RECAP: SNL 3/05 "Jonah Hill"

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!

Full Trailer for HBO's 'Confirmation'

Here's a longer look at the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill movie Confirmation, which takes us back to the infamous Supreme Court hearings in 1991. I didn't realize it before, but Greg Kinnear is playing Joe Biden, who played a rather unfortunate role in resolving all this at the time, so I wonder how he's going to appreciate the situation coming back to the forefront. And hey, that's Alison Wright from The Americans as Thomas's wife! Anything that exposes more of that show's stellar cast is a good thing.

New 'Daredevil' Trailer Features Elektra in Action

As promised, part two of the Daredevil trailer dropped today, and gives us a good look at Daredevil's iconic lady love and antiheroine Elektra, as played by Elodie Yung. And she looks awesome. Early reviews say she's actually the most compelling part of the new season, so I can't wait to see the two of them together. 

Season 6 of 'Game of Thrones' Teases the Dead

This new teaser for the new season of Game of Thrones shows the faces of a bunch of dead people, but also Tyrion's at the end, and I can tell you right now, I've slowly been tiring of this show anyway, but if they ever kill off Peter Dinklage's character, I'm out for good. It's unlikely, since he's the face of the show and all, but he's literally the only one I really care about and the only reason I continue to watch at this point.

'Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt' Gets a Season 2 Teaser

So many good shows are coming back in the spring- and this one was one of my faves last year, so mark down April 15th as the day when Season 2 of Tina Fey's new hit debuts on Netflix. Can't wait for this one.

'Orphan Black' Season 4 Gets a New Trailer and Premiere Date

Orphan Black is moving to a new night, and it starts Thursday, April 14th. The last season was horrible for the first half, but picked up significantly in the second- as long as the boy clones aren't being used again, I think there's a chance it can go back to the entertaining, if messy, show that it was before. And I don't see them in this trailer, so that's a good sign.

Kerry Washington is Anita Hill in Trailer for 'Confirmation'

Boy, this movie coming out on HBO couldn't be timelier, could it? In light of the upcoming battle to replace Scalia on the Supreme Court, it couldn't be a better time to look back on the infamous Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas scandal. Kerry Washington takes on Hill while Wendell Pierce embodies Thomas, and it's airing April 16th. I'm so there.

The Punisher Appears in Trailer for 'Daredevil' Season 2

This is cool- a two and a half minute trailer for the new season of Daredevil showcases The Punisher in all his glory, and the upcoming battle between him and our protagonist. The Punisher, as all comics fans know, is a dark, violent, extreme antihero, so this new season promises to be every bit as hardcore as the first, perhaps even more so. The best part is that this trailer is only Part 1, with Part 2 set to premiere in 10 days, showcasing the other highly anticipated new character this year- DD's most iconic love, Elektra, who shows up for one second at the end of this one. Can't wait.

RECAP: SNL 2/13 "Melissa McCarthy"

Melissa McCarthy comes back to host SNL and it's for sure one of the better episodes of the season. She's such a pro, she would have easily been a breakout cast member had she gotten her start on this show.

COLD OPEN: A different kind of political open tonight, with some of the cast at a restaurant debating Hillary vs. Bernie, and agreeing that Hillary's most qualified, but they just like Bernie better, which causes Kate to come in and do a musical number as Hillary, begging to be allowed to make them love her. It's a bit more clever than the norm at least, and with appearances by Darrell's Bill Clinton and Beck's sad Jeb Bush, it mostly works.

MONOLOGUE: Melissa comes onstage and does a big number about being a member of the 5 timer's club, only to have Kenan come out and interrupt her to say she's only hosted four times, and gives her a tiny 5 timer's jacket on a banana (to show scale, lol). It's alright, but nothing much to write home about.

THE DAY BEYONCE TURNED BLACK: A recorded bit about white people freaking out over Beyonce's Super Bowl performance- it's fine, but all I think when they do sketches like this now is how they themselves were under the biggest firestorm about diversity until very recently and now all the smug "we're the best" attitude over the whole thing is quite a a lot of braggadocio on their part, don't you think?

CUL-DE-SAC: A movie studio does a test screening where they record people's reactions to a scary movie in the night vision, and Melissa's freakouts are way over the top compared to everyone else. This one made me crack up from start to finish, all because of Melissa's hysterical, Chris Farley-esque ability to really throw herself into these physical comedy bits.

TERMINATOR: Melissa, Pete and Bobby are a family watching Terminator together when the sex scene comes on and they all start thinking about how to break the awkward silence. This seems like a very Pete-type skit, but there's a couple of pretty good lines in here from all three of them. It goes on a little too long, but still funny enough to work.

UPDATE: Another surprisingly solid Update this week, with some good GOP and Democratic debate jokes, but then Vanessa comes out as "Rachel" from Friends and does a absolutely dead on, eerily accurate Jennifer Aniston impersonation, and the audience kinda freaks out over it it's so good. Where has she been keeping that impression??? Why have we not seen it before now? Man, it practically steals the whole episode. Super Bowl MVP Von Miller comes out to brag about beating Cam Newton, and then Leslie comes on to do her regular stand-up bit for Valentine's Day that I can't stand. I'm sorry, but her humor is obviously love it or hate it and I have never been able to warm to her style here. It's not my thing and they do it way too much.

PICK-UP BAR: Another Melissa showcase, as she practices tips for picking up guys in a bar and seems to ad-lib 90% of her routine as she harasses Kyle and Kenan in ever more inexplicable ways. It's so funny that Leslie can't keep a straight face throughout this whole thing, but Melissa doesn't crack once in spite of it. God, she's awesome.

KANYE RAP BATTLE: A Kyle pre-taped parody of a Behind the Music style story of him wanting to become the greatest rapper of all time by challenging Kanye to a battle. This goes on a little too long, but the punchline is pretty good, as when Kyle finally comes face to face with Kanye backstage, he is predictably destroyed and humiliated. Takes too long to get to that, but at least it was decent.

BUS LADY: Leslie is trapped on a bus with Melissa as an old, casually racist white lady who keeps talking her ear off about Roots and black movies, while Leslie increasingly wants to jump out the window. The whole thing ends in a Speed joke, mostly because it has nowhere to go, but again, Melissa is so completely in natural character that she never even looks at the cue cards! How was she never a cast member?

WHISKERS R WE: Kate brings back the old lady cat sketch with Melissa as her new paramour, and it's good as always with a couple of great lines about one of the cats being called OJ because he's a murderer, hee. Nice one to end on.

So that was it, guys. Melissa rocked it and I continue to be in awe of her effortless hosting abilities, even if they might have actually underused her, if anything, this time. I give it a B+. On March 5th, the show comes back with Jonah Hill, so I'll see you guys then!

Bloody Teaser for 'Silicon Valley' Season 3

Lots of new promos today, including one for one of my other favorite shows, Silicon Valley, coming back April 24th, along with the usual HBO Sunday lineup of Game of Thrones and Veep. The underrated Thomas Middleditch shows off his physical comedy chops here.