May 2, 2015 – Scarlett Johansson / Wiz Khalifa (S40 E19) 

Cold Opening – Mayweather-Pacquiao Fight

• Some funny lines early on from the Steve Higgins-read text crawl.
• Ah, back in the days when Aidy playing men wasn’t so cliched & desperate.
• This is quite an oddly structured cold open, with mostly voice-over by Higgins, yet his deadpan, professional explanation of this open is cracking me up and making this open passable.
• A funny cutaway to Kate’s Bieber.
• An overall odd, but good cold opening.

Rating: ***

Monologue

• OHH GOD. Not ANOTHER musical monologue.
• Boy, not even Taran & Kenan is making this monologue fun to me. While not as insufferable as Scarlett’s monologue from season 36 (a disastrous episode, by the way), this monologue is barely providing any laughs.
• Ok, as I said before, I have high tolerance for musical monologues, when they have JOKES, this one is failing to come up with something funny, and Scarlett’s attempts at laughs are landing with a thud with me.
• Ok, I just got a laugh from Scarlett’s singing the lyrics like a lullaby, yet Scarlett’s energy and commitment is not enough for me to like this monologue.

Rating: ** (being merciful)

Right Side of the Bed With Gracelynn and Cory

• I seem to be amongst the few people that actually enjoy these sketches, maybe because they feature fun banter between Taran & Cecily, and are harmless enough for me.
• Our obligatory New York-accented, or in this case New Jersey-accented character from Scarlett, which happens at least once in all of her hosting stints. Again, as a native bilingual with a strong New York accent myself, this is coming off more cliched than amusing. Yet, Scarlett sells the hell out of it.
• The usual fun banter between Taran & Cecily in these sketches.
• Solid straight man work from Scarlett in this.
• Not caring for the cutaway to Kate playing another male celebrity in these sketches.
• An overall harmless, decent sketch that featured good chemistry between Taran & Cecily, and a good showcase for Scarlett.

Rating: ***

TV 11 News Baltimore

• A solid, unique concept.
• A funny shot of Bobby alone in the giant, empty stadium.
• A big laugh from the “Guess The Attendants” bit, and the multiple choice format is reminding me of the fantastic Sex Test sketch from the season 3 Richard Dreyfuss episode.
• The Kiss Cam bit with Bobby eating that hot dog gave me a good laugh, and thank god they didn’t make a big deal of the quick man-on-man kiss between Beck & Pete, as I don’t want to be reminded of that fucking wretched John Krasinski episode anymore.

Rating: ***1/2

Black Widow: Age of Me

• A pretty funny, clever spoof of Marvel, with a romcom-themed Black Widow movie. A solid idea for our obligatory Marvel-themed piece of the night.
• A fun conceit with the romantic relationship between Ultron & Black Widow, and this is absolutely nailing the typical romcom tropes.
• Who is playing Ultron? I don’t think he’s even credited for some odd, unknown reason.
• Nothing much to add here from me aside that this spoof worked for me, and the solid satirical angle on how female actors are being utilized in cinema add to the solid quality of this short, even when I never watched a single Marvel movie or cared for the superhero genre as a whole (aside from watching the Man of Steel dreck, one of the worst movies of the 2010s, a grim, grey, hopeless death march of a film).

Rating: ***1/2

Girlfriends Talk Show

• Ohhh god. Thankfully, this is the final installment of this tired recurring sketch.
• Not even Aidy’s reliable delivery can give me my expected laughs from her.
• MEH. Cue the beyond-tired crazy boyfriend stories from Cecily, this is so by-the-numbers and most importantly DULL.
• Solid characterization from Scarlett at least, even when she could play this role in her sleep.
• Aaaand this sketch is now over, this will not be missed by me at all, despite it being a harmless, innocent recurring sketch. I’ll only say that it feels so jarring to see it, in its final two appearances in this fresh, creative, and unique new direction that SNL has been taking with this new era.

