SNL Season 42: Octavia Spencer

SNL returned from a 2-week break. In this current day and age you can miss a lot even in a couple of weeks. So how did SNL catch up? Onto the review

Jeff Sessions Gump Cold Open: Kate McKinnon reprised her role as Attorney General Jeff Sessions. He waits on a bus, Forrest Gump style, working his way around his visits to the Russian ambassador with strangers. Of course a shirtless Putin (Beck Bennett) showed up, along with Octavia reprising her "The Help" role with a special pie of sorts. This was a fairly decent cold open, though it felt somewhat lacking (especially without Alec's Trump). (7.3)

Monologue: We got a "Hidden Fence Light" joke, so that was something. (6.6)

Republican Movie Trailer: A trailer about that heroic Republican who spoke and took action against Donald Trump.......TBD. This trailer parody was pretty brilliant and right to the point. Yes, we've had a small handful of Republicans, like Senators Graham and McCain speak out....but without any real action backing anything up. But one thing is for sure......it certainly won't be Paul Ryan. (8.5)

Drug Company Hearing: (4.5)

Girl At A Bar (short): Another short that was brutally honest. Cecily Strong sits down at a bar...and is confronted by "bro feminists", guys who confess their support of the women's march, Sen. Kamala Harris, etc, and then feel that its an obligation for you to go out with them. This acted as both a sketch....and sort of a PSA. I usually hate the "both sides" -ism of the beltway, but in this case, forms of misogyny certainly are on both sides of the political spectrum. (9.0)

Zoo-opolis Voice Actors: A look into a vocal studio of "Zoo-opolis", this was a take off of Zootopia, It was mainly just a vehicle for celebrity impressions. This came pretty close to sinking, but turned out to be a good jumping off point for new cast-members Melissa Villasenor and Alex Moffat. Melissa has a pretty vast collection of impressions, from Owen Wilson and Kristen Wiig....to cast-member Kate McKinnon. (6.9)

Youngblood (short): (6.8)

(Father John Misty): (6.8)

Weekend Update: Colin Jost and Michael Che picked it back up with Update. They've gotten really good at covering what's been a regular crazy week...every week in political news. Also had a few edgy jokes thrown in there that I thought played off well (what Jost does pretty well).

The first guest saw Alex and Mikey Day making their first Update appearance as Eric and Donald Trump Jr. Their takes on these two are absolutely hilarious (especially Alex's facial expressions).

Finally, we got Vanessa Bayer returning as Laura Parsons. You could make the case that this character is starting to reach Stefon levels (just in its unpredictably every time she comes out).(8.0)

Sticky Bun: (5.4)

Wine Bar: (4.0)

(Father John Misty): (7.0)

The Chocolate Man: In what turned out to be a poor post-update run this week, this stood out just for Beck Bennett's bizarre character. He's pretty great in his range of who he's able to play. (7.0)

Spencers Gifts HQ: (3.0)

So being completely honest here....Octavia Spencer isn't a particularly good host. She tried and had a positive attitude towards it, but her timing just always seemed off. The newbies Melissa Villasenor and Alex Moffat/Mikey Day were able to step in and somewhat salvage the show, but no live sketch really hit the mark

The commercial cutaway gag of Kate as Kellyanne Conway awkwardly sitting randomly on the set was the best live work of this show. (6.49)

Dave Chappelle: 8.83
Kristen Stewart: 8.13

Tom Hanks: 8.03

Aziz Ansari: 7.82

Lin Manuel Miranda: 7.74

Felicity Jones: 7.62

Alec Baldwin: 7.58

Emma Stone: 7.56

Casey Affleck: 7.40

Margot Robbie: 7.38

John Cena: 7.19

Kristen Wiig: 7.09

Emily Blunt: 7.07

Benedict Cumberbatch: 6.60

Octavia Spencer: 6.49