Cold Open: Democratic Debate
The remaining candidates face off in a debate.
• The debate sketches just keep getting worse. At least this one wasn’t as long as the last one.
• Jason Sudeikis returns as Joe Biden in this one, I guess because it was getting hard for them to keep bringing Woody Harrelson back every time they wanted to do a debate sketch. Biden makes fun of this sudden change by asking us if he looks different. And, as usual, Biden gets the biggest laughs in this, with his story about “Old Black Charlie” and flirting with the female candidates.
• Since this aired after Kamala Harris dropped out of the race, I was rather relieved in knowing that I wouldn’t have to see Maya Rudolph’s annoying mugging anymore. You can imagine how angry I got when they brought her back anyway.
• Near the end, Baldwin returns as Trump for the 8 millionth time, and he’s wearing hoop earrings for some strange reason. Nothing he says is funny.
1.5/5
Monologue (featuring Tracy Morgan, Chris Rock, and Dave Chappelle)
Eddie talks about what he’s been doing in the 35 years since his last hosting gig.
• Best monologue of the season, hands down. Eddie was such a natural here, it’s like he never even left.
• Not even the gratuitous cameos bothered me. Tracy’s appearance was a nice rebound from his awful cameo in the Will Ferrell episode, and it was really nice to see Chris Rock on the show again. I’m not too sure about Chappelle, though, considering his last time on the show was the infamous “Hallelujah” episode in Season 42. But, I can’t be too mad at him, because he was pretty funny here.
• The best part is when Chris asks who Beck Bennett is, and Tracy replies that it’s Joe Piscopo. Man, poor Piscopo just can’t catch a break.
5/5
Sketch: Mister Robinson’s Neighborhood
Mister Robinson returns to explain how much has changed since our last visit to his neighborhood.
• HELL YEAH! Mister Robinson returns, and he’s just as funny as ever. It was a great idea to center this around the fact that it’s been such a long time since he’s appeared.
• There’s so many great bits in this one; the word of the day being “squatter’s rights”, yelling at his neighbors for assuming he took their TV because he’s black, and the twist at the end where we see that he DID take their TV.
• My review can not do this sketch justice, you should check it out for yourself.
5/5
Sketch: Holiday Baking Championship
Contestants present their holiday-themed confections.
• Cecily’s awful Elsa cake was pretty funny, but then it gets even better when we see Eddie’s creepy Sonic the Hedgehog cake.
• I assume this is parodying some kind of TV show, but even without that context, this sketch is still funny.
• Eddie accidentally said “shit” near the end during the live airing. The expletive has predictably been muted in reruns.
4/5
Short Film: Home For The Holidays
A family takes time to reflect on the holidays.
• Finally, a short film that isn’t musical! And what a short film it is. At first, I thought it was going to be a schmaltzy Hallmark kind of thing, but then we cut to Eddie’s character verbally abusing the rest of his family. The rest of the film cuts between this, and the family having a normal celebration. Not much to say here, except for the fact that it made me laugh my ass off.
4/5
Sketch: The Masked Singer
A familiar face appears as an ear of corn on The Masked Singer.
• I hate The Masked Singer with a fiery passion, so I wasn’t sure what to think of this sketch. Thankfully, my fears were extinguished when the ear of corn started speaking in a very familiar voice, and it turned out to be motherfucking Buckwheat!!!! HELL YEAH!!!!
• The sketch then turns into a sequel to “Buh-Weet Sings”, where he sings a number of Christmas songs, my favorite being his Feliz Navidad cover, “Aneese Nameena”.
• Out of all the recurring characters for Eddie to bring back tonight, I was never expecting to see Buckwheat again, because modern society considers him “problematic”. But I’m glad they did.
5/5 (wow, look at all these perfect ratings!)
Musical Performance: “Truth Hurts”
Weekend Update (featuring Gumby, Pete Davidson, and Jeanine Pirro)
• More bland Trump jokes, and more taking clips out of context. In other words, a typical Jost/Che Update.
• Ah, but here’s where things get interesting. None other than motherfucking Gumby makes his appearance! DOUBLE HELL YEAH!!!!
• This Gumby segment is exactly what I’ve been wanting to see for a long time. Over the course of four minutes, he proceeds to unload on the two anchors, calling Jost a “trailer boy” and insulting Che for his race. Best of all is when Che calls him out on this, and Gumby flat out says that he doesn’t care. Why is that? Because he’s Gumby, dammit!
• Once that’s over with, we sadly sink back to familiar territory. We get a shitty Pete Davidson commentary and a shitty Jeanine Pirro commentary. Neither of these gave me any laughs whatsoever.
3/5 (this is solely for the Gumby bit)
Sketch: Black Jeopardy
Velvet Jones appears on Black Jeopardy to promote his book, “I Wanna Be A Ho”.
• I’m not a big fan of these Black Jeopardy sketches, but they quickly gained my interest when they showed Velvet Jones! TRIPLE HELL YEAH!!!!!
• This was an interesting deconstruction of how Velvet Jones as a character hasn’t really aged that well for some people.
• One unfortunate thing that sets this sketch back from the other return appearances is the large number of lines that Eddie flubs. He is clearly having a hard time keeping up with the pacing of this.
3.5/5
Musical Performance: “Good as Hell”
Sketch: North Pole News Report
A news report covers a serious accident at the North Pole.
• An amusing way to end the night. Once again, Eddie gives a great performance, and I love that the name of his character is “Kiddie Diddles”. How did they get away with that one?
3/5
Final Thoughts: Definitely the best episode of Season 45. With the exception of a couple sketches, almost everything here worked for me. Part of the main reason for this episode’s success is Eddie Murphy himself. It truly felt like he had picked up right where he had left off in his last hosting stint.
Best Sketches: Monologue, Mister Robinson’s Neighborhood, Holiday Baking Championship, Home for the Holidays, The Masked Singer, Gumby on Weekend Update
Worst Sketches: Debate, The rest of Weekend Update, Eddie’s line flubs in Black Jeopardy
Next review: Adam Driver. Hoo boy, do I have a lot to say about that one...
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