‘Saturday Night Live’ review: ‘Her’ spoof, Leonardo DiCaprio, figure skating, Jonah Hill, and Olya Povlatsky

“Saturday Night Live” had its second show in a three-week span this weekend, and if there is one thing that we have learned about this over the years, it is that this often produces weak results.

Luckily this show has Jonah Hill as the host. There wasn’t really a whole lot of material on most of the sketches, but he was able to save many of them from despair thanks to going completely over-the-top. Not only that, but there was a nice celebrity cameo, and a really great “Weekend Update” segment featuring Kate McKinnon.

The Hits

Heterosexual Figure Skating – You knew that this was coming: “SNL” making fun of the fact that Vladimir Putin and Russia are not exactly being particularly kind in their treatment of members of the homosexual community. This was not necessarily the funniest start of the show ever, but the “doubles” portion of it that they showed with an “Auto Zone employee and a Applebee’s waitress” was hysterical. That saved a sketch that was going south.

Jonah Hill monologue – The moment that we learned that Hill was hosting, we were begging the “SNL” gods to have Leonardo DiCaprio make a cameo appearance. He’s not a guy who has a big history on the show, but he would likely kill it if he ever hosted. We don’t care about the quality of the individual jokes; the sight of him doing the “Titanic” pose with Jonah at the very end here was so genius, we will remember and cherish it always.

Weekend Update – Can we just have Kate McKinnon do every single segment on the show? The return of Olya Povlatsky was so brilliant, we would have loved this edition even if the rest of it was horrible. There were some great jokes about Justin Bieber and Russia thrown in here, and the only regret we have is that there was not another iconic character to help send Seth Meyers off on his next-to-last show.

“Her” spoof – From the makers of the movie come “Me,” a very funny spoof that Jonah totally made work. While there are so many jokes out there about him becoming a d-bag thanks to his Oscar nominations, he is a genuinely good actor. He made this such a hilarious, perfect send-up.

The dinner party – There was no reason why this should have worked, since it was basically Jonah yelling in the bathroom in earshot of the other party-goers every moment he thought he was blowing it. This was a prime example of the writers not necessarily having a great long-lasting premise, but enough jokes to pull it off. Plus, Hill managed to make it work, while some other hosts may not have been able to.

Inside SoCal – Kyle Mooney and Beck Bennett haven’t hit a home run with one of these sketches in a while, but this was one of the best ones of the season. Basically, it was what The Californians really wanted to be as a send-up of skater / L.A. culture.

Lamborghini ad – No matter how many times we see Cecily Strong and Vanessa Bayer as these “actresses” filming a fake commercial in hopes of getting free stuff, we laugh uproariously. They are so filthy, funny, and completely weird. We’re also glad that they are still at the end of the show rather than a time when they would have to be tamer.

The Misses

Adam Grossman – This is a character that Jonah loves to resurrect, and there were some pretty funny moments in here. The problem was only that it lasted too long, and even the great one-liners that the writers came up with did not exactly make up for the sheer fact that the sketch dragged on and on.

The Hit – This was probably the weakest pre-show short in a while on the show, mostly because it didn’t really do much for us watching Kenan Thompson and Taran Killam obsess over snow. Like the Adam sketch, it was like the writers came up with a premise, and then didn’t really do anything else.

Couples Quiz – So if you love an entire sketch regarding Jonah Hill clogging up a toilet, this is right up your alley! Personally, we still like to at least imagine in our mind that there is something more substantial to “SNL” than just poop jokes, and the show not even bothering to create a twist that maybe someone else was the culprit.

Willow the horse – The biggest thing that we have to say about this is “neigh.” We will be happy if we never have to watch this worse-themed sketch ever again. Cheesy animal violence just doesn’t work well for this show.

Overall, a somewhat hit-or-miss show, but what we really found was that the beginning and the end were great, and sandwiched around a middle of “meh.” Grade: B.

What did you think about Hill’s time on “SNL” this weekend, and did you have a favorite sketch? Be sure to share below, and click here if you want to see some other highlights from this season. Also, sign up now to get some other great TV scoop via our CarterMatt Newsletter, sent to your email every Sunday.

Photo: NBC