Mikes Film Talk

Saturday Night Live (SNL) got off to a pretty good start, to its four episode back-to-back run,  with Oscar winner Brie Larson and Alicia Keys. Although the cold open with a touch of nostalgia in the form of Dana Carvey and his Church Lady was funnier than Larson’s monologue but that can be blamed more on the writers than Larson herself.  Mother’s Day has never been so…bland in terms of comedy.

(To be fair, however, the Beck Bennett “look ma it’s my new girlfriend” gag with Larson was pretty funny.)

The skits this week were more on par with what one expects from this show. Clever, witty, a few laugh out loud moments and one very topical one, the “Slow Snow” gag.  It must have been hard to work something in about Jon Snow coming back to life in ‘Game of Thrones‘ but it all worked out despite a few cold spots.

The pre-taped faux commercial for President Barbie  was a shout out for feminism and a sly dig, possibly, at Hilary Clinton. With a “Hilary-do” the doll was a mini-me version of the real presidential hopeful and about as equally popular…

The first live sequence gave another look at a favorite skit, the AMA interviewing “survivors.” This time the near death experiences of three women who died in a car accident. Kate McKinnon was on a roll with her euphemisms for her nether regions: Fun bun and mud gun, drainer and stainer and so on. The real fun, apart from watching McKinnon mine comedy gold was seeing Bobby Moynihan and Aidy Bryant struggle to not completely corpse. This was, by far, the funniest skit of the evening.

This was followed by the “Stepford Wives” “mom cut” sketch. This was not the funniest gag in the episode but was by far the cleverest with its homage to the films. Guest star Larson was quite good as the newly pregnant mom who changes from her long hair to the mother cut of “soft in the front, iron throne in the back.”

Weekend Update was all about Donald Trump. Vanessa Bayer killed it with her Tomorrow’s News Caster Laura Parsons. (Seriously hysterical and impossible to watch without cracking up…More please.) Colin Jost’s Brazilian strip gag was beyond brilliant. Sasheer Zamata had a great time with her “McGriddle” analogy as did Jost with his “McGridda.” The “thinly-veiled” racist terms were a highlight of the skit: Thug, ghetto and athletic.

Sidenote: Sasheer Zamata got a lot of screen time in this episode and its about time. However, this may be a one-off, as it was Sasheer’s birthday.

Next up was the “Slow Snow” skit which made much of the Game of Throne’s resurrection plot:

The most socially relevant skit of the night was the Cruz Quiz sketch which was spot on with the end; disturbing and funny.

Another pre-taped segment poked fun at Kickstarter and indie productions with laughable reward systems for “investors.” Not as overly funny as the other sketches it was still spot on in terms of relevance.

The last “faux-advert” was the ‘Dead Bopz’ commercial with a “doobie, doobie dead Bing Crosby flogging dead singers doing new songs via holographic technology. This was another throwback to the good old days when those pretend commercials were seriously funny. Highlight of the gag had to be Jay Pharoah’s Tupac with Aidy Bryant’s glitchy Ethel Merman a close second.

This episode of SNL was a definite step up from the fiasco of Russell Crowe. With a Dana Carvey open and some clever gags and Alicia Keys how could this not be a win. Brie Larson did well, miles better than Crowe, and hopefully the ‘Room‘ star will be asked back. For those who really missed Carvey’s Church Lady, here is the show’s cold open courtesy of NBC SNL:

As a last note on SNL episode 20, Keys killed it and the cast having some of their mom’s turn up was a lovely touch.