Well everybody, it’s happened. We finally
have our first guest host pulling double duty of both host and musical guest!
To be honest, I thought this would happen earlier in the season. Last week, the
second half of the season kicked off with returning host Kevin Hart and first
time musical guest, Sia. I liked this episode a little more than I thought I
would. I was surprised that they picked Sia for a musical guest since she
rarely does live performance. Nevertheless, both of her performances of
“Elastic Heart” and a more acoustic, stripped down version of “Chandelier” were
beautiful. Some highlights from the last episode include:
-Kevin
Hart delivering a funny stand-up monologue.
-Kate
McKinnon spoofing the Justin Bieber Calvin Klein ads.
-A
technical glitch during the first live sketch of the episode played off very
well by Kevin Hart and Vanessa Bayer.
-Both
of Sia’s musical performances.
This week, Blake Shelton comes to the show
on his first time hosting and his first time as a musical guest. I knew that
Blake was funny and had a sense of humor just from watching him on The Voice with his interactions with the
other coaches, especially Maroon 5 front man Adam Levine. Even though I loved
this episode, I was surprised that Levine or the other coaches on The Voice didn’t make a cameo during the
episode. I was also surprised that Blake’s wife, country singer Miranda
Lambert, didn’t make an appearance either (It was later revealed that she was
performing that night). Nevertheless, Blake Shelton is one of those hosts that
I would love to see come back and host again.
Sketch
Rundown:
Patriots
Press Conference Cold Open:
I thought this cold open was very funny
and I’m glad that it wasn’t a political cold open. I thought Beck was great as
the Patriot’s head coach. Taran was great as Tom Brady. I also loved Bobby’s
character as the assistant equipment manager, Dougie Spoons. Some of my
favorite quotes from the cold open include “I’m Greg Gumbel, the human
microphone,” “You’ve seen American Psycho,”
“science computer,” “That’s honestly above my pay grade. You make $26.5 million
a year,” and “You can’t handle the truth!” I also loved the interaction between
Bobby and Kate and the reactions of everybody after the last line of this
section:
-“Did
you deflate the ball?!”
-“I
did the job I was told to do!”
-“Did
you deflate the ball?!”
-“You’re
damn right I did!”
Overall, I thought this was a great cold
open and one of my favorites this season.
Blake
Shelton Monologue:
Knowing Blake’s sense of humor, I had kind
of an idea of what to expect from him during his monologue. I really liked his
monologue and thought it was very humorous, even though I did expect a musical
monologue from Blake. I also loved how he said “I’m kinda like the Justin
Bieber of country music. Just a little troublemakin’ cutie.” I loved his
tribute to Hee Haw and getting to see
the cast dress up and act stereotypically like country people. I thought Leslie
was hilarious during the monologue and I loved Cecily’s fake country accent. I
thought this monologue was great and it probably was one of my favorite
monologues this season.
Farm
Hunk:
I liked how this sketch was supposed to be
a parody of The Bachelor. Throughout
the sketch, I kind of got the joke that all the girls did some sort of work in
the porn industry. I loved Kate’s character and thought the character was
hilarious and thought the same of Aidy’s character. I loved the quote “I’m a
veteran…of the porn industry,” and how all the girls would say in weird yet
funny voices “Sorry, can steal him for a sec?” I loved Leslie at the end and
when she said “Just google ‘Leslie Jones SNL’. It’ll all come up.” Overall, I
thought this sketch was funny and was a good sketch.
Wishin’
Boot:
I loved this music video as it combined
two of my favorite things: SNL and
country music. I loved the song; it was catchy and I can’t get it out of my
head. I loved everything about the boot. I loved food being in the boot, the
imprint of the boot left on the bed, the boot pulling out a knife, and the dog
becoming the boot. I loved the quote at the end “We’re gonna make so much
fucking money off this song.” I love this music video and so happy they
released this song on iTunes.
Celebrity
Family Feud:
I’m so glad they brought back this sketch,
especially since I love Kenan’s Steve Harvey impression. The impressions of the
judges from both The Voice and American Idol were great, although
Sasheer’s impression of Nicki Minaj was just okay. I was surprised they used
Minaj and Steven Tyler since they’re no longer judges on Idol. I figured they didn’t have anybody to play Jennifer Lopez. I
loved how towards the end of the sketch they made fun of the bromance between
Blake Shelton and Adam Levine. I loved the quotes “I got this hat from Smokey
the Bear,” “a voice from God and hair from Jennifer Aniston,” and “I think this
Bratz doll is possessed. I thought this sketch was great and very funny.
Blake
Shelton “Neon Light” Performance:
This is one of my favorite Blake Shelton
songs and I wasn’t surprised he performed this song since it’s his most recent
single. I like the song since it’s very catchy and I learned a line dance to
this song a few weeks ago and I did do the line dance while this song was on. I
thought this was a good performance from Shelton.
