playing batman and beetlejuice. The monologue sort of played like a digital short, where they showed a clip of Taran and Moynihan as the Tim Burton era joker and penguin....and then Keaton photoshopped as Batman. This was one of the best monologues of the season.
The first skit saw SNL mock and just flat out bury CNN's "newsroom". "Newsroom" is basically CNN's daytime programming. Cecily Strong portrayed Brooke Baldwin, hitting on all the main stories....with their typical reenactments. The best one was the dance troupe reenactment on the Indiana religious freedom law. The Daily Show has frequently mocked CNN, but this was equally as good.
Next saw the return of "A Mike O'Brien Picture". In this one, Mike O'Brien bets that whoever he takes to prom will be named "Prom Queen", so he decides to ask a teacher (Keaton). This was good, but it wasn't better than "Grow A Guy" from the first half of the season.
The next skit was an "Easter Hotline" ad hosted by Sasheer Zamata reminding you to call your grandparents on Easter. Since debuting on SNL Zamata has pretty much just been background noise in sketches, so this was a good showcase for her. The best conversation shown here was between Taran and his "grandparents" (Kate McKinnon/Keaton). It just felt so real (especially when Keaton would be talking over Taran).
Next was a skit about an ad pitch, featuring CEO Mr. Wallace (Keaton). This whole skit just seemed like a bunch of ideas scrambled into one. For one, Keaton supposedly had a belly-button piercing that was bleeding as he was throwing out wild pitches. Much like last week's "dinner date" skit, this just fell flat.
It was about time. SNL ran a music video for the "Church of Neurotology", mocking scientology following HBO's recent tell-all documentary. This was certainly an ensemble short, even featuring Colin Jost. The video updated the present-day status of some of the members (So many missing and/or sued to death members). Overall, this was just brilliant.
Weekend Update was improved from last week. It was slow going at first, but then Jost and Michael Che really started nailing it with some edgy punchlines.
The 1st guest saw Pete Davidson return to talk about the "Walking Dead". Davidson went on about how he could be perceived as a zombie when smoking marijuana. This was a good bit (even featuring a 'Walking Dead' cameo), considering its been a while since we've seen Davidson on Update.
The 2nd guest saw the great Jebidiah Atkinson return (Killam) to offer his take on TV. Once more, Killam just has such a rapport here with the audience, the interactions are great.
The post Update skit was about how a family (Strong/Keaton) wanted to convert their house to a smart house. The concept didn't really work, but everyone really tried to sell it, so it wasn't a total dud.
The 10 to 1 skit went to an Easter message from Michael Keaton and his daughter, Portia (McKinnon). This was similar to the 2013 halloween candy skit with Edward Norton. This skit was just so bizarre, that it was hilarious, granted it was pretty much just a series of one-liners. Michael Keaton in particular really sold this to make it work.
This was a really strong show, getting back to SNL's 1st half pace. Hopefully it won't take another 20+ years for Michael Keaton to host, because he was brilliant; just owning the material. Its a shame Carly Rae Jepsen was so bland, or else this would likely rate among the top 2-3 shows of the season.
Avg. Score: 7.45 (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
Michael Keaton - 7.45
Chris Pratt - 7.50
Michael Keaton - 7.45
Chris Hemsworth - 7.44
Woody Harrelson - 7.42
Amy Adams - 7.19
JK Simmons - 7.18
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson - 7.16
Sarah Silverman - 7.15
James Franco - 7.07
Jim Carrey - 7.01
Dakota Johnson - 6.83
Cameron Diaz - 6.81
Blake Shelton - 6.60
Chris Rock - 6.52
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