‘Saturday Night Live’ review: Alec Baldwin’s Donald Trump, pee-gate, ‘Bachelor’ spoof, and Tina Fey (video)

Tonight, “Saturday Night Live” is returning after its hiatus for a show hosted by Felicity Jones, and given the headlines of the past week, it felt pretty darn clear precisely what we were getting ourselves into here: A show with Donald Trump jokes aplenty. We didn’t expect to see Alec Baldwin this week (last we heard, he was planning to turn up next week following the Inauguration), so what other angle would the show find for everything?

Well, as it turns out, we had a pleasant surprise in the form of Alec turning up! After everything that happened over the course of the week, we figured that this was too much for Baldwin to stay away from. He talked about his Inauguration, his guests, and a lot of other ridiculous stuff. It was almost a greatest-hits of everything crazy Trump’s done since the show went off the air last.

Then, we got to the members of the press. The cast all stepped in to ask some questions, and of course the subject of pee-gate came up. This led to an insane and wonderful series of pee-related puns. This was incredibly immature, but also incredibly funny. We also got some sort of explanation for all of the documents that Trump had at his press conference courtesy of his “accountant” (Cecily Strong). There were jokes in here about CNN and BuzzFeed, but these left a little bit to be desired.

Before we got around to the end of this … you knew that Kenan Thompson was going to come out as Steve Harvey, right? It’s such a great impression of his that they had to include a cameo from him.

Overall, the cold open was a little too long, but also very funny in spots. Given everything from the past few days, we definitely feel like this was something that we needed … especially getting Beck Bennett as Vladimir Putin at the end.

We’re going to have live updates for the rest of the show, so be sure that you keep refreshing the page as we move along!

Felicity Jones monologue – For those of you who remember the Carrie Fisher episode of the show (or saw the replay of it earlier), this was a lovely tribute to what she did in her own monologue. Tina Fey appeared via “hologram” to give her some advice as to how to make it through the show, and everything was hilariously meta, from Leslie Jones coming out at the end of the sketch to talking about why Kenan Thompson’s been on the show for so long. It started a little weak, but Fey coming on really boosted the energy.

Beard Hunk – The “Bachelor” spoof was really fun the first time that we saw it on the show a couple of years ago with “Farm Hunk.” This time, it felt pretty lifeless. Kate McKinnon and Aidy Bryant both brought some good energy as two of the Bachelorettes, but this would’ve been better if the show tried to actually mimic specific people on the show or had more of an understanding of Nick Viall beyond his facial hair.

Shondra & Malik – This sketch took a long time to get really get going, and the first gag that we had in it was pretty funny: Kenan’s Malik kept threatening Jones’ Shondra to leave the neighborhood, only to then continue to ask her for help with some various odd jobs. This was funny; however, at the same time we weren’t rolling on the floor. Things then got really bad when Shondra had a heart attack and it was clear that the show didn’t know what it was doing.

The Play – This was the best sketch of the night following the opening monologue, mostly because of the physical comedy that came out of watching Jones play the nurse to an old man (Mikey Day) who was responsible for funding the play in the first place. Therefore, there was a certain obligation to put up with his nonsense.

The Princess and the Curse – The first impression that we got from this sketch is that this episode really did seem to be Beck Bennett’s “A Star is Born” moment, given that he was in almost every sketch at this point. The entire punch line here was that Jones’ princess character had a “curse” — if Bennett’s prince was to kiss her, she would gain fifteen pounds. Apparently, this is one of the only things he could not bear. This was a funny concept, but for whatever reason, the crowd in the studio wasn’t buying it, and that weighed it down a little bit.

Summoning Susan B. Anthony – When we saw a group of women choose to conjure up Anthony within her home, we thought that this was going to go down a road where she’d hear about Donald Trump and feel like the world was worse off than when she was alive. Instead, it turned into a spoof of vapid millennials as the women who summoned her suddenly became more concerned with getting a cab and getting food.

 

Music – Head over here to read up on Sturgill Simpson…

Weekend Update – Was it us, or was it hard to stay attentive during it this time? Pete Davidson was moderately amusing in his first bit on the show in quite some time, but Beck’s attempt at “pop singing” was terrible. This was like the ghost of Garth & Kat rising from the grave and tormenting us extensively. It’s hard to tell whose idea this was to have him go out there and sing horrible songs, but it completely took away from whatever Colin Jost and Michael Che were doing.

Hot Robot – After a weaker “Update” entry, the show got back tonight to doing one of their new favorite things: Making fun of Hollywood and young people who like to stand up for a cause only to then make a sexist, degrading movie that featured characters like “Skidmark.” Putting the actors behind the movie in a serious interview discussing politics was all sorts of ridiculous … but that’s kind of the point, no?

Corporate retreat – This was a very stupid concept about three women making a series of butt jokes, despite how innocent they appeared to be on the surface; yet, we kind of loved it. At this point in the show, you don’t need to do anything elaborate. Just come out, be ridiculous, and play into the silliness. It’s hard to ask for anything more than that.

Overall – Certainly an uneven show. The first two sketches were great, then we hit a pretty big lull until the play. The Princess and the Curse was decent, but we’d say that the saving grace of the show were, interestingly enough, two of the final sketches after “Weekend Update.” Jones got better as the show went along; you could see the nerves, but also see her start to become more comfortable. Grade: B-.

Want some other news on “SNL,” including some of Alec’s other upcoming events? Then be sure to head over to the link here. (Photo: NBC.)