Weekend
Update:
I thought this week’s Weekend Update had a strong start from both anchors. I feel like at
this point in the season both Che and Jost are starting to get the hang of it
and are starting to feel a little more comfortable doing Update together. I loved Bobby’s new character, Riblet, and Bobby
was great at reading the news. I loved the alternate intro and the mic drop at
the end. In my opinion, Riblet could actually take Che’s job and I wouldn’t be
surprised if there was a petition started to make that happen. I loved how
Colin almost broke after Che’s last joke before Pete’s segment. I thought it
was great to see Pete again and I loved his segment. I didn’t agree with Pete
saying “I might be like a straight 5 but I’m a gay 1” but I completely lost it
when Pete said to Colin “Easy for you to say. You’re like a straight 8 and a
gay 10.” I laughed so hard at that line. I loved Pete’s quote “It was really
good weed” and how he called The
Expendables a gay porn franchise. I loved Colin’s instant replay joke and
him getting hit in the face with a football. I loved Che’s reply of “You look
so dumb” but unfortunately it’s been cut online and from all broadcasted
repeats of this episode. I loved that Sasheer got a new character but was
disappointed because the character was so static and didn’t seem like a very
developed character. I thought Colin backing away in the middle of the segment
was hilarious. It was almost as if Jost was saying “Yeah, I’m not getting
involved in this.” I loved the back and forth “Why were you on Tinder? To see
if you were on Tinder!” I thought it was great to see Riblet appear during the
segment again and I loved the second mic drop as much as the first. Overall, I
thought this was a good Weekend Update.
Parole
Board:
I thought this sketch but felt that it was
a little predictable and that they were using the same joke over and over
again. Regardless, I thought Kenan’s character was still funny. I loved the
quotes “You’re the Texas Man Gobbler. We’d be insane if we let you out,” “You
ate a whole guy, man. All that was left was just empty clothes and his hair.
That’s like a magic trick!” and “We watched the sunset, had a couple of beers,
and when he was good and drunk, I ate him.” This sketch wasn’t one of my
favorites and one typically saved for after Update.
My
Darlin’ Joan:
I liked this sketch but it wasn’t my absolute
favorite. I loved the makeup work done on Taran for this sketch. I had to take
a second to make sure it was him because I didn’t recognize him at first. Great
job to the makeup department on that! I loved the pictures of Kate in the background.
The song was so catchy that I couldn’t get it out of my head for weeks. Some of
my favorite lines from the song include “You could silence a room with your
nasty remarks,” “You’re hatred of animals rattles my core,” “You’re favorite
hobby was making me cry,” “Do they let you use your humidifier in hell?” and “Does
the devil let you curse at him in front of his friends?” I loved how Taran was
lip synching the words and harmonizing at the end. I loved the quotes “He’s my
landlord so I kinda had to,” and “There’s three more verses.” I thought this
sketch was good and it was funny but not one of my favorites.
Blake
Shelton “Boys ‘Round Here” Performance:
This is another one of my favorite Blake
Shelton songs though, unfortunately, I don’t know a line dance to this song.
This song is also really catchy and gets stuck in my head all the time.
Although I loved the performance, I was surprised he performed this song since
it’s an older one from around late 2013 or early 2014. Nevertheless, I love the
song and loved the performance.
Magician:
I didn’t expect this to be the last sketch
of the night. I’m thinking either lines were cut or lines were skipped. I
thought the sketch was somewhat funny but it was a typical sketch saved for
near the end of the show. I thought Blake’s character was funny but then came
off as annoying. Although, when they mentioned chicken nuggets with ranch, I
did start craving chicken nuggets with ranch (No joke, I’m craving them right
now as I type this blog post). I also liked Taran’s character and thought he
was funny. There weren’t too many memorable quotes but some of the more awkward
quotes were “I wanna be a black guy just for one day,” and “Give me the power
to go down on myself.” This sketch was okay but I felt like they were dragging
out the joke in this sketch.
Overall, I thought this was another strong
episode. As I mentioned before, Blake Shelton is one of those hosts that I
would love to see host again.
Some SNL
news from the past week include the casting decisions for the reboot of the
classic 80’s film Ghostbusters, this
time with an all-female cast of Ghostbusters. The cast includes Kristen Wiig,
Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones. The director for the reboot
is Paul Feig who directed films such as Bridesmaids,
which starred both Wiig and McCarthy. Feig also released the news via his
personal Twitter account. I know people have their doubts about a reboot of a
classic film and that it is an all-female team but I think it is going to be
great and I couldn’t agree with Feig’s casting decisions. About a month before
this casting decision was released, there were rumors going around that
directors were wanting to cast Peter Dinklage from Game of Thrones as one of the primary antagonists and Cecily Strong
as a “frenemy” of the Ghostbuster. This casting information was released as
part of the Sony hacks and since then not much regarding this information has
been confirmed. Regardless, I have a good feeling that this will be a good
movie. The movie has been given a release date of July 22, 2016 so we have a
little while until there is even a trailer released. Another piece of SNL news I forgot to mention in last
week’s post is that SNL has already
won an award at the start of award season. Saturday
Night Live won a People’s Choice Award for “Favorite Sketch Comedy Show” on
January 7, 2015. SNL beat out shows
like Key & Peele and Inside Amy Schumer for this award based
on votes from the people on the People’s Choice Award’s website. Congrats to SNL on this award! Hopefully, there will
be many awards to come during the 2015 awards season.
This has been my take on SNL with host and musical guest Blake
Shelton. I’ll be back soon with a review of SNL
with host J.K. Simmons and musical guest D’Angelo. Please spread the word about
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Thanks for reading!
Lauren
