After several weeks of stellar episodes, Saturday Night Live fell back to earth a bit with this week’s (Jan. 31) episode. While host J.K. Simmons hosted admirably, the material surrounding him was average at best which led to this ho-hum episode.
Simmons was actually very good, but good acting doesn’t necessarily translate to a funny episode, and this week’s show was a perfect example of the writers not finding a voice for their host. He was very much the straight man for most of the episode with the cast working for the laughs around him.
Cold Open: Super Bowl Shut Down
Saturday Night Live led off the show once again with a football-centric cold open. This time around, the show focused on the other team in this year’s Super Bowl — coincidentally airing on NBC — the Seattle Seahawks, and polar opposite teammates Marshawn Lynch (Kenan Thompson) and Richard Sherman (Jay Pharoah).
Whether you cared about his behavior or not, a lot was written and talked about the press conferences of Lynch, and his disinterest in answering the media’s questions. Sherman, on the other hand, has no problems dealing with the media, so a pairing of the two as hosts of a local Seattle show makes for an easy joke.
So easy in fact, that Comedy Central’s Key & Peele released a press conference sketch of Lynch (Jordan Peele) and Sherman (Keegan-Michael Key) earlier on Saturday that was funnier. Their sketch was also structured more like the typical SNL cold open than “Super Bowl Shut Down,” and didn’t include a bad Pete Carroll impression by Taran Killam that never once touched on his thoughts about 9/11.
Best Sketch: The Jay-Z Story
Relegated back to the writer’s room after spending last season as a cast member, Mike O’Brien has really found his niche with a series of short films this season. His latest, “The Jay-Z Story,” is the “100% accurate” account of HOVA’s ascent from crack dealer to rap superstar.
Quirky and endearing, “The Jay-Z Story” features a cameo from Jason Sudeikis as Kanye West, host Simmons as Nas, and a line I hope the real Jay-Z works into his next album, “I can’t believe I’m great at rap.”
Second Best Sketch: Cinema Classics
Of the seven other sketches that aired Saturday night, this sketch wins points on the basis of the return of Reese De’What (Thompson) and Simmons’ perfect delivery of Humphrey Bogart’s lines from Casablanca.
The real star of this “alternate ending” to Casablanca is Kate McKinnon as Isla. This really should be no surprise, but week in and week out, McKinnon delivers hilarious performances and it seems to have finally paid off with the announcement of her role in the upcoming Ghostbusters reboot.
Weekend Update Moment: Michael Che’s Black History Month Stamps Joke
While not the best joke that “Weekend Update” had this week, I wanted to point out that SNL made this joke available as a standalone video. These longer-form jokes from Che are becoming a weekly occurrence, and it appears that SNL is more than happy to allow Che the room to expand on some of the normally fast-hitting jokes of “Weekend Update.”
“Weekend Update” also had two returning guests this week, 1860’s critic Jebidiah Atkinson (Killam) discussed his hatred for the Grammys and the One-Dimensional Female Character (Cecily Strong) once again confused co-anchor Colin Jost.
Standout Performer: D’Angelo
D’Angelo surprised everyone by releasing his first album in 14 years, Black Messiah, at the end of 2014. The album was a critical smash, and had a lot of music critics scrambling to add it to their year-end best of lists.
One of the reasons that D’Angelo pushed to have Black Messiah released earlier than scheduled was as a response to protests of the grand jury decisions in Ferguson, Mo. and New York City not to charge police officers in the deaths of unarmed black men. Out of these protests sprang the rallying cries “Black Lives Matter” and “I Can’t Breathe.”
For his second performance of the evening, the powerful “Charade,” D’Angelo stood in front of a chalk outline of a body while his backup band, The Vanguard, wore shirts bearing these slogans. SNL has had social protests during its musical performances in the past, most notably Sinead O’Connor and Rage Against the Machine, but they normally aren’t as open to promoting such messages.
Other Notes:
Fred Armisen returned for the second time this season. This time around, he played drums during Simmons’ monologue.
Olivia Munn received a nice little shout-out for some reason as Aidy Bryant read her book, Suck It, Wonder Woman, during the “Pushie” sketch. Suck It, Wonder Woman was released in 2010, so maybe it was for her more recent turn in the Johnny Depp bomb, Mortdecai.
Along with the Key & Peele sketch, SNL was also trumped months ago by Tim & Eric who created an authorized Totino’s commercial for the pizza roll company.
Regular viewers may have noticed that the the good-byes/credits this week ran a bit long. Three minutes long, in fact, with half that time airing after the credits were done rolling.
A new episode of Saturday Night Live was not announced, but tune in to NBC on Sunday, Feb. 15 for the 40th Anniversary Special.
