‘Saturday Night Live’ review: Will Ferrell as George W. Bush, ‘Star Wars’ spoof, more in Chris Hemsworth show
We tend to think that the second episode of “Saturday Night Live” in a block of three tends to be a little bit more of a dud. Therefore, we are relatively pleased to see that there was an especially notable cameo in the cold open! Will Ferrell returned to the show as his classic George W. Bush character, and provided some “advice” to the rest of the GOP field in a skit that had a pretty simple running gag: Compared to some current contenders, was Bush really that bad? He even spoofed his brother Jeb!
Getting Ferrell back was very random, especially given he’d be perfect for the show with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler coming up next week. It was a great way to start off a show with Chris Hemsworth, a host who doesn’t have the same level of hype around him.
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Chris Hemsworth monologue – Really a good job by him of owning the stage and doing the whole “tour around the studio,” which is something that we have not seen in some time. This was a hoot to see him mess with people … only to see Leslie Jones scare the living daylights out of him.
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“Star Wars: The Force Awakens” commercials – This was … funny? Well, there were a few good laughs (such as the marital status of an adult action-figure collector), but nothing altogether original.
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“On the Record” – We assumed that the show was going to get a heck of a lot of mileage out of the Donald Trump comments, and this is proof that they have.
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Time To Bleed – Violent, strange, but somehow still entertaining in its own bizarre way. It was the story of a cop (Hemsworth) who wanted to act so tough that he continued to not get a bullet wound seen about until he died. Great job by the under-used Sasheer Zamata throughout, and the ending was absurd and hilarious.
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Brother 2 Brother – Really demented, but also funny for about thirty seconds. The issue here is mostly that other than watching Taran Killam get belittled for trying to pass off as Hemsworth, this gets old in a matter of seconds.
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Debra’s time – For those of you looking for a great musical sketch, look no further! This was really fun, from Cecily’s (awesome) vocals to Hemsworth really milking his own role as her pianist / singing partner as they performed strange Christmas show tunes to some “friends.” A weird, wacky, but super-entertaining sketch.
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Weekend Update – This was a version of the show that was really too predictable for its own good. For example, we all knew that there would be Donald Trump jokes, just as we almost knew that Angela Merkel (Kate McKinnon) was going to be making an appearance at some point. Even Leslie Jones wasn’t as great as it has been.
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Chris as “Claire” – What a strange sketch this was, mostly because the whole cross-dressing-for-laughs shtick is old. Yet, there was a reason for it that was a little bit different than most others (he just wanted to see if women still find him attractive). The Aidy Bryant “now you’re creepy and weird” at the end was perfect.
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Pirate sketch – Ugh. This is where the show started to fall apart a little at the end, mostly because we ultimately don’t have much of an idea what this was even supposed to be other than a series of little stunts. Kenan Thompson getting surprised about having water dumped on him was probably the best part.
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Song and dance – What happens when Chippendales are not really Chippendales? You get this sketch. It wasn’t that funny, but we’ll give Chris, Taran, Jay Pharoah, and Beck Bennett credit here for at least trying to bring the energy and do something weird at the end of the show.
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Despite the rough post-“Weekend Update” sketches, we’ll still say that we really enjoyed watching this episode. More than anything, Hemsworth proved in here that he is a capable returning host, someone who should be invited many more times in the future.
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