A thought occurred to me right before last night's SNL began: if Justin Bieber was a good host, would we even know? Our prejudice against Canada's answer to Rachel Maddow is so high that if he (and the writers) managed to pull off the unthinkable, something even best-person-ever Jennifer Lawrence couldn't do, and produce a very funny 90 minutes of comedy, would we, the haters, have been able to accept and admit it?
Well, luckily, that wasn't a problem, because last night's episode was not good. Worse, it was in that ambiguous middle ground, whether it was neither hilariously great nor entertainingly awful — it was the kind of episode that will be spoken about with a shrug and an "I guess" tagged at the end of every sentence. Bieber has the charisma of a plain doughnut from Tim Hortons, but he wasn't awful, at least compared to Adam Levine. (I'll give him credit for allowing the writers to make fun of how badly he wants to be black.) He was...*shrug*, I guess.
Save us Christoph Waltz, you're our only hope. #glice
Nice of the SNL makeup department to make Tim Robinson look like Bill Cowher's thawed-out corpse. Anyway, the cold open started slowly before delivering some solid lines in the final two minutes. JB (the black JB, not the wannabe-black JB) admitting he's never actually seen 2 Broke Girls was a nice touch, and making Jay Pharaoh’s Shannon Sharpe reveal, “Ray Lewis knows who killed those people, because it was him!” was what was missing from last episode's Weekend Update Ray-Ray appearance. Not a great opener, but not bad, either.
Mmm, Whoopi Goldberg, you can tie me up with your dreads anytime. I wanna howl like a hyena for you. I would...where was I? That's right, SNL. Making the monologue be about Valentine's Day and Black History Month was clever enough, I guess, and I appreciate the writers (including, for two weeks only, the fabulous Chelsea Peretti) restraint in not making one of the teenage flower-receivers Bobby Moynihan in a dress.
My favorite sketch of the night, the one where Jason Sudeiki introduced Bieber to his army of Bieber clones, isn't available online, but THANK GOD, this one is. In case the joke hasn't worn off after six times, Fred Armisen and Vanessa Bayer loudly love someone, but quietly hate them. It's the Californians of Weekend Update bits.
Much better was Corey, the One Black Guy in Every Commercial, who was apparently modeled after Tommy from Ben & Kate.
The distracting Beliebers in the audience were at peak shriek during this "Summer Nights" parody, which had a few decent laughs, but still felt like an excuse to get Bieber to sing, no matter how briefly. The twist at the end was amusing — that Bieber's only 11 years old — but for a supposed cool guy, he fumbled his way through most of his lines, unlike Aidy Bryant, as great as ever.
No matter your thoughts on "The Miley Cyrus Show" as an entire sketch, you gotta give Vanessa Bayer credit for going all-out in her performance. She IS that sexy cupcake, and her Pam-esque tattoo was pretty cool. What wasn't pretty cool: Bieber dropping that "I'm so sorry for smoking weed, I'll never do it again" apology. F*ck that.
Taran Killam: seems like an awesome dude, very funny individual, one of my favorite current castmembers, he's seen Robin Sparkles nude. But he's not Will Ferrell, and only Will Ferrell could have pulled off the all-yell everything Eddie. That's not knocking Killam; no one could have made #glice hilarious, except Ferrell.
More Taco, please. This is from a different sketch, but it's too creepy not to mention:
YOU STAY AWAY FROM NASIM BIEBER.
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Not very good, but not exactly great. Sounds like SNL is par for the course.
Also, I thought the skit with all the Bravo reality shows was good stuff.
Bieber’s Publicist: Now don’t forget, we need to constantly reinforce and maintain the position that we have the utmost respect for all of his shitty fans.
Every time his legion of tweenage harpie fans screeched over any little thing he did (DANCING! SINGING! ABS! EEEEEEEE!!), I did some hardcore, Liz Lemon-eye rolling.
Compared to last weeks stinker, this episode was a fucking winner. Having said that, it wasn’t as terrible as I assumed it would be. The sketches weren’t great, but there were enough funny moments to take away from it IMO. Kenan’s Black Guy in every commercial was awesome. The only reason Beiber even kind of succeeded last night was the fact that they didn’t challenge him to play anything more than teenagers, or himself. And he was willing to have the piss taken out of him. But he obviously can’t sing without pro tools, and his fans shrieking every three seconds got real annoying. All in all, I give it a meh +.
This episode was pretty great. Beiber wasn’t nearly as horrible as I thought he would be.
Good gawd, we need Christoph Waltz to be good. Please, please, please.
Any news on the how the ratings were [as compared to other SNL episodes], I’m curious if Biebs actually pulled in the audience.
I’m betting most of Beibers key demo can’t stay up that late.
“Bieber has the charisma of a plain doughnut from Tim Hortons.”
That is an insult to Tim Horton’s, sir. I WON’T STAND FOR IT.
Apparently he was suffering from food poisoning.
Atta boy, food!
“neither hilariously great nor entertainingly awful”
The most accurate description of SNL I’ve seen in years.
Yeah that’s pretty much it. I rarely bother with it anymore and I didn’t even have the option of watching it last night. Which is good because I would not have had I been able.
