May 12, 2018 – Amy Schumer / Kacey Musgraves (S43 E20)

Cold Opening – A Special Mother’s Day Message

• Good to finally see another non-political cold opening this season, after the last two damn near killed me.
• Always endearing to see the cast members with their moms, as this is the second of three Mother’s Day-centric pieces in this era, alongside the classic Reese Witherspoon monologue from season 40 and the cold opening for the Elon Musk (*shudder*) episode later in season 46.
• Luke is coming off his endearing & likable self with his mom here.
• Funny moment between Melissa & her mom, especially the part about Melissa not being in sketches.
• I’m not caring much for the running gag with the moms wanting the show to be less political, even when they come off endearing saying these lines, as it just feels part of the show’s smug attitude when it comes to critique from both press & especially fans (as we’ll see in the finale’s monologue).
• Kyle’s mom is funny, especially when Kyle imitates her facial expressions.
• An overall fine cold opening, even when it was light on the jokes, it’s still better than about 95% of the hellscape cold opens this season.

Rating: ***

Monologue

• Unlike some it seems, I don’t have that weird vitriolic reaction when I see Amy Schumer that some have, as I’m actually more neutral towards her stand-up & sketch comedy work than some. I do enjoy some of her work & she’s always reliable for pretty good laughs at times. So, I’ll go into this monologue with an open mind.
• I’m enjoying Amy’s line deliveries here, as she’s always on-point when delivering her jokes.
• I don’t know if it’s Mother’s Day, but Amy is more subdued here than her previous monologue. I’m guessing because of how recently married she was when she performed this monologue. I’m getting more laughs from her less-explicit & less-edgy material, though.
• I loved the whole Anthropologie/Anthropologist bit.
• A hilarious bit about non-verbal tampoon requests, and even when some of this stand-up set isn’t directed to me, I’m still getting solid laughs throughout it.
• Surprised that this monologue is wrapping up despite it clocking near eight minutes. I guess the many laughs that I had made me forget about the length, which is a sign to how much I enjoyed this stand-up set, even better than Amy’s previous solid stand-up monologue.

Rating: ****

Mother Knows Best!

• It feels like ages since we last got a gameshow sketch.
• Great joke AND delivery from Amy about being a YouTube sketch comedian and a serious singer.
• Solid gameshow host performance & line deliveries from Amy.
• Kate’s look here & characterization are great, as she’s so good at being unsettling in sketches.
• Oh, no. This is now turning into a REACTING sketch, with everybody being weirded out by the mother-son dynamic between Mikey & Kate.
• We’re now leaving the central premise of the sketch and returning to Amy’s interactions with Pete. Why not stick to one premise instead of detouring to another halfway through the sketch?
• Never mind, we now return to the REACTING portions with Mikey & Kate.
• This sketch is not bad at all so far, but it could’ve improved with a rewrite or two.
• An overall average sketch, one that could’ve been better overall, especially considering Amy’s solid performance and the several sharp lines from her throughout the sketch.

Rating: **1/2

Handmaids in the City

• The Handmaid’s Tale is one of my personal favorite books of all time, and considering that I didn’t care much for the last SNL parody of it, I’ll go into this one with more caution.
• Decent performances so far, but sadly this sketch isn’t going the way I would’ve hoped it would. This sketch feels a bit slow so far, and has no place being placed so early into the show.
• Yeah, I don’t need a Gilead-based sketch to be making references to freakin’ Sex In The City. Amy’s fine here, and is trying her best with the material at least.
• Overall, not the best sketch in my view, despite the fine performances by everybody. This was too slow & underwritten to be worthy of a rating higher than the one I’ll give it right now.

Rating: **

The Day You Were Born

• Ah, this is the first of these Mother’s Day-centric pretapes with the sugarcoated memories of the past. I always enjoy these, as they have heart & emotions that modern-day SNL is severely lacking in.
• Already, Amy is coming off fantastic here, and it feels weird seeing her performing this role, yet she’s absolutely nailing it.
• And we now we get the turn with the real memory that Amy sugarcoated for her son, the tonal shifts are so well-done here.
• Amy’s wild energy is put to great use during the portions where the real memory is shown.
• The kid is too adorable for me to concentrate on the short, and his final moment with Amy was both funny & endearing.
• Love the ending message to our moms. These pieces always put a warm smile on my face.

