‘Saturday Night Live’ review: Marshawn Lynch, Richard Sherman, Jebidiah Atkinson, J.K. Simmons (video)
“Saturday Night Live” aired on NBC tonight, and for the second straight week, the program decided to go right at subject matter related to the Super Bowl. However, this time around, the show decided to not mock deflategate again. Instead, they went after another popular topic of conversation: Marshawn Lynch and his terrible press conferences … with a deflategate joke or two thrown in there, as well.
Was this anywhere near as successful? Unfortunately, far from it. We had Jay Pharoah doing Richard Sherman, and Kenan Thompson doing Marshawn. Neither one of them was particularly great at it, with Pharoah mostly just yelling here and there while wearing a set of dreadlocks. Some of the jokes fell flat, and Kenan actually said much more than Lynch ever has during any one of his press conferences. Things livened up slightly when we had an appearance from Taran Killam as Pete Carroll, but only slightly.
This weekend’s show is hosted by J.K. Simmons, and we’re going to have further updates below the rest of the show. Refresh this page!
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J.K. Simmons monologue – Basically, it was a mockery of “Whiplash,” and at first, we weren’t quite so sure about it. Then, Fred Armisen came out, and the chemistry he had with Simmons actually worked pretty well. Man can really tear up the drums. Also, Fred Armisen may as well still be a cast member at this point.
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Super Bowl Activity Pack – This may be a little controversial, but we hope viewers take this as really biting satire. We thought it was hysterical, and a perfect mockery of what men think women need to be happy while they watch football. Vanessa Bayer was perfect in this part.
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Miss Trash – A moderately-funny beauty competition spoof, where the contestants were all basically the most terrible people ever … except for Bayer. This really should have been about seven or eight times funnier than it ultimately was.
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PBS series – The moment Kenan introduced this blast from the past, we knew that we were in trouble. The less we say here, the better off we will be.
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Teacher Snow Day – It needed a slightly better hook, but we have to say that for the most part, this was still really silly and a heck of a lot of fun to watch. If only we’d see more sketches that at least were this ambitious, with the marching band and the big sight-gags of teachers partying hard, we’d be happy.
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Weekend Update – Pretty good jokes from Colin Jost this week, but something was most definitely off with Michael Che and his delivery tonight. He stumbled on one or two jokes. Luckily, we had the return of the Female in a Male-Driven Comedy and also Jebidiah Atkinson for the first time this season. These two made up for some of the nonsense.
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Pushy – Bobby Moynihan is legit. This was so silly and a perfect play on those old Microsoft Office assistants; it may even be our favorite sketch of the night so far.
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Mike O’Brien as Jay-Z – It was not necessarily hilarious, but we admit to laughing early and often at the premise of this. It was just so silly to see him as the rapper acting nothing like him. Also, a Jason Sudeikis sighting! Who saw that coming?
Japanese messy boy – Is this really a thing? Regardless, a fairly entertaining sketch for late in the show featuring Simmons as a man with a very unusual job.
Overall, this was a bizarre but entertaining edition of the show. It actually was far funnier to us in the second half than the first, since it took some more interesting turns and risks. the best thing that we can say is that other than the PBS sketch early on, there wasn’t any enormous dud. Some, including the cold open, were at least interesting. Grade: B.
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MarkPH
February 1, 2015 @ 3:29 pm
I’m a big fan of SNL and have watched most of the shows from the beginning (1975). In general I agree with most of this review; although I thought the overall show was better than a B and was the best show so far this season. I read a lot of show reviews and there really is no agreement from critic to critic. I am amazed at how so many skits are deemed great from one critic; then a complete 180 degree turn to being deemed very poor from another.
Here is what I thought.
I thought the cold opening was better than last week’s, though not great.
I thought the monologue was better than most this year, though not great.
I thought Vanessa Bayer was really good in Super Bowl Activity Pack, but I was bored with the overall sketch and felt it much weaker than every other critic I’ve read so far.
I thought Miss Trash was the weakest sketch of the night.
Here is where I and some other critics really differ from this review. I thought the PBS Series was quite good. I thought McKinnon’s portrayal was top notch and I thought the subtle references and change of tune regarding going to a concentration camp were funny and the overall performance was not overplayed.
I thought Teacher Snow Day was entertaining, but not as great as most critics’ review. I did agree that this was one sketch Simmons saved.
Weekend Update was the best part of the show, with little to do with the hosts. I did agree that something was off with Che but he snapped out of it quickly. Strong’s performance was really good but Killam killed with a strong recurring character that suprisingly has not been overused. He seemed like he used the excuse of a long absence, to come out extra surly.
I thought Pushy was better than it should have been.
I thougth Japanese Messy Boy was better than it should have been.
And I thought O’Brien’s sketch was funny, well done, but just a tad too long.