Cold Open: The Ingraham Angle
Laura Ingraham and friends talk about what’s wrong with Biden’s America.
• First appearance of McKinnon’s Laura Ingraham in quite a while. Did that passage of time make her any funnier? NOPE!
• They’re still doing that awful gag where she plugs her sponsors. To this day, I have no idea what that’s supposed to be about.
• *angrily grits teeth* Please stop bringing back that female Ted Cruz impersonator!!! It’s not funny, it sounds nothing like him, and if you guys think you’re bothering him by doing it, then you’re wrong.
• Ego’s Candace Owens impression is a rare miss for her. She says some rather offensive things like “It is my greatest honor to continue fighting for African-Americans, no matter how many times they ask me to stop.” Because, you know, black people can only be Democrats. This is the exact same rhetoric Sleepy Joe Biden promoted when he told black people that they “ain’t black” if they didn’t vote for him.
• The real Candace Owens commented on this and slammed the show. She even offered to play herself the next time they need to make fun of her. Sorry, Candace, but there’s no way they’d ever let a Republican on this show again after the awfulness that was Trump’s 2015 hosting stint.
• Speaking of Trump, JAJ is back as him once again. This is the third time in the past two months that he’s shown up, and it’s always the same joke with him no matter what.
• I think it goes without saying that this cold open was extremely terrible. A bad omen for the episode that follows…
Monologue
Will Forte complains that he’s been waiting 11 years to host the show, while his fellow cast members have all hosted before him.
• Words cannot describe how happy I am to see Forte on the stage again. He’s definitely in my Top 5 favorite cast members.
• Minor nitpick: When he complains that all of his friends in the cast hosted before him, he mentions Bill Hader before Andy Samberg. Samberg came back before Hader. Not that I would expect him to know that because Will has wisely made very few cameos on the show since his departure.
• This comes to a screeching halt when Kristen Wiig, the spawn of Satan herself, shows up. UGGGGHHHHH!!!!! I understand why she’s there, because of something I’ll be getting to in a little bit, but can we go at least one season without a Kristen Wiig cameo? Why couldn’t another one of his friends, like Hader or Sudeikis show up? Hell, I’d even take another Fred Armisen cameo over this!
• Even more unwelcome cameos follow when Willem Dafoe randomly appears. He’s not supposed to host until the next episode (just wait until I get to that one), so I guess this is the show’s way of “preparing” us for him.
• Lorne is there too, and it’s nice to see him again. I feel like his cameos are getting less frequent as he ages. In fact, this is the first time he’s made one since Season 45.
• This started out okay, but it crashed and burned when Wiig appeared.
Film: MacGruber (Part I)
MacGruber attempts to defuse a bomb, but his friends get distracted by his bizarre conspiracy theories.
• The audience went wild as soon as they realized what sketch this was. The reason Will is hosting is because he’s got a new MacGruber show on Peacock, and I guess this new sketch is meant to promote it. Jorma Taccone and John Solomon even came back to help write this.
• I’m ashamed to admit it, but I’ve never actually seen any of the original ones. I hope this gives me a good idea of what they’re about.
• Another random cameo from Ryan Philippe (who?) as one of MacGruber’s friends. And there’s Kristen again, reprising her role as Vicki.
• And things take a nosedive when MacGruber slowly reveals himself to have embraced anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories. Why is this? Because he had a tracking device put on his scrotum. So…yeah…this is what the other two MacGruber sketches are going to be about tonight…
Sketch: Kid Klash
A game show host (Forte) teaches a kid an important lesson as she competes in a physical challenge.
• This is a spot on parody of Nickelodeon game shows. I believe it’s specifically based on Double Dare.
• The host, Mark Zazz, is played by Will, who has a pedo mustache and a voice that I think he’s used for another one of his characters in the past. I don't care who you are, but putting Will Forte in a pedo mustache is always funny.
• Will already gets a chuckle out of me when he talks about a contestant who is at home recovering from last week’s episode.
• Some really nice set design. They nailed the Double Dare aesthetic here.
• Aidy’s prize for winning the show is a single box of pizza that she gets to keep for the rest of her life. You can already tell that the host of this show is not particularly sane.
• Every single thing that comes out of Will’s mouth in this sketch is hilarious. Even the lines that aren’t meant to be funny are still funny because of that voice he’s using.
• The useless hint he offers Aidy (“It’s in there”) is great.
• I wonder what the cream in that giant pie is really made of.
• Aidy finds a gold medallion in the pie, and Will’s response is to yell at her about not finding the flag she’s supposed to be looking for. Game shows need more angry hosts like this.
• When time runs out, her family feels sorry for her. Except her dad (Kyle Mooney), who yells “Damn it, Tatum!”
• Will suddenly turns creepy when Aidy tries to leave to get cleaned up. He says to her, in a voice that sounds like he’s about to offer her some candy, that she can’t leave until she finds the flag. Forte is a comedy genius when it comes to being a creepy person.
• My favorite Will line: “Look, I didn’t start this game show to encourage children to quit like whiny little babies.”
• Then he forces Aidy to start looking for the flag again, as he humiliates her even further by playing depressing music and making the pie spin around.
• Even the joke about Aidy having her period while in the pie was pretty funny.
