Ugh. After a brief respite during Andrew Garfield's episode last week, tonight we return to the doldrums, with a lazy, pointless and unfunny episode with exactly one highlight that you'll see below. Sigh- let's get on with it.
COLD OPEN: A message from Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama, now that they have someone to actually play Michelle, and it looks like the task of portraying Hillary for the next election cycle will fall to Vanessa, who doesn't do much of an impression here (to be fair, neither does Sasheer). Yeah- I hope they transfer this over to Kate actually, because I'd rather not be stuck with a lackluster Hillary for what could potentially be the next ten years.
MONOLOGUE: Charlize Theron, who hasn't hosted since 2000, comes down and sings a song about not being able to sing. It's pretty lame. Not worth posting about.
MOTHER'S DAY GAME SHOW: Kate hosts a game show as a mom whose kids have to guess things about her- the jokes are things that moms do but it's SO mild as to feel completely pointless. Not painful but not funny either.
GIRLFRIENDS TALK SHOW: Ok, you know what? Fuck this sketch. You all know how I feel about it, it deserves no more words.
DRAGON BABIES: An HBO first look at a fake animated kids movie, where one of the characters is voiced by a retired cop, who's apparently a character of Mike O'Brien's. Eh. It's kind of boring, but I'll post it anyway in case you want a look. I haven't laughed at any of Mike's bits this entire season, but he must be friendly with the rest of the cast members or something (apparently that's how you get airtime on this show, which explains Aidy as well).
MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKER: Hey, it's what's her name! Oh right, Nasim. She makes what feels like her third appearance all year long (she is so being pushed out right now) and unfortunately it's one of her awful characters that again, I have never once laughed at. Tonight is not the exception to the rule. By the way, Charlize has shown up in all these sketches but I'm almost forgetting because she hasn't made much of an impression, good or bad. She just kind of blends into the background.
WEEKEND UPDATE: Again, after a good update last week, tonight falls completely flat, even though Barbara Walters (the real one) finally shows up to own all the jokes and impressions of her over the years. She's given nothing funny to say and it was a total waste of a real celebrity. Thankfully, Drunk Uncle comes on to save the whole segment, and he's the one funny thing in this episode.
BIKINI BEACH PARTY: A TCM spoof of an old Gidget movie where Taran woos Charlize next to an exploding dead whale filled with gasoline. This falls flat too, and they do the whale exploding thing twice.
WHISKERS R 'WE: Kate and Charlize are eccentric cat ladies selling off kittens (where'd they get all those real cats?), and the two of them are pretty good here and definitely trying (Kate's one of the most naturally talented performers they have right now and she's not nearly used enough), but the writing, as per usual, sucks.
TOURISTS: A pre-taped bit with various cast members and Charlize disguised and accosting people on the streets asking for directions in fake accents. This isn't funny at all, nobody did anything weird enough- and I just have to ask, in a world where The Daily Show and Sasha Baron Cohen have existed for years now and done this sort of thing better, how they could possibly think that this mild bit of tape was good enough? Where's the risk?
So that was it. Charlize was a lackluster host to a really boring episode that felt phoned in at the worst level, which continues to be the terrible, terrible writing. I've said it before, I never believed this show could actually get worse when Seth Meyers left, but it defied all the odds. I give tonight a D. Andy Samberg comes back next week to host the season finale and I couldn't be happier that this season is ending. Hopefully they can make some major changes before the start of next season (I'll be listing some tips next week) because SNL's in dire straits right now and something's got to give.
