Saturday Night Live review: Kevin Hart starts off strong, but show takes a Christmas nap
Tonight’s Saturday Night Live fall finale lives and dies by Kevin Hart, and we’re pretty sure Lorne Michaels and the producers know that. He’s one of the most-popular comedians working today! They need for him to go out and be amazing in order for this show to be memorable. The holiday episode is always one of the best of the year — it’s often ripe full of notable cameos and sketches that should play out in holiday specials to come.
Ready for our full review of the episode? Then look below and refresh for highlights!
Cold Open – Amusing, but basically an excuse for some of the White House personalities to rotate in and out. Check out more of our take on this over here.
Monologue – Hart as a comedian goes broad — he’s not going to give you political hot-takes or anything that controversial. He’s a guy with a stadium tour and huge movies at the box office. This monologue was mostly based on experiences, including being a father, helping a 60-year old dad, and claiming that most mothers just aren’t all that fun. This was almost too vanilla and predictable for our liking. While Hart may have been funny, his material didn’t stack up to some of the other comedians who took more chances — save for the bit about dads at the end.
Pandora charms – The idea here is mostly just that men get lazy charms every time they need to get their significant other a gift — this was amusing in a “hey, look at the lazy guy” way.
Doug has to go – The other premise of this sketch was that Doug really has to go to the bathroom, but he didn’t want to admit to it. Instead, he kept getting “phone calls” from people telling him about emergencies that he needed to be there for.
Yes, this was low-brow bathroom humor, but Hart’s performance was outstanding and this sketch had a surprising sweet ending as some of Doug’s coworkers eventually persuaded him that they were getting emergency calls from his Nana just so he could use the bathroom.
Captain Shadow – The story of two superheroes, played by Hart and Chris Redd, who were pulled over by police for speeding. This said cop had no idea who he was. For most of the sketch it looked as though he was being unfairly targeted; yet, at the end of the sketch the cops found cocaine on him. A really silly sketch but also a fairly funny one.
Weekend Update – The jokes tonight were decent, but we’re starting to think that SNL could have a shocking star being born in the Guy Who Just Bought a Boat. We hated it the first time we saw it; now, the character’s starting to get it together! He’s such a tool but the little asides make this 100% worth watching. If Alex Moffat can stop stumbling over some of the dialogue he’ll be pretty perfect.
Church nativity – This may be one of the worst nativity scenes in the history of mankind. Also, a reminder that SNL really shouldn’t work with animals. We don’t know what was going on with the guys and the llama (makeshift camel) in the sketch but the timing was just off. We understand this was supposed to be awkward but it still didn’t work.
The sad story of Gene – Was this funny or just weird? We just watched Kevin Hart follow his wife’s orders, strip down a teddy bear, and nearly do some very questionable things to it just because he was told to do so. We give the show credit for taking a risk, but it was a little too creepy and not funny enough to pay off.
Active Jack – We were not entirely sure where this was going for most of the sketch, but basically the joke was that you watched Kevin Hart do a routine only to see Kenan Thompson do the same thing. This was silly — also, it really made us wonder a little bit about why they thought this would be all that interesting.
Music – Head over here for our take on Foo Fighters tonight!
Goodnights – We often don’t focus on the goodnights in these reviews but this was interesting — the entire cast was out on the rink outside of Rockefeller Center, skating around even though it was 1:00 a.m. in the morning. Also, apparently Kevin Hart cannot actually ice skate. Watching him try was actually funnier than the entire second half of the show. This was also the longest goodnights segment we’ve seen in a rather long time.
Overall – Not SNL’s finest hour for a Christmas episode. Good moments at the start of the show but we’re not sure anything the entire second half delivered. The best sketch of the night was probably about Doug, and we feel almost as gross as Doug saying that a bathroom humor sketch won the night.
What did you think about Kevin as the host tonight, and some of the sketches that played out? Share in the comments!
Meanwhile, be sure to like CarterMatt on Facebook if you’ve got a hankering for near-constant SNL news as it comes out. (Photo: NBC.)