Saturday Night Live Recap: Louis C.K.
When it was announced a few weeks back that Louis C.K. would be hosting Saturday Night Live, I lost myself. This would, seemingly, be a dream come true. The comedian of the moment. The artist of the moment. The TV show (for the most part) of the moment. The man behind that TV show, coming together with Saturday Night Live? This felt too good to be true.
Let’s begin, shall we?
The Cold Open: The episode opened with the kind of open we all expected: a mock of Mayor Bloomberg’s sign language interpreter. It went as well as I could’ve imagined, especially with the cast-member chosen. If Maya Rudolph were still on the show, this character would’ve easily been handed to her first thing Monday morning and she would’ve killed it but I am victim of living in the past with SNL. The sketch then went from Bloomberg’s interpreter to the purposed idea of New Jersey governer Chris Christie’s interpreter which was a step up. It was silly, it was ridiculous, it was cheesy and expected and I loved every minute of Nasim Pedrad.
Monologue: This went as I had expected as well. The last time I remember a comedian hosting the show and doing a monologue in the fashion of their stand up was when either Jon Stewart or Ellen DeGeneres had hosted in the early 2000s. I love this style and I loved Louis’ monologue though it seemed a bit rough.
Best Sketches: For me, there were only two, really good, stand out sketches of the evening. The first was the Lincoln sketch which was absolutely f-cking brilliant and judging by the response I got on Twitter, everyone agrees. It was just completely on point and the sketch speaks for itself. The second good sketch was the final sketch of the evening. I don’t know what it was called but it was about Louis’ character (which was pretty much just Louis) at a bar with a woman (McKinnon) both seemingly drunk and just being disasters. This was hilarious for the typical SNL face licking, the dialogue (“I don’t work, I’m awaiting trial“), all that stuff of course, but for me, it kind of nailed the drunken-flirting experience. I loved it so much I’m allowing it to make up for everything that came before it. Well, almost…
Worst Sketches: I genuinely hate to say this but there were a lot of bad sketches tonight. The Fox & Friends one was fine. Better than usual, for the most part, but everything else just wasn’t there for me. The worst one was, obviously, the one with the f-cking horns. I don’t know what it was called or what it was about but it was just downright awful that even Louis didn’t seem to be having it. Also: Weekend Update was a slow death. This “The Girl Who You Shouldn’t Have Started A Conversation With At A Party” character is a joke (not in a funny way). The joke is in the title of the character and beyond that there is LITERALLY nothing funny being done with this character. Also: it takes too long to type out the character’s name so this is the last time I’ll ever mention her.
Overall: This pains me but…I mean…Christina f-cking Appelgate’s episode was better than Louis’. THE BRUNO MARS EPISODE WAS BETTER! At least for me they were. Tonight though? It just wasn’t there. Yes, I know, the Lincoln sketch was amazing, as was the final sketch, but I need more than two GOOD sketches to hold me over. It just felt like there was a lot of filler in this episode and when Louis C.K. is your host, there should be no filler. Why? What? How did this episode happen? I sincerely don’t think my expectations were too high either. Something was off.
Next week: Anne Hathaway hosts the show with musical guest Rihanna. I am very excited for this episode because Anne Hathaway has always been a solid host and Rihanna shines bright like a diamond.