SNL Season 41: Ep.17

Russell Crowe hosted this past week, trying his hand at comedy. So how did he go? Well........onto the review.

Hillary Clinton Addresses Losing Streak (Cold Open): Kate McKinnon's Hillary Clinton is quietly getting really good. It feels more natural than Amy Poehler's. Here, she discussed the upcoming NY primary, and tried her hand at the subway, but struggled with her metrocard. The cold open wasn't out of this world, but in terms of political cold opens, it was still pretty good. (6.6)

Monologue: Monologues recently seem to be getting shorter and shorter. Russell Crowe riffed on how he's actually done a lot of comedy, showing clips of "Gladiator" and "A Beautiful Mind". It wasn't Jonah Hill level bad, but another week, another sub-par monologue. (5.5)

Prep H Advanced Gel (ad): We haven't seem many mock ads recently, so this was a bit of a pleasant surprise. However, there wasn't really anything all that clever with this. A friend (Beck Bennett) kept on reminding Taran Killam about his Prep H, and if it was working. A bit predictable overall. (5.7)

Politics Nation: Voter ID Disaster: For some reason, we got this as the first post mono-sketch. Kenan Thompson does a good Al Sharpton, but this sort of sapped the energy out of the room. It truly slowed to a halt though when the actual Al Sharpton showed up for some reason. There were some good lines in there to be sure, as they judged presidential candidates favorability among the black community, but the sketch felt incredibly sluggish. (4.0)

Interactive Museum Exhibit: There was some impressive technology involved with this sketch, I'll give them that, but once again, it just fell flat. Crowe played a hologram of King Henry VIII, as he demanded museum-goers to "bear him a son", and that was pretty much the sketch, just Crowe repeating that over and over again. Maybe this worked in the writer's room, but it didn't work at all in practice. (3.6)

Match Finders: A theme of the characters Crowe played started to come up with this sketch, as on a dating game show, he played a horny professor who got very direct with this answers to Cecily Strong's questions. Kenan did his best as the host, but once again this just sort of fell flat. (4.5)

(Margo Price): (8.0)

Weekend Update: Even on a fairly bad 1st half of this week's show, Colin Jost and Michael Che were able to do a fairly good job with Update, which is always a big test.

The first guest saw Kate McKinnon as "someone mom's Deenie", as she ate leftovers and talked "The People v. OJ Simpson". For some reason, this character always seems to make Jost crack up, and that makes it work.

Next saw Kyle Mooney as comic Bruce Chandling, trying to discuss sports. Mooney is the king at awkward comedy. The basis of this character is that he's a bad comedian, who also has no confidence. You could tell no one in the audience was getting it, and that made it 10X greater. Bruce Chandling and Fred Armisen's Nicholas Fehn should go on tour. (7.2)

Bruce Chandling On Sports

100 Days In The Jungle: Things picked up a bit here. On a "Survivor" like show, contestants brought in family members, but Pete Davidson got another randy character played by Crowe. Among the sketches, this was an improvement, but was still fairly low-bar (5.8)

Pogie Pepperoni's (Short): Its been a while since we got a good Kyle Mooney/Beck Bennett short, but we got one, and just in the nick of time with how this show had been going. Mooney and Bennett played new employees at a Chuck-E-Cheese like place, which they had grown up with. It may have been a one-note joke, how excited they got, but something about this just worked. From their awe at the mascot getting ready for a smoke break, to their heads exploding when they met the CEO, and the subsequent in memoriam closing screen. (8.3)

(Margo Price): (7.6)


Shanice Goodwin: This sketch was fairly out there (and was the only one that was remotely amusing on the night). Leslie Jones played a ninja who had to save Vanessa Bayer from some mobsters (portrayed by Crowe). Kenan had an unplanned coughing fit, but it was Leslie who just sold the heck out of this. From her "hiding", to placing a ladder to climb up and attack someone. It was good to see this side of her. (8.0)

Shanice Goodwin

Oprah (Mike O'Brien short): What an odd, yet somehow fitting end to the show. In this short, Mike O'Brien plays Oprah (because why not?) His lack of enthusiasm yet general contentment as he gives away cars is just the best. "All you knuckleheads are getting cars". The pre-taped segments were really the best this week. (8.2)

Oprah

Russell Crowe was barely present for the show. You could probably count on one hand the amount of screen time he actually got. Comedy is definitely not his forte. If anything was able to save this show, it was Kyle Mooney and Mike O'Brien (along with some help from Leslie "Ninja" Jones),

Overall Score - 6.38

Ariana Grande - 7.95
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

Peter Dinklage - 6.80

Melissa McCarthy - 6.78

Russell Crowe - 6.38
Miley Cyrus - 6.07

Ronda Rousey - 5.78

Jonah Hill - 5.13
Donald Trump - 4.92