Rating: **

Musical Performance – “See You Again” ft. Charlie Puth

• Jesse Nathan: Boy, does that title take me back to 2015. God, that was such a good year for popular music. Not only that, but it was also a great year for me, but I don’t want to go too much into detail about that.
• I wanna say this is a nice piano intro, but I’ve honestly heard this song a million times to the point where I pretty much remember everything that happens.
• Charlie Puth was another artist that I wrongly thought was black when I first heard him. In fact, I had the same reaction when I heard an actual song of his, “Marvin Gaye” (a guilty pleasure of mine).
• Speaking of Puth, I honestly never expected to ever see him on SNL.
• Puth doesn’t sound all that great here, but he’s trying his best.
• Why does Wiz have an insane amount of tattoos? It kinda makes it hard for me to take him seriously, especially when he’s singing a song like this.
• What’s with Wiz’s stiff movements during his rapping?
• I like the slight glisten after Wiz’s verse ends.
• I kinda like the female backing vocalists’ voices during the second chorus.
• Oof, the “oh-oh-oh”s fell really flat.
• Nice additions to the instrumental during the bridge.
• I’m so used to the studio recording that hearing all these changes in the live version just feels weird.
• Why is Wiz moving all weird during the end?

Rating: ***

Weekend Update

• It feels like yesterday when I reviewed Kate’s first RBG commentary, they need to space these out more.
• As usual, Kate’s coming off likable here and her delivery remains on-point, yet I can’t with the CONSTANT “Ya just got Ginsburned!” dance sessions. These are more and more feel like a chore to sit through, even with Kate’s commitment and fun dance moves.
• Man, I’m loving the bit were Colin struggles to come up with an inoffensive, appropriate punchline to his “Bruce Jenner identifies as a woman” joke, and Michael’s whole attitude and responses to Colin here are hilarious.
• As a (former) Game of Thrones fan, I’m going to react to this Gilly & Sam commentary with caution, as SNL barely if ever did good parodies of GoT in the past, and this commentary also serves as a time capsule when Game of Thrones was THE show to watch, before it died an absolutely miserable death and got forgotten to the sands of time after a while.
• Despite the commitment, this commentary is not working well for me, and I’ve just realized that Vanessa in this episode, as she’s been having a pretty rough season when it comes to solo showcases, being mostly relegated to REACTING to a one-note Cecily Strong character, or that fucking dismal farting sketch (*shudder*) earlier in the season.
• Not even Bobby’s goofy facial reactions throughout this is saving it for me.
• Several great ad-libs by Michael throughout this Update.
• Hoo boy, looks like that I’m not going to care for this very sports-centered commentary from Kenna & Jay. Also, Jay’s goofy mugging here is doing nothing for me.
• Not even Kenan’s energy and exaggerated comic deliveries is saving this for me, and as a non-sports fan, I barely know what the hell this commentary’s point is.
• Boy, this has to be the very first Update this season in which I didn’t care for ANY of the guest commentaries. At least this shows you how far Update has improved this season. As the jokes tonight were pretty solid, and helped keep this Update afloat.

Rating: ***

Dino Bones

• OH MOTHERFUCKING NO. Here comes the last of the series of notorious sketches this season.
• With this sketch, SNL continues the eerie tradition of having one infamous, trainwreck sketch in each of Scarlett’s episode after her debut, with Quato, St. Kat’s Middle, and now this dreck. And better yet, this one is written by Anderlette, in an a episode that is part one of two Anderlette City episodes back-to-back.
• UGH at the voices on Cecily & Scarlett, the sketch is already starting off rough.
• I’m about two minutes in, and THIS sketch…. Oh…. My…. God… I-I can’t with this one.
• Just saying “random” over and over and over and over and over… How did this get past dress?!
• Will anyone please tell Cecily & Scarlett’s characters to shut the HELL up! And yes, I *get* that I’m supposed to hate them, yet that doesn’t make this dreck anymore painfully unfunny.
• OH GOD. If Cecily & Scarlett say “random” ONE more time…
• (*sigh*) Aaaaaand they just said it again. My god SNL, you’re DESTROYING me with this sketch, Destroying me!
• Mercifully, this sketch is now over.
• Overall, this sketch was as fucking horrible as I, and many other fans thought of it back in the day.
• And as a bonus: here’s fellow SNL fan Justin Hart of the Telehell Podcast’s own take on this disaster of a sketch and several others back in his blog. He perfectly explained how & why this sketch sucks SO hard. Thanks Justin for your sacrifice.

Rating: *

Blazer

• Great to see Taran continuing his strong season, and this fantastic short has always been amongst the many things that Taran did in his excellent tenure that I absolutely love.
• Our obligatory Wiz Khalifa sketch appearance.
• This is such a spot-on parody of the 80s cop shows, reminding me of the classic Dyke & Fats short from the previous season.
• Needless to say, Taran is perfect in this short, and the various cheesy scenes with him beating up people and kissing pretty ladies is dead-on parody of that kind of trope.
• A big laugh from the reveal that Blazer is a racist cop, a great twist on these types of roles, and his scene when he jumps into the window to punch Kenan, who even knows him by name, is absolutely hilarious.
• Another big laugh from Taran’s Blazer running all the way to just punch a black man standing innocently far from him, the way this scene was shot from a far-away camera added to the humor of this moment.
• A great twist ending regarding the firing of Blazer, and his boss, the latter perfectly played by Beck.

