The opening sketch for this episode where Paula Broadwell read overtly sexual selections from her Petraeus biography was amusing enough. I usually find Cecily Strong painfully unfunny but since she only had to read in her best deadpan, she finally got some laughs from me. As the sketch went on, especially when the audience began to leave, I started to wonder if it would have been funnier if the audience had actually asked questions. However, the pay-off of Fred Armisen’s face as the creepy last man standing made up for what could have been a drawn-out joke with no pay-off.
The monologue was, unsurprisingly, a musical number and, once again unsurprisingly, it was forgettable and not that funny. At this point, the only actual monologues seem to only be delivered by people like Louis C.K. who can just write them themselves. The music for these numbers is usually original (not this week, but usually), can’t the writers just take the effort it takes to write a song and write some actual jokes?
The commercial that advertised your hometown like an actual travel destination definitely had its moments but after that snoozer of a monologue, anything would have seemed funny. I still have the image of Aidy Bryant and Bill Hader smiling and pushing syrup towards Taran Killam in my head. I think I could watch those two do nothing but make weird faces for an entire sketch and still be entertained. Really, I think I could watch Bill Hader do anything and be entertained. Or at least I thought I could until The Californians came back. That sketch has approximately four jokes and none of them were really that amusing the first time, much less the countless times they’ve dragged this sketch back. Is anyone other than Fred Armisen (who was a Breaky McBreakerson during this sketch) still laughing at this one?
The mere act of putting a man in a dress tends not to be funny to me but Tim Robinson looked like he was having the time of his life in the Situation Room sketch, so I couldn’t help but chuckle every time they showed his clip. It wasn’t a joke heavy sketch by any means but since repetition was a the point of the central joke (it mostly boiled down to “news shows sure show the same clips a lot”), this one worked much better than lot of one-note sketches we see. This week’s short took a pretty hacky premise (“action movie stand-offs sure are long!”) and did surprisingly good things with it. I don’t know what it is about three men pointing guns at each other around children and flustered family members but it kept delivering laughs for me. I’ve loved the weirder direction the shorts have been heading in, so the more conventional aesthetic of this one was a little disappointing but I guess, compared to Mokiki, anything is conventional
As soon as I heard Katt William’s name on Weekend Update, I prepared myself for Jay Pharaoh to come out and do an impression of him and I was not let down. Katt Williams is a character enough on his own and in the hands of a skilled impressionist like Pharaoh, there was no way this bit could lose. “I’m so short you can see my sneakers in my drivers license photo”? Golden. The Chris Christie appearance was necessary, I suppose, but I couldn’t help thinking how much funnier it would have been if Bobby Moynihan had played him instead of him playing himself. He’s not an actor and he’s not one of those people who end up being surprisingly funny so this bit was cute at most.
The Avengers sketch could have been much funnier than it ended up being. It started strong with everyone’s one-liners as their respective Avengers but this is the Jeremy Renner episode, so the sketch ended up focusing on Hawkeye instead of someone who would have been more amusing. I bet focusing on Jason Sudeikis as Iron Man would have made a fantastic sketch, but all I can do is wish. I was teased for a moment with the criminally underused Kate McKinnon but all she got to do was talk in a deep voice and make sexy faces. She’s been used less and less as this season has gone on and I couldn’t be sadder. Like Bill Hader, she can save even the weakest sketch (well, maybe not the Californians) and only giving her a few moment of screen time in any given episode should be a crime.
Dick Fuel wasn’t funny at all which was surprising considering how weel Sudeikis plays douchebags. If Aidy Bryant hadn’t showed up doing that crazy smile she does, I don’t think I would have made it through this sketch. Jeremy Renner finally made me laugh in the last sketch as a man who can’t identify his brothers body but would it have killed him to stop looking at the cue cards for two seconds? Maybe that’s why he couldn’t identify the body.
After two episodes that gave me some hope that this season might not be so bad after all, SNL has delivered the weakest episode of this already lackluster season this week. One blah episode doesn’t mean all hope is lost, though, Jamie Foxx has potential as a host (even if he’s also a guaranteed musical monologue) so next week could be much better.
Pop Culture Is My Boyfriend 
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