SNL Season 41: Ep.14

SNL came back from a mini February break, as they seem to be on a 2 episodes on, 2 off  format this season. So how did Jonah Hill do...with nothing to promote? .........well....umm.....onto the review.

Cold Open - CNN Election: SNL started off with basically a homage to the past week of the election, from Trump (Darrell Hammond) and Chris Christie (Bobby Moynihan) in the background, Hillary Clinton (Kate McKinnon) talking about being the only option, and then a pleasant return....Jason Sudeikis as Mitt Romney. You never really realize how good or missed Sudeikis is until he makes a cameo like this. (6.6)

Monologue: This could arguably be the worst monologue in quite some time. First Jonah took a question from the audience, then he randomly brought out Future to rap "Jumpman". This felt like a slap-dashed mess. It was almost like they had forgotten to come up with a monologue before the show aired. (2.5)

Voters For Trump ad: Without context, this was a pretty good take-down of Trump and the type of racist support he's been attracting. But then you remember that he hosted SNL about 3 months ago...and pieces like this then lose their bite. I mean, you can't have it both ways, you can't invite Trump to host your show, and then come back and mock him and his supporters. (7.0)

Fond Du lac Action News: This was mainly a vehicle to make jokes about Wisconsin accents. There just wasn't much there (although Hill thought it was hilarious for some reason, as he kept breaking). Just not a lot to discuss here (which will be a theme throughout this show review). (4.0)

The Champ (Short): Here, Jonah Hill played this high school wrestler who won a big match. At first, I wasn't sure where this was going, but then he arrives back home and finds a local TV report about the "school loser" who won a charity match against the top wrestler. I was expecting this to really go somewhere, but it divulged to bathroom humor....and Kenan Thompson's hispanic accent. Besides from a throw-in Eric McCormack joke, there wasn't much here. (5.1)

School Auction: This maybe seemed like a good idea in the writer's room, but it didn't play off well. A representative from a middle eastern prince (Hill), is looking for local high school social media stars for a Prince's son and daughter. When the parents realize the money involved, they start to drive up the price (Leslie Jones particularly). As I said, this didn't play off really well. (3.7)

(Future ft/ The Weeknd) "Low Life": (8.0)

Weekend Update: There's something to be said for Colin Jost and Michael Che delivering a relatively solid Update amidst such a poor show thus far. Jost and Che seem to just take it easy, which works for them.

Cecily Strong appeared as "The Girl You Wish You Hadn't Started A Conversation At A Party With", and she did what she usually does. It went on a bit long though.

Then Vanessa Bayer interviewed Flossie Dickey (McKinnon) on her 110th birthday. If you haven't seen the actual clip, here it is  

This bit really showed how good and under-valued Vanessa Bayer is. She worked really well with McKinnon here.

Vanessa Bayer/Flossie Dickey

And then came Jay Pharoah. He's been under utilized as well (we haven't seen his Obama impression in a while). He basically just did impressions of some comedians, related to a Katt Williams-Kevin Hart feud, but he's just so good at them. He really brought some energy to the show. (7.3)

Murder Mystery: This seemed like it was going somewhere, as Taran Killam played an investigator trying to solve a mystery.....but again.....it just resulted to bathroom humor, as it turned to be about Jonah Hill's character's tribulations in the bathroom. Not much going on. (5.0)

Inside SoCal Newer One: I legit had a problem with this. It was another Kyle Mooney-Beck Bennett bit, and it was about how Cecily Strong's character was having breast reduction surgery, which had the locals dissapointed. Okay, so where to begin? That it was devaluing women to just their bodies? The gross amount of sexism? Maybe this was trying to make a statement on objectification, but it failed on every level. (0.0)

(Future) "March Madness": (5.9)

Silver Star Catering: Maybe I was just annoyed at the show at this rate. On a regular night, this would have been an okay 10 to 1 sketch, as Jonah was really selling this character. But as I said, with this show falling flat, so did this final sketch. (5.9)


Woof.....what a trainwreck of a show. There were a few highs, but plenty of lows. Bits that failed to land just crashed and burned. The show was pack full of "bathroom" jokes, and some legit sexism with that "Inside SoCal" mess. Just a failure of a show this week, which can happen.

Overall Score - 5.13

Tracy Morgan - 7.94

Larry David - 7.73
Elizabeth Banks - 7.53

Adam Driver - 7.22

Chris Hemsworth - 7.20
Amy Schumer - 7.18

Matthew McConaughey - 7.13

Tina Fey/Amy Poehler - 7.03
Ryan Gosling - 6.92

Melissa McCarthy - 6.78
Miley Cyrus - 6.07

Ronda Rousey - 5.78

Jonah Hill - 5.13
Donald Trump - 4.92