Rating: ****

Gospel Brunch

• A gospel-themed cooking show? Well, that’s certainly a stretch of a premise.
• Right out of the gate, Kenan & Leslie are very stumbly, giggly, and self-amused. Making me quite worried about how this sketch will turn out.
• Ok, we’re now talking about how unhealthy southern cooking is, and how many of the church’s regulars died of heart attacks? So, this is about the unhealthy food from this cooking show, right?
• Ok, now Cecily is getting kicked out for revealing herself to be an atheist, so this IS about the gospel-themed cooking show…
• Here comes Amy to hopefully save this sketch for me.
• Great ad-lib from Amy after the blender didn’t work, hereby providing me with my first (and so far, only) laugh throughout this entire sketch.
• Leslie & Kenan seem to have officially given up on the sketch as they’re giggling & smiling their way through the sketch, and showing what a consummate professional she is, Amy is absolutely stone-faced during their sloppy & self-indulgent performances.
• Overall, this was an utter mess of a sketch, with sloppy writing, sloppy performances, and sloppy execution. You don’t establish an already-questionable premise and then completely abandon it, with only sprinkles of mugging & vamping every two minutes to remind us that we’re supposedly watching a gospel-themed cooking show sketch. It reminds me of one of my MANY problems with next season, with the show both having very lame sketch concepts that focus on humor I can’t stand and having sketches that have no clear through line in them. All in all, aside from Amy’s reliable professionalism, this sketch is easily amongst the season’s absolute worst.

Rating: *

Musical Performance – “High Horse”

• Jesse Nathan: Is that a silver horse that we’re seeing hanging above the stage?
• Kacey’s vocals are actually very audible for once. That is, if she’s actually singing…
• I kinda like these opening lyrics.
• I like the disco vibe that this song has.
• I’m kinda iffy on this chorus.
• Wait, so are the verses just gonna be the same sentiment? Because I swear this next verse opens very similarly to the first verse. In fact, I’d say it opens up a little too similar.
• Despite being very audible, I’m not 100% crazy about her voice.
• I think I just heard a slight blip during the second chorus.
• I like the way the strings and guitars complement each other during the instrumental gap between the second chorus and the bridge.
• Ooh, I like the usage of bongos during the third pre-chorus.

Rating: ***

Weekend Update

• Not caring for the whole spiel with how Trump having a good week, considering how desperate this era is getting with its pandering and preachy discourse.
• Boy, these “jokes” feel TIRED.
• Ah, here comes Heidi. Please Heidi, save from this tiresome Update!
• Like always, solid & eerily dead-on characterization from Heidi as Bailey. Her lines remain as fun as ever to me, even when some may find this character irritating or repetitive at times. Yet, she’s working fine for me.
• The whole Thanos spiel is cracking me up throughout the commentary, and that’s coming from a person that never cared for the MCU; a testament to Heidi’s talents that she’s making this bit work for me.
• Several more baffling and/or tired jokes after the Heidi Update ended.
• Wow, holy hell! Melissa McCarthy doing a random surprise Update cameo?! How did I forget that?!
• Great energy from Melissa & she’s coming of her usual lovable self, but this commentary is going NOWHERE so far.
• I’d admit getting few chuckles here and there from Melissa, but this is not the funniest showcase of her talents, even when Michael & Colin, as well the audience is eating up this commentary.
• Boy, this commentary feels ENDLESS.
• Overall, aside from Heidi’s commentary, and few jokes here and there, this Update had many baffling & tiring jokes, and a random Melissa McCarthy commentary that felt endless (despite her usual infectious energy).

Rating: **1/2

Lil’ Rent

• A promising & silly sketch concept with a kid-friendly version of Jonathan Larson’s Rent. This reminds me of the wretched Women’s Theatre sketch in season 46 with them replacing a word with another, as this one replaces AIDS with diabetes, while the other one replaced vagina with elbow. The biggest difference between both is that THIS sketch is much better written & solid, unlike that godawful and lazy sketch.
• Mikey is funny & very solid here, unlike his REACTING portions in the aforementioned wretched sketch.
• Kyle’s whole scene with him saying that diabetes was a sexually-transmitted disease that spread during the 80s had me howling.
• Interesting to see the return of Amy’s Amy Merryweather Sherman, even when SNL Archives, for some odd reason, doesn’t consider her a recurring character.
• Like always, very solid characterization from Amy and she’s fitting nicely here.
• While I’ve been having fun so far into the sketch, aside from Cecily’s surprisingly bland performance, the whole conservative turn to this piece is making it less funny, and thus, weaker.
• An overall solid sketch, despite the turn that I didn’t care for. The silly & fun premise was pulled off well and the performances brought some silly energy that this episode (and large swathes of this half of the season) severely lacked in.

