October 10, 2015 – Amy Schumer / The Weeknd (S41 E2)

Cold Opening – Fox and Friends

• Great to see this sketch back, especially that it surprisingly didn’t appear AT ALL last season.
• As always, Bobby’s getting his huge laughs from his dimwitted, oblivious portrayal of Brian Kilmeade and his dumb comments.
• Pete’s portrayal of Jason Chaffetz as this gleeful, childlike politician is very funny. Pete’s a natural in these roles, and this is a good usage of him.
• A big laugh from Pete’s Jason Chaffetz reaction to knowing that, as speaker, he’ll be third in-line for presidency.
• Kate’s stealing this whole cold open with her own very fun take on Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
• Some usual laughs from the long disclaimer at the end of this cold open, particularly the corrections regarding Obama’s eldest daughter not being named Syria, and that Jewish people do exist.

Rating: ***1/2

Monologue

• So, Amy Schumer… she’s a hard comic to talk about, as there’s a massive, coordinated, online hatred targeted towards her by mainly right-wing morons who just don’t like it when a woman talks freely or expresses herself as she wants. This, sadly, makes it quite hard to assess her comedy fairly, while she’s always been hit or miss with me, I appreciated her sketch work and underrated comedic skills when used properly. Of course, that doesn’t mean that EVERY SINGLE PERSON that dislikes Amy Schumer is sexist, that’s totally unhinged and absurd. As I’ve been mostly neutral towards her, enjoying and disliking an almost equal amount of her work. So, I’ll go into this monologue with an open mind.
• Back to the monologue, good energy from Amy at the beginning, you could she’s been doing stand-up for ages before this moment.
• A pretty good laugh from Amy’s whole spiel about the girl who played her younger self in Trainwreck.
• This whole bit about role models is pretty solid, but the mention of these reality shows is not helping this bit for me. Maybe because this stand-up is not targeted towards people like me who do not watch this type of programming.
• Aaaand we now get our obligatory mention of buttholes and vaginas from Amy, kinda surprised it took this long.
• Some good laughs from Amy’s whole bit about imagining that she dated Bradly Cooper.
• An overall pretty good stand-up monologue, surprisingly enough for me. If it weren’t for one or two iffy portions this would’ve gotten a higher rating from me.

Rating: ***1/2

Delta Flight

• Vanessa paired with another female host as stewardesses? Do the writers not have any other female cast member that can play this role? Yet, I’m happy to see Vanessa star in our lead-off sketch of the night.
• A hilarious sudden turn out of nowhere with Vanessa suddenly falling out of the emergency door after she simply leaned on it.
• Okay, I certainly did not a repeat of the “falling-out of the emergency door” gag. Despite the good commitment from Amy here.
• By the way, pretty good effects from SNL with the wind frantically blowing both inside and outside the airplane while Amy & Vanessa are hanging out of it.
• An alright ending to the sketch, could’ve used a better one, but I can’t complain much with what I got.

Rating: ***

Hot For Teacher 8

• The debut of those “Aidy plays a kid that obliviously walks into a porn set”.
• This sketch is apparently SNL’s most viewed sketch on YouTube (you horny bastards!), and I don’t need to tell you why that’s the case.
• Solid laughs from Aidy being completely unaware of the pornographic movie being filmed, and her usual, reliable delivery is making this work.
• A huge laugh from the whole F.U. bit. And Vanessa’s innocent “go Rams!” is the icing on the cake.
• An overall good installment, I recall liking the one with Adam Driver a bit more.

Rating: ***

Guns

• A spiritual successor to the memorable Show Us Your Guns film from SNL’s very first episode.
• I’m loving the long setup for this short, with us being shown several moments in the lives of various characters, knowing the big reveal in hindsight, makes this setup even better in retrospect.
• An excellent reveal of this short’s premise, with the romantic gift from Taran to Amy being a gun.
• Fantastic montage with each of the characters receiving guns with complete joy, and I absolutely love how it’s played out so dramatically and in a emotional, meaningful way.
• Great visual with Kyle & Sasheer shooting at the sky with their guns, in a romantic, cliched setting.
• A great ending with Bobby showing his infant child a miniature gun.
• Overall, a sharp, brilliant, biting, and timeless take on America’s love affair with guns.

Rating: *****

Musical Performance – “The Hills” ft. Nicki Minaj

• Jesse Nathan: Cool staging, and the audience is really going crazy.
• It feels weird to go back to a time when The Weeknd had a stupid-ass hairdo.
• Poor mixing at the beginning.
• Hearing Abel go from his lower register to his higher register in a short amount of time is jarring.
• His higher register is actually more audible.
• Not sure if this needed vocal distortion, though I’m aware that’s what he does in the song.
• Why does Abel look like he’s looking at someone?
• Oh, THAT’s why. This was to set up Nicki Minaj’s appearance.
• Speaking of Nicki, I feel like I just reviewed her. Keep in mind, as of this writing, Blood’s most recent review is of the Amy Adams episode from the preceding season.
• Nicki’s rapping isn’t as fun as usual, and her presence isn’t as strong as it has been.
• “You the President, and I’m Biden.” That line…doesn’t hold up too well. Keep in mind that when this aired, the President was still Obama.
• I like Nicki’s smile.
• Despite these two’s best efforts, I have to admit that I was never crazy about this song. It’s too boring, and the fact that this was a #1 hit means that we’re in rather dire territory for popular music, as I’ve always felt that this was the moment when mainstream music went downhill and sadly never recovered. A damn shame given how strong the state of popular music was earlier that year.
• Huge audience reactions during the bridge near the end.
• Not caring for Abel and Nicki’s chemistry.
• Okay, I do like the way this ended.