I enjoy any joke where the punchline is, a butthole.
2 takeaways from the super bowl sketch:
1. i just booked dimitri for my 31st birthday.
2. moar bill hader.
1) No Bill Hader dancing GIF???
2) Not that I would ever want him to leave, because he’s so awesome, but wasn’t Jason Sudeikis supposed to have left the show after the election???
I think the show needed much more Nasim Pedrad, Cecily Strong, and Aidy Bryant.
Pedrad was pretty absent in the first half of the show.
Seconded.
I could write this about Nasim every week, and have done so many times. Seems like Strong and McKinnon have filled the post-Wiig vacuum though.
Plus Cecily Strong has a great rack
Why do they continuously do the Californians? This is the only regular sketch that gets NO applause when it opens yet they keep churning it out. THE SKIT IS TERRIBLE!
Armisen must really be proud of it. I don’t know why, but that has to be it.
It used to be alright when Armisen or Hader would break during it. That doesn’t even happen anymore, that’s how tired the idea is.
Armisen, Thompson, and Sudeikis (and possibly Moynihan) all need to go at the end of the season. It’s the only way fresh material and cast members will come up.
I didn’t even like the Californians the first time.
Getting rid of Meyers as head writer would probably do more to change the tone of the show than clearing out cast members.
@DNP- Maybe, but I’d wager that would not get rid of the recurring skits and people playing similar characters over and over again. And he’s actually capable as the Weekend Update anchor.
It’s not just about tone either. SNL would be stronger if they focused more on developing talent and letting the strong cast members go on to have a career outside of the show.
Well that was predictably terrible
Yep. Just atrocious.
Anybody else find themselves saying “Hey! Tim Robinson is still on tbe show!” when he showed up last night?
*the
That kid looked completely bored. No personality at all.
Also, puberty has not been kind to his singing voice.
Worst episode of the season, by a landslide.
A lot of times the writers seem to step up their game with a mediocre host, but tonight everything was flat.
Also, it’s worth noting that Kenan Thompson used to be a punchline but he’s really become a quietly reliable and consistent cast member
Kenan has stepped up, but he’s been on the show way too long.
eh, his long tenure doesn’t bother me. as long as he does solid work he can stick around as long as he wants. Fred Armisen on the other hand has got to fucking go.
Armisen has always been terrible. They keep him around because he can do everything! Unfortunately they fail to consider he does all of it terribly.
Is Sudeiki the plural form for Sudeikis?
I think the Sudeiki is a river in Mongolia
“Sudeiki” something that he does to fiancée every Sunday after a decent performance the night before.
I thought the restraint in the opening monologue went to the writers for not making Bieber sing for the remaining 85 minutes.
I had a feeling it was all downhill when “The Californians” was the first sketch after the opening monolgue. Is there a petition we can sign to get them to stop writing that sketch?
Looking forward to Waltz hosting. Will have to catch up on this past week’s show sometime, maybe.
Bieber was terrible. Flubbed lines, didn’t know where to look, breaking, and he did a voice in every single skit and was terrible at every last one of them. I wasn’t a fan of the Adam Levine episode, but it was way better than this mess. The writing wasn’t actually terrible this episode, Bieber really dragged it down.
I hope Christoph Waltz’s episode isn’t one of those where they have a tremendous talent and the writers blow it (JLaw, parts of Louis C.K.’s episode).
The best part of this is his monologue and how those teenie boppers in the front row are about to lose their minds.
Didn’t laughed once. The Californians is the worst sketch ever.
Real talk: It’s worse the Gigli
Amen.
why are we all banking on Waltz to be amazing?!
Did his mic go out forreal during high school sketch?
It appears so
Guess it’s standard protocol to have a backup mic
Attention teachers and students! I love principle fry.
I just came for the badge.
It was pretty meh. I thought it could have been better. It definitely wasn’t the worst this season. How about SNL stop getting non-actors to star be their host? That’d be nice. Are they doing that to save a dollar or something?
I’m 99% sure the black guy from every commercial is supposed to be Jordan Carlos: [www.imdb.com]
Takeaways from the show, only watching the opening, Bieber clones, the Bravo thing, and the “one black guy”-
-Bieber almost called the dance moves “retarded”, then caught himself and changed it to “pretty stupid”, which is kinda lame because I’d like to see the backlash he would have caused.
-Moynihan’s got some moves
-I’m pretty sure all 8 year old children who don’t over-eat have a body like Bieber’s. It’s not something to be proud of.
Also, is that hair actually “cool”? Or is it now cool because he rocked it and it’s manufactured to be?
I can’t tell if I’m hitting the “too old to understand” point at the ancient age of 26, or if it’s really just that ret— pretty stupid
This is exactly what happens when you pick a host to pander for ratings. SNL wanted someone they knew would draw viewers during sweeps. They didn’t really care if it was a good episode or not. It seems the writers decided early on they weren’t going to put a whole lot into the episode and just figured the Nielsen numbers would be padded by little girls forcing their parents to tune in to see Bieber.
There can never be enough Ray Lewis killed someone jokes.