Well, the streak couldn't last forever. SNL concludes its decent run of episodes of late with a more typical, hit and miss, mostly miss affair tonight, even if Taraji P. Henson did a pretty good job as host. Eh- most of the material wasn't painful, so I'll shrug this one off and hope the show rejuvenates for its final three episodes in May.
COLD OPEN: This one is good however, with Kate as Hillary getting ready to announce her candidacy for tomorrow- boy, are we in for a great next few years with Kate's already legendary, egomaniacal Hillary locked and loaded, unlike the show was ever able to do for Obama. She tries to record a video of herself without saying the words "I" or "me" (unsuccessful of course), and then Darrell Hammond's classic Bill sneaks into the vid, excited to become "First Dude." It's great.
MONOLOGUE: Taraji comes out and sings about having finally made it in show business with her hit Empire, while a gospel choir and the rest of the cast sings behind her. Eh, it's okay. Kinda tired of the singing monologues.
ADULT DIAPERS: An ad for "depends legends"- adult diapers for old people with classic stars and historical figures on them. Again, inoffensive, but forgettable. I almost forgot this entire sketch for the recap.
HLN: Now this I hated. A spoof of HLN's coverage of the teacher student affair trial, in which the entire joke is the old idea that boys cannot possibly be taken advantage of by older women. I'm really, really sick of that notion- maybe they can't be physically forced into anything, but so what, that means the whole thing is a joke and the teacher isn't even in the wrong? Ugh. They'd never, ever do this same sketch about a female student with a male teacher, would they?
HOME 2: A lazy commercial for the Home sequel where everyone does their random celebrity impersonations, and it's so boring I can't even remember who did who.
QVC: Hmm- a Kate sketch where she's Claudette, the fashion designer who makes ridiculous clothes like a "three way poncho" she tries to sell on TV. Kate's great as always, but the sketch isn't all that funny, just weird.
SOUTH CENTROS: A Game of Thrones spoof that introduces a new kingdom with an all black cast- okay, this should have been a lot funnier, but the whole thing just falls flat for some reason. The writing is really off this week, because this seems like an easy target.
WEEKEND UPDATE: Happily, Update's pretty good tonight, with some solid jokes about Hillary, Game of Thrones, and Cuba (Colin and Michael do seem to have improved in delivery, if not chemistry recently), and then Kate comes on as the Spanish artist who botched the Jesus painting to talk the hideous Lucille Ball statue. She's good (she really is the most reliable SNL'er I've seen in many years), but then Vanessa's Jacob comes back (god, he needs to be retired), and he brings his dad Billy Crystal, who does nothing but repeat the same exact jokes she does. Wow, what a waste of Billy Crystal. He really just wanted to come on and do that?
HOLLYWOOD GAME NIGHT: Kate again delivers (boy she's on a roll) as the only funny part of this lazy game show skit, with her exasperated and over it Jane Lynch dissing the various celebs on the show. Again, no one stands out, except for maybe Taraji's Wanda Sykes, who she seems to have a spot on impression of. But no good lines or jokes here.
JANELLE: Whaa? Why'd they bring this one back, of all things? Sasheer is the dancing Youtube teen and Taraji shows up as her mom who wants in on the action. Taraji gives it her best moves, but again, nothing funny, although at least it's short.
SESAME STREET: Real Muppets are used here in this ad for Sesame Street with Cookie from Empire, doing her thing. It's all right I guess, not too bad. Maybe the Muppets made it tolerable just by showing up.
CINEMA CLASSICS: Another premise that falls flat, as PBS Classics looks at 'Their Own League'- an obvious League of Their Own parody that tries to mock the idea that the players don't want to have to use Taraji and Leslie and fight for black women's rights at the same time as white women's. I'm not sure what's supposed to be funny here exactly, it just kinda sits there. But it's another short one, so let's move on.
CONNECTATRON: This is either a Power Rangers or a Voltron spoof where Taraji tries to sabotage the robot by getting in a fight with the leader, her boyfriend Taran. Kind of amusing I guess.
So, yeah, a lot of stuff just fell really flat tonight, even with decent ideas or a premise for something that should have been funnier. But Kate was great once again, and Taraji tried pretty hard- nothing was overly awful, so I'm going to give it a C. Just kind of a middling, medicore outing, except for that opening Hillary sketch. I'm glad MVP Kate is on this show, because she makes even lame material worth watching, for the most part. The show's off for two weeks now, coming back on May 2nd with Scarlett Johansson hosting for the fourth time (coincidentally the day after Avengers opens), so I'll see you guys then!
