This week's SNL was a pretty mediocre affair, even if everyone braved Winter Storm Jonas to show up at the studio in the middle of the blizzard. But athletes rarely deliver in terms of performance, and Ronda Rousey was no exception. In fact, she was hidden most of the night, given just one or two lines per sketch. The rest was plagued by the usual subpar writing, although it wasn't as downright bizarre as last week.
COLD OPEN: Tina Fey returns as Sarah Palin to mock her rambling, nonsensical endorsement of Trump this week. This should have been really easy, but they kinda muck it up by having Trump (Darrell) constantly turn to the camera to give a lame running commentary on her craziness. What's funny is that like many of Fey's past caricatures of Palin, the send-up fails in comparison the batshit insanity that was the real thing. Seriously, check it out. The woman must be permanently high.
MONOLOGUE: Ronda Rousey bounds out to mock the blizzard and gets help from the cast as commentators who rate her monologue like one of her fights. It's pretty meh.
SAG: The best thing they did all night, as a spoof of an awards show that nominated all white actors from movies made about important black stories. It's pointed and pretty hilarious when "all the white guys" win Best Actor, although I can't help but note how SNL itself was being regularly slammed for the non-diversity in its ranks just two years ago. How fast things can change when you finally make the moves, right?
HIGH SCHOOL: A strange, pre-taped bit where Beck as a popular high school jock takes Ronda to the gym where Vanessa and her popular girl clique tries to humiliate her. But of course Ronda beats her to a pulp. This isn't that funny though, it's just weird and off.
BLAND MAN: The Bachelor parody that they've done before, with all the girls mimicking the crazy contestants for the show's 25th season. This one has the same problem it did the first time, with it going on way, way too long. The only funny line is when Sasheer comes on and says she's "the black one," and Taran responds with "let me walk you out." Lol.
UPDATE: Colin and Michael chime in with more jokes about Trump, the blizzard and the Oscars, and then Leslie comes on to joke about wanting to hook up with Leonardo DiCaprio, and Kenan comes on as Willie with blizzard tips for winter. I only half-smiled at Willie, everything else sucked as usual.
HLN: Ugh. Another repeat of a sketch where Pete is on the stand testifying in the case where two teachers (Cecily and Ronda) are being sued by his mom for having a threesome with her teenage son. I just can't stand this premise- if it would be horrifying with a girl as the victim it's no less creepy because it's a boy. Total double standard.
SUPER CREW: A weird skit with a group of useless superheroes who show up to save the city even though only one of them can do anything to actually help. It's a Mystery Men kind of joke, but it's stupid and pointless.
BAR: A rap-off in a bar with Jay, Taran and Beck bragging about their junk to Ronda and her friends, but the joke is Beck's embarrassed about his and will only go down on her instead. Okay, another super lame skit. Getting real tired of this episode.
CITIZEN'S FORUM: Why do they keep bringing back lame sketches that bombed the first time? This is the one with nutty citizens complaining about random shit, but again, nothing memorable here.
LOSERS: Final one of the night is Ronda inviting co-workers Beck and Kyle to a party, but they've never been to one so they keep asking what they should do, bring, etc. It's as dumb and unfunny as it sounds.
Whew! We're finally done with that mess. The back half of the show was more painful than the first part, but that was just bad. I give it a D (I guess the SAG sketch made up for a lot, since that will surely get the most attention). SNL comes back in two weeks with newfound friend of the show Larry David (!) hosting, so here's hoping Bernie Sanders will still be in the news, right? (I'm sure he will). See you guys then!
