It’s the Easter episode which means there
are only a few more episodes left of season 40. Last week, Dwayne Johnson
returned to host with first-time musical guest, George Ezra. Johnson delivered
a great performance and Ezra gave us two great performances with songs that won’t
leave our heads for weeks. Some highlights from the last episode include:
-The
return of “The Rock” Obama (and the introduction of “She Rock” Obama).
-An
unexpected musical monologue where Johnson gave himself the nickname of “Franchise
Viagra”.
-A
parody of #genderflect.
-A
live-action parody of Bambi.
-The
introduction of Jemma, a new character from Cecily Strong.
-The
return of Olya Pavlotsky and Willie.
-A
sketch involving the recent news events involving Robert Durst.
-A
short from Kyle Mooney doing man-on-the-street-like interviews.
This week, Michael Keaton returns to host
the show for a third time with first-time musical guest, “Call Me Maybe” singer
Carly Rae Jepsen. It’s been a while since Keaton last hosted. The last time
Keaton hosted was November 14, 1992 back in season 18. Regardless, Keaton had a
great performance this week with this episode most likely being one of my
favorite episodes this season. Jepsen also brought two great performances and
begs the question, why wasn’t she on the show when “Call Me Maybe” was one of
the most popular songs of that year? Better late than never, right? Anyway, here’s
the rundown of the Michael Keaton/Carly Rae Jepsen episode.
Sketch
Rundown:
NCAA
Cold Open:
I thought this was an okay cold open and I
figured they would do something regarding the NCAA Basketball Championship. I
was glad that there wasn’t a political cold open even though I’m a fan of SNL political sketches. I did think this
cold open was funny and it had some great lines, such as “College is the most
important year of your life,” “Jaleel is in the Buffalo Wild Wings Study Tent
quietly working on that paper,” “I majored in volcanoes,” and “I’ll be damned
if I was gonna be the only one in the NBA who did not know poetry of Emily
Dickinson.” I enjoyed this cold open but it wasn’t necessarily my favorite.
Michael
Keaton Monologue:
I thought this was a funny monologue.
Taran, Bobby, and Jay were great in this even though I didn’t expect a musical
monologue for this episode. I loved how Bobby and Taran were like “Will you
play Batman with us, Michael Keaton?” and “Will you play Beetlejuice with us,
Michael Keaton?” along with showing the pre-recorded bits of scenes from Batman and from Beetlejuice. I thought Bobby’s line about only having six weeks to
live was a little cryptic and it had me and a lot of others wondering if this
was going to be his last season because there were only six weeks left of
season 40. I loved how a lot of the cast came out at the end with half of them
wearing Batman shirts and the other half wearing Beetlejuice shirts. Overall, I
really enjoyed this monologue and thought it was very funny.
CNN
Newsroom:
I thought this was a very funny sketch. I
loved how they parodied the way that CNN reports the news. I understand why
this sketch would bring about some controversy due to the plane crash that
occurred in Germany. The joke was about how
CNN reported the news about the plane crash and not about the crash itself. I loved the animations, the puppets,
and the cat. I also loved the story about Indiana and Arkansas, especially how
it turned into a dance party with commentary from Jay’s Don Lemmon. I thought
this sketch was hilarious and a strong sketch to start the show.
Prom
Queen:
I was so excited to see another Mike
O’Brien short. The plot of the sketch was weird but it was still a good sketch.
I later found out that this sketch was supposed to be a parody of the movie She’s All That (which is one of the many
movies that I haven’t seen). I was surprised that people didn’t make a big deal
about the plot line of a student trying to make his teacher the prom queen,
even though I understand that this was the joke of the sketch. I was certain
this would’ve drawn just a little bit of controversy. I loved Vanessa’s
character, even though this is the kind of character that Vanessa has played on
the show several times before. Overall, I thought this was very funny and I
hope we see more Mike O’Brien shorts later this season and during the next season.
Easter
Hotline:
I thought this was a funny sketch and I
loved seeing Sasheer be the lead in a sketch. Some of my favorite quotes from
this sketch are “The geese are back!” and “You know the number because it
hasn’t changed your entire life.” It reminded me a little bit of the “Night
Murmurs” sketch from the Cameron Diaz episode but the complete opposite. It was
a hilarious way to say that we should call our grandparents on Easter. Overall,
I really liked this sketch and thought it was hilarious.
Ad
Meeting:
This sketch probably had to be my least
favorite sketch of the night. I felt like they kept running the same joke into
the ground, which made the sketch pretty boring and redundant. The only thing I
liked about this sketch was the quote “Call me Sirsly”. Overall, I didn’t think
this sketch was that great.
Neurotology
Music Video:
I thought this was a hilarious parody of
the Scientology documentary and music video. It was funny seeing Colin Jost in
the video, especially dressed in nineties clothes. I also loved how the video
told where these people are years after the video was first made. The song was
so catchy and I hope they release this song on iTunes ASAP!
