Oof. My hopes were high for a decent episode tonight with Peter Dinklage hosting for the first time, but alas, it was not to be. Dinklage did fine, but the skits were abysmal, leading to one of the worst episodes of the season, for sure. SNL often comes back from a break with subpar material for some reason, and this was another example of that.
COLD OPEN: We open with Kate interviewing Cecily as a crazy Trump supporter, trying to defend his offensive comments, this time towards women. It's all kinda meh, except for a couple of cutaways to Darrell's Trump punching a supporter in the face. Not too inspired.
MONOLOGUE: Ha. And speaking of not inspired, Peter Dinklage comes out for a two minute bit where he talks to Bobby dressed up as George R.R. Martin in the audience, and then the whole thing just ends. So, I guess there were zero ideas for the opening this week, huh?
WINNIE THE POOH: Oh boy. Peter is Pooh Bear and Jay is "Denny the Real," who comes in and tries to insult Pooh and his pals, and makes yet another Revenant bear joke. Ugh. This was so awful I'm shocked it was the opening sketch.
NAKED & AFRAID: CELEBRITY EDITION: Peter teams up with Leslie for the reality survival show, and though this should have been funny, Leslie is just is too annoying and her usual screaming self, so it doesn't really do anything for me. Another miss.
SPACE PANTS: A weird one where a couple of muscle men in a lounge try to intimidate Jon and Pete, who owe money, but keep getting distracted by Peter, who shows up onstage wearing a space outfit and singing a bizarre song about his space pants. It's so random that it seems like something that should have been the 11:55 slot, and I can't say it's funny either, although Peter goes for it, and Gwen Stefani even joins in at the end. Weird.
GLORY HOLE: Peter and Aidy are a couple who invite Vanessa and Beck out to join them at a restaurant that serves bread through a glory hole in the wall that they of course, have to eat hands free. It's one joke, and it's a lazy one, but Peter does go for it again, so I give him that. I didn't care about this one either though.
HBO FIRST LOOK: A behind the scenes look at Game of Thrones' upcoming season with the joke being on Bobby the motion capture guy who stands in for the dragons. This isn't funny though, it's just kinda there. They could have come up with a better angle for a GOT joke, although they've actually been doing these since the show first started, so maybe they were just out of ideas?
UPDATE: Jost and Che's newfound amusement with each other's jokes continues, as they seem to think that's the approach that people want to see from them, but it still does absolutely nothing for me. Some knocks on Trump and a defense of Obama as our pres from Che, before Pete comes on to ramble about Hulk Hogan's sex tape settlement from Gawker, and Kenan then arrives as David Ortiz for the opening of baseball season. Kenan is actually kinda funny, and his "Big Papi" is the first thing that's made me laugh all night, so I'm grateful.
DEAD BODY: Peter is a hotel concierge who shows Cecily and Beck the "underwater" honeymoon suite, which has an aquarium view, only for them to freak out as Taran's corpse comes floating into the frame and hitting against the glass. This one is actually is kind of amusing, as Taran works that dead body physicality, so it's the first skit with anything in it that made me chuckle tonight.
VACATION NIGHTMARES: Peter hosts a show that has Cecily and Taran narrating one of those bad re-enactments of the time they were jumped in an alleyway in Denmark, but Kate and Aidy play the bad actors cast in the re-enactment video. It's not too funny, and would have been better if half the joke didn't depend on everyone pointing out how bad Kate and Aidy are in the video.
COMPANY RETREAT: Last one of the night has Taran doing a magic show for company employees and getting under Peter's skin as the boss who can't take a joke. Peter's increasing anger and inability to accept getting smelly underwear jokes made about him kinda sells it actually.
So that's it everybody. Not a good episode, although Peter wasn't a bad host. The material just sucked all around. I have to give this one a D, salvaged only by Peter's attempts and Kenan's Big Papi. Next week it's Russell Crowe, who should be interesting (I can't remember if he's ever hosted before), so see you all then.