Rating: ***

Weekend Update

• Man, I’m loving these long-form stories from both Colin & Michael and how they broken down in a stand-up/rant style. These breakdowns as I stated previously give this era of Update such a distinct feeling & makes it one of my absolute favorite eras of Update in SNL history.
• Great back-and-forth between Michael & Colin in regards to guns, the whole bit about the stuff that is easier to have than a gun was always one of my favorite bits in this era of Update.
• A hilarious bit from Michael about what the founding fathers said about the right to own a gun AND people, his whole bit about having guns to protect himself from “jacked Africans” is priceless, as well as YET ANOTHER cutaway to a confused Colin who seeming just realized the camera is on him. Man, this Update is on FIRE so far.
• Jay in his very first Update commentary of the season.
• Ok, I get what Jay’s intending with his characterization here, but this commentary so far is just rambling on, with few occasional laughs.
• Ah, the debut of the hilariously brief “The Weeknd Update” running gag whenever The Weeknd is our musical guest.
• Abel is coming off funny here, which makes me wish we would see him pull double duty soon, I certainly won’t mind that.
• Ah, the return of Kate’s Mrs. Santinti.
• The usual laughs from Kate’s Mrs. Santinti passive-aggressive notes, elevated even more by Kate’s always excellent delivery and timing.
• An overall fantastic Weekend Update edition, and amongst the finest in this new era of Update. Yet, the best is yet to come.

Rating: ****1/2

Ford’s Theatre

• Ok, I’m not sure what to make of this sketch, as it feels like one of those leftover Melissa McCarthy sketches that she got stuck with in her first three hosting stints.
• As expected, Amy is performing the hell of this sketch like the pro she is, yet it got nothing outside of her shouting.
• A big laugh from the whole “Lincoln loves black people” bit with Kenan.
• Taran’s performance feels a bit “off” to me here, reminding of how tired he’ll look in several episodes this season, especially the Jonah Hill one later on.
• After that laugh, this sketch is starting to really die out as it goes along

Rating: **

Hands-free Selfie-Stick!

• A huge, but cheap laugh from the initial reveal of the product.
• Solid surprised delivery from Amy in regards to the product.
• The cheap laughs are starting to die out when you realize that this commercial has NOTHING ELSE to offer outside of the cheap initial visual. A real shame as this era nailed low-brow humor several times in the past and in several commercial parodies in the future, yet not this one.

Rating: **

Citizens Forum

• If you know me, you KNOW that I love these ensemble “parade of idiots” sketches that this era really excelled at.
• surprisingly, this is Cecily’s very first appearance all night.
• The debut of Aidy’s Jan Krang character, which always worth it for some good laughs.
• If I’m not mistaken, Kyle’s character here is the same one from those hilarious European music videos that he & Beck will be making soon.
• Amy brings up her child character, from her sketch show, Inside Amy Schumer, Amy Merryweather Sherman to SNL.
• Good characterization from Amy, and this character feels surprisingly at home in this setting.
• Pete’s delivery of his Bieber line is absolutely hilarious and steals this entire sketch for me.

Rating: ***1/2

Musical Performance – “Can’t Feel My Face”

• Jesse Nathan: Now this, I like.
• Cool staging.
• I want to say nice intro, but I’ve honestly heard this song a million times, so I pretty much know this song inside and out.
• Abel’s opening vocals sound great.
• Abel seems to have a look of fear in his eyes.
• I like the use of red lights during the chorus.
• I like Abel’s dance moves.
• Pretty cool how the lights keep changing color as this performance goes on.
• I like the use of a spotlight during the second chorus.
• Not sure why, but Abel’s vocalizations during the instrumental bridge are a lot better when they’re quieter.
• Oh HELL YEAH at that spin Abel just did before the last chorus.
• Great moves from Abel at the end.
• This overall performance was better than the first, though a large factor of that has to do with, again, how much I love this song.

Rating: ****

Baby Shower

• A pretty big night for Vanessa. I recall that one of the reasons is that Amy is friends with her, so she probably demanded for her to be in more sketches than usual.
• Also, seeing Vanessa in this sketch is reminding me that this is the beginning of two exceptionally fantastic final seasons that she’ll have.
• Ok, this sketch now revolving around Amy losing it over Cecily’s missing purse is giving me unwanted flashbacks to the particularly horrific & lethargic Kristen Wiig-starring Where’s My Purse sketch from season 33.
• Also, I do recall Awkwafina’s episode from season 44 also having a baby shower-related sketch with a similar premise to this one.
• Back to the sketch, good energy and commitment from Amy here, but yet again this feels like a leftover Melissa McCarthy sketch, much like the Ford’s Theater one. I would say, however, that the energy here & commitment from the cast when performing this somewhat-shaky material is elevating it, kinda like the aforementioned Awkwafina sketch.
• An overall decent final sketch to end the night with.

Rating: ***

Segments Ranked From Best to Worst

Guns

Weekend Update

Citizens Forum

Monologue

Fox and Friends

Hot For Teacher 8

Delta Flight

Baby Shower

Hands-free Selfie-Stick!

Ford’s Theatre

Final Thoughts:-

• A mostly fun and energetic episode. A total contrast to how dreary, dull, and lethargic the season premiere was. Almost everything in this episode worked for me, and even the two worst sketches of the night were not THAT bad. The episode did get shaky after Update but rebounded nicely with a solid ensemble sketch, and an alright closing sketch.
• Amy Schumer also fit perfectly into the SNL format, again due to her aforementioned sketch comedy experience and was mostly used well. I look forward to reviewing her second (and surprisingly, so far last) hosting stint in this era.

Up Next:-

• The beloved Tracy Morgan returns home with a bang after surviving his tragic car accident to host with musical guest Demi Lovato.