Carly
Rae Jepsen “I Really Like You” Performance:
I thought this song and the performance
were great. This song is so incredibly catchy, I swear I had it stuck in my
head for weeks. This is one song I would’ve loved to have been in the studio to
see performed live. Before the show came on tonight, SNL recorded Cecily, Jay, and Pete lip synching about ten seconds
of the song on the popular lip synching app Dubsmash and then posted them on
Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. If you haven’t seen them yet, you should
check them out. Overall, I really really really really really really loved this
song! (See what I did there?)
Weekend
Update:
I thought this week’s Weekend Update was strong on both parts with great opening jokes. I
loved getting to see Pete again. At first, I didn’t understand why Pete wasn’t
using his arms but that was clarified when Norman Reedus from The Walking Dead came out and there was
a fake arrow in Pete’s chest, especially since Pete was out to talk about the
season finale of The Walking Dead.
Some of my favorite things said were “I don’t know if you know this but
sometimes I smoke a little weed. Oh yeah, we know, ‘cause we have noses,” “When
I’m high, it’s really easy to mistake me for a zombie,” and “Did you smoke a
little before you came out here, is that what happened? Maybe. Are you wearing
three different kinds of hair product? Maybe.” I loved getting to see Jebidiah
Atkinson again. I love this character so much! I loved how he gave the reviews
of all the different TV shows. For example, Jebidiah’s line about Seinfeld- “Hey Kraemer, I can say an
n-word, too: Next!” Although, one of my favorites had to be the one about SNL itself- “Saturday Night Live. The same tired characters repeating the same
tired catch phrases: Next!” I loved how the show was able to make fun of
itself. Overall, I thought this was an awesome Update.
Smart
House:
This was another sketch that wasn’t my
favorite. It felt like the typical sketch saved for after Update. The characters, along with the line delivery and accents,
seemed a little dull. It also seemed as if they were running the same joke into
the ground. Even though I didn’t necessarily like this sketch, I did like the
line “Oh sweet Reese’s Pieces.”
Carly
Rae Jepsen “All That” Performance:
I liked this song and thought it was a
good performance. It was great that Carly Rae Jepsen finally got a chance to
perform on the show, even though it took about three years since “Call Me
Maybe”. In all honesty, I think some people were hoping she would perform “Call
Me Maybe”. Overall, I thought Carly Rae Jepsen had some great performances and
I would love to see her perform on the show again.
Easter
Candy:
I liked this sketch and it reminded me of
the Halloween candy sketch from when Edward Norton hosted back in season 39. As
much as I liked the sketch, I thought Keaton’s character was a little creepy,
although I think that’s part of why I liked the sketch so much. I also loved
Kate’s character, Portia, and thought it was the perfect mix of cute and creepy.
I loved the bit with the chick and how Kate was trying to feed the chick a
Chicken McNugget. I also loved how Kate called the chick a “child chicken”.
Some of my favorite quotes from this sketch include “This is an Easter egg I
dyed. I think it’s egg-celent,” “For our Jewish friends, this is unleavened
bread which means, unlike Jesus, it doesn’t rise. Jesus one, bread nothing,” “Know
what I gave up this year? Cocaine. Almost,” and “This is my friend Jordan. He’s
not an almond but he’s a nut.” Overall, I thought this was a funny sketch and a
great way to end the episode.
Overall, I thought this was an amazing
episode and probably the best episode yet. I thought Keaton did a great job
hosting and I would love to see him host again in the near future. I also
thought Carly Rae Jepsen did a great job with her performances and I hope she
gets the chance to perform on the show again. It’s hard to believe that there
are only about four more episodes left of season 40. It won’t be long until we’re
talking about the upcoming 41st season!
Some SNL
news is that the highly anticipated SNL documentary,
Live From New York, had a limited release
and opened in US theatres on June 12. The film opened at Tribeca Film Festival
on April 15. I had the chance to see the film and it was such a great film that
I wish I could’ve seen it more than once since it was only in theatres for
about a week. This is one of those documentaries that I would watch over and
over again if it was released on DVD, on iTunes, or on any other platform.
This has been my take on the SNL episode hosted by Michael Keaton
with musical guest Carly Rae Jepsen. I’ll be back soon with a review of SNL hosted by Taraji P. Henson with
musical guest Mumford & Sons. Please spread the word about the blog and
subscribe to the blog. Also, follow the blog on Twitter @SNLblogger. I live
tweet during new episodes on the blog’s Twitter so feel free to join in on the
conversation. Feel free to start your own conversations about episodes in the
comments section but keep them clean. Also, please feel free to give me
constructive criticism about the blog so I can improve the blog in any way.
Thanks for reading!
Lauren
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