It may not be that much of a surprise that Jim Carrey, hosting for the third time, helped Saturday Night Live to easily its best episode of this young season. It’s been 20 years since Carrey starred in Ace Ventura, The Mask, and Dumb and Dumber, but he’s still one of the funniest actors in Hollywood.
What may be a surprise is that SNL has been getting better with each episode this season. Having good hosts will help, but the writing and acting is also improving. Hopefully this trend will continue, but with only four episodes under their belt so far this season, SNL could easily fall back into bad habits.
Cold Open: Ebola Czar Press Conference
In my recap for the Sarah Silverman episode, I mentioned SNL’s apparent issues with making President Obama funny. This time, the writers opted to have Obama (Jay Pharoah) spend about one minute on screen where he listed a few administration blunders, introduced the new Ebola Czar, Ron Klain (Taran Killam), and left.
The remainder of the cold open was a typical Q&A with reporters that’s been used since the beginning of the show, but with Al Sharpton (Kenan Thompson) popping up for some reason at the end. The SNL writers at this point must be counting down the days until Obama is no longer in office, or at least until 2016 election coverage starts, so they can move on.
Best Sketch: Halloween Party
Two weeks ago, I admitted that I had never read a Young Adult novel, or watched a movie based on one, so I didn’t understand “The Group Hopper” sketch. From what I’ve read about that sketch, it appears that I was wrong about it and SNL was spot-on.
On Saturday, Carrey and Kate McKinnon broke the fourth wall and danced around Studio 8H dressed as Maddie Ziegler from Sia’s “Chandelier” video. It was a funny sketch, but I was not one of the over 260 million people who have watched the video on YouTube, so I didn’t understand it entirely.
Thankfully, watching a video on YouTube is pretty easy, and after watching the video for “Chandelier” (Is it creepy? I was kind of creeped out), the sketch is hilarious. Carrey and McKinnon are perfect together, and I wish they would have had more time together throughout the episode.
Worst Sketch: High School Zombie Apocalypse
This was a very good episode with one exception: this sketch. Aside from the zombie son’s (Pete Davidson) impression of Brian Williams, this sketch relied too heavily on baseball bat beatings from his dad (Carrey) for laughs.
Weekend Update Moment: Daisy Rose, Romantic Comedy Expert
Rose (Vanessa Bayer) and Michael Che attempted to discuss the new season of romantic comedies on television, but with Rose having a cliched rom-com conversation and Che was not into it at all.
Drunk Uncle (Bobby Moynihan) made his first appearance of the season, and didn’t seem too comfortable with new anchor Che. Is it time to retire Drunk Uncle? As much as I like Moynihan, it just seems that with 11 appearances that Drunk Uncle has run its course.
Standout Performer: Taran Killam
Killam, now in his fifth season, has become SNL’s most reliable cast member; not always overly funny, but definitely consistent. Saturday’s episode saw Killam perform a pretty good Jim Carrey impression while standing next to Carrey, and as one half of Paul and Phil, two ghosts who mess things up for the spooks in a cemetery.
Other Notes:
Writer Leslie Jones has officially joined the cast marking the first time that SNL has ever had two African-American women in the cast at the same time.
“The Carrey Family Reunion” sketch is actually somewhat recurring. Back in 2008, there was a “Walken Family Reunion” sketch when Christopher Walken hosted during the 33rd season.
Jeff Daniels’ last appearance on SNL was hosting an episode in the 20th season where he was promoting Dumb and Dumber, and talked about Carrey in his monologue.
SNL released a digital exclusive sketch, “The Kids,” starring Mike O’Brien, and a bunch of kids.
This week’s host is Chris Rock with musical guest Prince.
