Oof. Jonah Hill comes back to host a pretty dreadful episode of SNL, which actually serves to make me realize it hasn't been this bad in a while, so maybe the season overall has actually been one of their better ones. Still, tonight was a throwaway.
COLD OPEN: It's a wrap-up of Super Tuesday and stuff that's happened since, which gives us a chance to see Darrell's Trump brag about his dick size and berate Bobby's Chris Christie standing behind him, but let's be honest here- this all happening in real life has reached beyond parody at this point. I mean, how can anyone even satirize what Trump does anymore except to play actual clips of his real words and actions? He's on the level of a Sarah Palin. Kate's Hillary, Taran's Ted Cruz and Jason Sudeikis's Mitt Romney return in the open as well, so it's pretty good.
MONOLOGUE: Jonah Hill's schtick is playing sort of a douche version of himself (although I have to wonder if it's not so altered), which he does here as he burns Kyle in the audience and raps with Future. Ugh. I can already tell he's going to wear thin on me tonight.
RACISTS FOR TRUMP: A campaign ad spoofing white supremacists support for Trump, which is dead on and the best thing in the episode. But again, these people had him HOST THEIR SHOW. I know, I watched it in the fall. I have not forgotten that, you guys.
ACTION NEWS: A bellyflop of a sketch that parodies a midwestern local news broadcast with Jonah and Cecily as anchors. The entire joke here is the weird accents and it's painfully long and unfunny. Yikes.
THE CHAMP: Another whiff, with Jonah as a picked on high school wrestler whose bowel movements are revealed on the news. Yeah, who thought this was good? Some seriously wrongheaded premises in this ep.
STUDENT AUCTION: Yet another wipeout! A high school auction with Jonah as a middle eastern dictator bidding on teens at a talent show- wtf? Three skits in a row that are just flat out abominably bad.
UPDATE: I haven't been so relieved to get to Update in a while. The usual election jokes are peppered with some new OJ Simpson information, then Cecily's Girl at a Party (I hate, hate, HATE that character) brings everything to a halt. But Vanessa comes in as a reporter interviewing a 110 year old woman (Kate) and straining to get her to talk, which is actually kinda funny, because Kate usually makes just about anything weird become amusing after a few seconds. That was cute. Finally, Jay comes on and describes a secret meeting of black comedians where he suddenly goes into a riff of impressions of nearly every black comic superstar including Kevin Hart, Chris Rock, Tracy Morgan, Eddie Murphy, Hannibal Buress, Katt Williams, Dave Chappelle and Bernie Mac, which is awesome. Ok, that might be the best thing of the night.
MURDER PARTY: An Agatha Christie style dinner party again becomes an accusation towards Jonah having embarrassing gastrointestinal issues that everyone knows about. Not real funny, but seriously Jonah, you really wanted to be the butt of all these poop jokes tonight?
INSIDE SOCAL: Kyle and Beck's basement show is back (I have not missed this sketch) as they and Jonah mourn the breast reduction surgery of fellow pal Cecily. Meh.
CATERED LUNCH: Jonah caters a business meeting and freaks out about the food he serves- a weird, strange final skit, but I am so done with this episode by this point that I'm just glad it's over.
So that was rough. Jonah's fourth time hosting was not the charm, and the bright spot here was the Trump ad and Jay's impressions bit on Update. I give it a D, and I'm already guessing next week's Ariana Grande hosted affair will not be much better. After that it's another break, so maybe the staff decided to more or less write off the March episodes anyway. See you guys next week!
