Well, it was another lackluster SNL episode, even though Julia did her best to liven things up with a real effort being put into some very bad writing, as usual. Sigh. Let's hope they do some kind of writer's intervention before the end of the season in May.
COLD OPEN: This opening though, isn't too bad, as Larry David of course returns as Bernie Sanders for the Democratic debate in New York, and they stage a Seinfeld reunion with Julia popping up as "real New Yorker" Elaine Benes (!) to ask him questions. Love it! Vanessa's Rachel Green cameos as well. Ok, this was cool and the best thing of the night, it turns out.
MONOLOGUE: Julia comes out to poke fun at her own brief SNL years back in the early 80's and her hugely unsuccessful film career, and then Tony Hale shows up to play the hapless Veep's hapless Gary again, as he mishandles the cue cards for her. It's alright I guess. Julia's always a good sport.
HEROIN AM: An ad for suburban parents to take heroin in pill form to help them function better. It's kinda funny, mostly due to Julia's efforts at acting high and loving it.
HUGE JEWELRY: Julia and Kate are Long Island housewives selling oversized jewelry you can "see from space" and using their daughters Cecily and Aidy to model them. Eh. It's just one joke (LI housewives are trashy) and it's actually kinda dull and goes on too long (despite an ending cameo from an all grown up Nick Jonas).
THE POOL BOY: A digital short where Julia is having an affair with Pete's pool boy, who couldn't care less while she tries to melodramatically break it off with him. It ends with her going after Nick Jonas as the new lawn mower guy. It's another kind of meh sketch, but again, I do credit Julia with giving this her all.
CINEMA CLASSICS: A look back at Julia as a '50's actress who can't say her lines unless they're "hidden" on set props. This one doesn't work and goes on way too long, but Julia is again the center of the joke and physically throws herself around the set- sadly, to no avail.
MERCEDES AA CLASS: A commercial for a Mercedes that runs strictly on AA batteries- oof. A total misfire that Julia is forced to shill for. Who thought this was funny?
UPDATE: Several Bernie jokes make way for Kenan and Jay as Charles Barkeley and Shaq to comment on this week's NBA games. They're usually funny here, but this time it falls kinda flat, with the continual mocking of Shaq's intelligence just pounded too hard by Kenan, as though the audience couldn't tell what the joke was themselves. Aidy then shows up as "Animal Annie," a character who mixes fun facts about animals with depressing facts about herself- it's not that funny, but she brings out a real iguana at the end, so...cool? Finally, Cecily comes on as her "one dimensional female character" from a movie. I've never loved any of Cecily's characters, to be honest, although I find this one the least grating. It's a mediocre Update tonight.
WHO WORKS HERE: A game show that asks people to guess who actually works at the CVS store. It's a knock on CVS employees, obviously, but it's a bleh skit that gets no real laughs.
MATCH BAR: Yikes. Kate and Julia show up at a bar as aliens looking for males to mate with and end up killing them by accident. This was horrid and man, I don't know what they were thinking with the concept on this one. Makes me feel sorry for the actors.
CHRISTIAN MOVIE TRAILER: The last sketch is a trailer for one of those recent faith-based films, with Vanessa as a "persecuted Christian" forced to bake a cake for a gay couple and admit in court that God is gay. She fights it by yelling that God's a "boob man!" This is actually good and should have been in the first half of the show. I don't know why they saved it for the end.
Okay, so this episode was not good, although it also wasn't as bad as the recent Russell Crowe and Peter Dinklage outings. It had the opening, the trailer and the heroin ad, so I guess that earns it a C-? Everything else was a bust, despite Julia being cool and trying her best. Hopefully, when the show comes back on May 7th with Brie Larson it brings the A-game material for the final run of the year. See you guys then!