• When she finally does find the flag, it is very small, and colored the same as the cream in the pie. Aidy tells the host that the game was very bad, he shouts “No, it’s GOOD!” at her like a crazy man denying that he’s crazy.
• Will plugs the next part of the challenge, which Aidy’s brother (Bowen) has to complete. He also randomly reveals that the brother is adopted, which, given that he’s Asian, isn’t hard to believe.
• This sketch ends in an amazing fashion: a slow zoom in to Will’s face. I think I’m in Heaven…
• Overall, I thought that was pretty good. It helps that it has Will Forte being a creep in it.
Film: MacGruber (Part II)
• MacGruber takes a ton of pills and drinks bleach. Get it?!? Because that’s what Donald Trump apparently told us to do!
• If you thought this part was bad, well, wait until we get to the end of the show…
Sketch: Cinema Classics
A scene from the 1944 film “Gaslight”, which is where the term originated from.
• Just when this episode couldn’t get any worse, they bring that godawful Cinema Classics bullshit out of the mothballs! UGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!! No matter how many times I think they’ve retired it for good, it keeps coming back like the fucking plague! I refuse to watch this shit again, so, let me borrow a quote from Stooge: No, just…no.
Sketch: Threesome
A married couple tries to spice things up in bed by adding someone else.
• As soon as Will arrived in that ridiculous getup, I knew I was in for something special.
• The hardest I laughed at this entire episode was when Will started shaking the couple’s bed. It goes on for twenty seconds, and it gets funnier the longer it continues.
• Then he starts pretending to fuck a pillow, and I laughed even harder. This sketch should have just been about Will Forte going insane in a hotel room. For an idea of what that would have been like, just wait until the next episode…
Musical Performance: “Beggin’”
Weekend Update (featuring Chen Biao, Sarah Sherman, and The Guy Who Just Bought A Boat)
• An unwelcome return from that horrid Chen Biao character. This guy fucking sucks.
• Sarah Sherman has another commentary, and it’s just like the last one she did, except it’s about Winter this time. They even recycle the same joke where she throws insults at Colin.
• The only part I laughed at was the fake photo of Colin in S&M gear.
• *sigh* The Guy Who Just Bought A Boat returns. I’ve never found the appeal of this character. To make matters worse, he has a friend with him called “A Guy Who Just Bought A Ferry”, played by Pete. As if one of these guys wasn’t enough, now I’ve gotta deal with two of them!
• This is the second episode in a row where Update crushed my soul. Why didn’t they have Will do any of his characters?
Sketch: Clancy T. Bachleratt and Jackie Snead
The famous country duo have a new album out.
• Kenan’s name is “Jevner Keeblerelv”? I don’t even need to ask who wrote this. Oddly, the YouTube description calls him “Jevner Keeblerpooble”, which I assume was his name in dress rehearsal or something.
• These characters of Kristen and Will’s make their return. I’d never heard of them before, but any role where Will Forte wears a bald cap has got to be funny.
• While I’m not happy to see Kristen in yet another sketch, this is the type of stuff she works best in. She doesn’t do her usual mugging, and her singing voice is honestly not that bad.
• Will’s moaning “vocals” during a song called “The Eyes of God” are amazing.
• A nice understated little sketch.
Musical Performance: “I Wanna Be Your Slave”
Film: MacGruber (Part III)
• Easily the worst of the three parts of this sketch. Now Will is dressed like that horned guy from the Capitol riots, and he’s espousing conspiracies about politicians eating babies.
• I can’t believe they did it…They ruined MacGruber. On a night when one of the greatest cast members returns to host, they waste his most popular character on this terrible excuse of a sketch! Fuck these writers, and fuck whoever decided to make MacGruber act like this!
Note: A dedication to former writer John Bowman appears before the goodnights.
Cut For Time: ESPN’s First Take
Things get heated when the moderators of First Take argue about Tom Brady and the Buccaneers.
• Perfect casting choice of Chris Redd as that asshole Stephen A. Smith.
• Nice to see Kenan do a voice that I don’t think I’ve ever heard him do before.
• Both Kenan and Chris do an amazing job when their characters start arguing. Chloe’s character sums it up when she says that they’re acting like they’re on cocaine.
• Will appears as a writer for a sports blog (one of society’s greatest ills), and his character is even more over the top than the other two. I love his bizarre exaggerated statements about Tom Brady’s dominance, such as how he’s able to eat planets.
• Despite not being a sports fan, I’ve seen enough of SportsCenter to know that this is some biting satire of how these sports talk shows work: Two people come onto the show and see who can yell the loudest. Why didn’t this make the live show instead of that Cinema Classics bullshit?!?
Final thoughts: What a huge disappointment. Going into the episode, I thought it was going to be amazing. Instead, I got a total waste of one of my favorite cast member’s talents. The numerous Wiig cameos didn’t help, either. Why am I seeing so much of her in an episode that she’s not hosting? Overall, what should have been one of this season’s greatest triumphs instead turned out to be one of its worst episodes.
Best sketches: Kid Klash, Will moving the bed, Maneskin’s performances, First Take (Cut)
Worst sketches: Cold Open, MacGruber (all three parts), Cinema Classics, Chen Biao commentary
Next review: Willem Dafoe/Katy Perry
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