So, Reese Witherspoon comes back to host a pretty middling episode of SNL tonight, apart from a couple of cute bits involving the cast's real moms for Mother's Day (but I mean come on, how can that not be cute, right?). Otherwise, bleh.
COLD OPEN: Cecily deejays the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, which makes fun of all the GOP candidates who announced in the last week. There's no joke here, so I don't even know why they thought this was a good idea. Moving on.
MONOLOGUE: Reese takes the stage to do a long Mother's Day bit that has the entire cast come up with their actual mothers, to apologize for real life stuff they did as kids. It's sweet, but mostly just because it's genuine- not all that funny, but who am I to complain about honoring your mom? It's actually one of the highlights of the night.
BE SCENE IN L.A.: A totally pointless talk show skit with Cecily and Reese hosting some show as California bimbos- again, no real jokes here, and it's utterly forgettable. Which of course means they'll probably be bringing it back, right? Knowing them.
PICTURE PERFECT: This one's a little better. Taran hosts a drawing contest, and Kenan and Bobby are stumped when asked to draw The Prophet Muhammad. Then Reese guesses it correctly, which is kind of funny I guess. Still slight though.
MR. WESTERBERG: This one made me laugh, actually. A pre-taped bit of Hallmark workers doing Mother's Day cards while mocking their boss's sayings, but Beck goes overboard with the sexual harassment he's been getting from him. For some reason, Beck's delivery here makes it funny to me.
WEEKEND UPDATE: A very lackluster Update tonight, with some lame Hillary, GOP and NFL jokes, and then Colin and Michael read jokes texted to them by their moms. Again, that's only cute, but not actually funny. The guests are lame, with Leslie coming on as her relationship expert (I've never liked that one), Cecily and Reese as two girls you wish you didn't talk to at a party (oy), and finally Kenan as homeless Willie, who's always good for at least one chuckle, but it's mostly lame overall.
STUDENT THEATRE: The weird artsy students are back for their "socially conscious" performance art, but this is exactly the same thing as last time, except longer. And it's still just there, not particularly biting or anything.
LADIES WINE CLUB: The women sit around drinking and whining about weird problems, but this one is so irrelevant and pointless that it's another one I totally forget in about five seconds. No good jokes or moments at all- how does someone come up with something so bland?
WATER SLIDE: Kyle and Beck are weird life guards at a water park, and Reese is the girl one. I don't even know what this was about, but it sucked. Awful, worst of the night maybe, because I don't even see what was supposed to be funny about this.
WHISKERS R WE: Kate's cat sketch is the final one, and hey- it's actually really funny. This bit is usually very reliable, because Kate is so wonderful at the crotchety cat lady, and Reese is good too as her latest conquest. It's nice to end on a high note, because most of the skits tonight were terrible.
So, Reese was a competent but unmemorable host, and there were maybe three semi-funny bits plus the cute mom stuff, so I guess on balance I give this one a C-. But yeah, it's not a great night, so with one episode left, maybe Louis C.K. can bring back some of that mid-season strength the show had for a while before returning to business as usual. See you guys next week for the finale!