Rating: ****1/2

Virgin Flight

• Boy, Pete Davidson is not convincing AT ALL as a pilot, aside from his limitations as a performer, he doesn’t look the role (wait when I reach my boiling point with him), and Beck or even Kyle would’ve been far more convincing here.
• Solid robotic movements & characterization from both Vanessa & Scarlett.
• This sketch is kinda reminding of the several robot sketches that we’ll be getting especially with season 42.
• Ah, Aidy steals this whole sketch with her angry outburst towards Scarlett.
• Some fun chaotic moments throughout this sketch, particularly Leslie’s reaction after Vanessa pours a beverage onto her clothes.

Rating: ***1/2

Musical Performance – “We Dem Boyz”

• Jesse Nathan: Here’s a song that I’ve always found hilariously bad.
• Not caring for the intro.
• Why isn’t Wiz rapping the main parts of the chorus?
• “We making noise.” Well, ya damn sure ain’t making music (By the way, Rap Critic, please don’t sue me).
• Wow, this chorus is awful in a rather bizarre, fascinating way.
• Weird to hear changes to the first verse.
• Wiz’s vocals were poorly miced.
• “Foreign girls call me sexy.” Do they though?
• Okay, I’m trying my best not to make fun of this guy, but…seriously, what’s with his moves? They’re rather…unhuman.
• “Oh my gosh, that was amazing.” Uh…no, it’s not.
• “I see they broke, I see they lazy.” Oh, they’re lazy, huh? Remind me, how does this song go again?
• “Man, did you see her interior?” Damn, man. That’s a rather dark and disturbing way to put it.
• Yeah, there’s just way too much to make fun of when it comes to this guy.
• What’s the point of adding record scratching to the song? It’s not making it better.

Rating: **

Jingle Writers

• OH GOD. Is nearly every single sketch in this episode written by James Anderson and Kent Sublette???!!!
• Wow, Taran has appeared in nearly EVERY SINGLE SKETCH tonight, and is being utilized in Ferrell/Hartman-esque leadership roles, which made all of us back in the day think of him as the next huge cast leader, which proved to be true in the second half of his tenure.
• Man, those jingles are not even giving more than a smirk, not even Aidy’s goofy facial expressions are saving this for me. You could tell that she probably didn’t write this, as it doesn’t feel like the usual brilliant, creative, and fun pieces that she’ll be delivering soon, particularly in seasons 42 & 45 which were both fantastic for her.
• Ok, Aidy’s line “Coke for breakfast and ass for dinner” gave a pretty huge laugh just now, and her reliable delivery is almost saving this pretty dull sketch.
• I’m NOT caring for the various REACTING shots in this sketch, these make it aggressively Anderlette for me.
• That’s it? The sketch is over? Well, this was a whole bunch of nothing for me, aside from the aforementioned hilarious line.

Rating: **

Segments Ranked From Best to Worst

Blazer

TV 11 News Baltimore

Black Widow: Age of Me

Virgin Flight

Mayweather-Pacquiao Fight

Right Side of the Bed With Gracelynn and Cory

Weekend Update

Jingle Writers

Girlfriends Talk Show

Monologue

Dino Bones

Final Thoughts:-

• A subpar episode, and the first one that I didn’t care for since Dakota Johnson’s episode (which shows you how damn well this season has been doing since then). This episode featured way too many weak sketches for my taste and the notorious Dino Bones sketch was just the last straw for me with this one.
• Scarlett Johansson was a solid host, like she always is on SNL, but she’s now 1-for-4 in terms of good SNL episodes, with only her first conceptual, creative, and innovative hosting stint being her only good one. My problem with how SNL treats Scarlett is by how much shitty material they through into her hosting stints, and how barely she’s showcased well in them, and having this stint being almost entirely written by Anderlette, much like the upcoming Reese Witherspoon episode, didn’t help the quality either. I’m looking forward to her two upcoming hosting stints, as I recall her entry into the Five-Timers Club being good, and her sixth hosting stint in season 45, being absolutely OUTSTANDING.

Up Next:-

• Reese Witherspoon returns to 8H with musical guest Florence + The Machine.