Rating: ***1/2

Musical Performance – “Slow Burn”

• Jesse Nathan: Looks like we’re getting a ballad from her, similar to what we got in her S47 performances (the first musical performances I ever covered). As I’ve said in my reviews of those performances, as well as a bunch of other times, I’m not a huge fan of these types of songs, but we’ll see how this one plays out.
• “Haven’t been early since 88.” For those who don’t know, 1988 was actually the year she was born, so I’m not entirely sure what that line means.
• I like the melody of these lines, but again, I have no idea what any of them mean.
• Kacey’s voice still sounds great.
• Ah, now we’re getting some drums in the back, which is good, as this song is in need of one.
• I’m getting a bit sick of Kacey constantly saying “slow burn”.
• I barely had anything to say about that performance. At the end of the day, I’d say the songs that Kacey brought to SNL are…serviceable. Not bad, and certainly preferable to other country artists out now, but these don’t really make me want to learn more about her as an artist.

Rating: ***

Last Call

• Interesting to have Shelia being paired with a woman this time instead of a guy.
• Good interactions between Amy & Kate, and as expected, the former is fitting perfectly into the sketch’s format.
• The whole Alexa bit with Kenan had me laughing out loud.
• Whoa at the tongue action between Amy & Kate, and of course, the audience is loving this.
• Loved the “I just pitched a cave” line from Kate, and another clever word play in these sketches.
• Despite the solid chemistry, parts of this sketch feel a bit old hat, especially some of Kenan’s reactions.
• Great visual of Kenan’s melting face.
• A little better than I remembered overall, even when some of it felt like it dragged on, it’s still a good edition.

Rating: ***1/2

James Madison High School Graduation

• Here comes another of these shorts that present normal & boring events in a “cool” direction and voice-over.
• Beck’s voice-over work is still as perfect as ever here.
• Kate’s whole moment with the mic is so relatable to me that it’s ridiculous.
• Great to see Kyle appearing in more than one or two measly appearances per night, this season has been his nadir when it comes to that.
• Kenan is as solid & reliable as ever as the high school principal, and he has several funny moments here.
• Boy, that dabbing scene here is a true time capsule, I’m so proud that I never did this stupid move.
• I love the visual of the lasers coming from the eyes of the students in one of the photos.
• An overall great way to end the night.

Rating: ****

Cut For Time: Spirituality Rap

• The first edition of this was a huge winner for me, as a silly, funny, and damn catchy song, but I don’t know how I’ll feel about this sequel.
• Interesting new hairstyle on Beck’s Stav D, even when his original look still feels more definitive to me.
• Good visuals so far into this sequel, much like the first installment.
• The whole pornography/masturbation addiction reveal here is not as bizarrely hilarious as in the first installment.
• Very fun involvement from Kacey Musgraves, and she’s a real good sport in participating in such a piece.
• Good interactions with Amy’s Angel character here, which are making this installment feel different in a way than the first. Although, you can’t beat Chris Pine KILLING IT with his vocals and facial reactions.
• Solid sequel overall, with some good highlights and visuals. Yet, we really didn’t need a sequel to the original piece, even though I would’ve put this over that terrible Gospel Brunch bullshit any day.

Rating: ***1/2

Segments Ranked From Best to Worst

The Day You Were Born

Monologue

James Madison High School Graduation

Lil’ Rent

Last Call

CFT: Spirituality Rap

A Special Mother’s Day Message

Mother Knows Best!

Weekend Update

Handmaids in the City

Gospel Brunch

Final Thoughts:-

• Another good season 43 episode, even when most of the material didn’t raise above being just good, and aside from the monologue, “The Day You Were Born”, and “James Madison High School Graduation”, there weren’t any other segments that I felt deserved as high of a rating. Amy Schumer was a fairly strong host, even better than last time & was thankfully utilized better, even when given some weaker material. She had a strong monologue & gave a terrific performance in the aforementioned pretape, displaying consummate professionalism as well throughout the night, especially during the weaker sketches. I’m actually very surprised that she didn’t at least return one more time during this era.

Up Next:-

• Season 43 comes to an end with host Tina Fey & musical guest Nicki Minaj.