Saturday Night Live Recap: Jamie Foxx & Ne-Yo
I was going to start off this recap with, “When it was announced that Jamie Foxx would host Saturday Night Live I was more than excited…” but then I realized how dumb that was. I say that almost every time an exciting person has been picked to host, but I seem to forget that most of the time, the opportunity for a fantastic episode is usually squandered by such piss poor writing. Jamie Foxx’s episode was in line with most of the other episodes this season: there were 3 good sketches and everything else was a major question mark. At this point, WHO finds the J-Pop American Fun Time sketch remotely funny? Not me. Let’s begin, shall we?
The Cold Open:
I fast-forwarded through that mess so you can tell me how that ended.
The Opening Monologue:
At this point, every host has performed a song during their monologue, right? What is the point here? It’s occurred too much to be coincidence and I believe it’s now just a running gag with the writers. AND EVEN IF 2 CHAINZ CAME OUT AND IT WAS AMAZING, that doesn’t change the repetitiveness and unoriginality of it.
The Best Sketches:
As I said earlier, there were only 3 sketches that really worked for me. The first, obviously, was the Tyler Perry/Alex Cross piece. It was EVERYTHING and Jamie’s impression was on point, as was the entire spoof. I loved it. I hope that it becomes a real movie because it’ll be the first Tyler Perry movie I would pay to see.
The Dylan McDermott or Dermot Mulroney sketch was also a standout of not only this episode, but also this entire season so far. It wasn’t laugh-out-loud funny, no, but it was smart and so God damn true. I’ve watched the sketch twice now and by the end of it, I still can’t identify either.
Lastly, the final sketch of the night, the Swarovski sketch, was deliciously ridiculous and I loved every minute of it. “One time I was banged to death then banged back to life” The one liners made the entire thing, of course, but this sketch only proves that it’s becoming more and more true that the later in the night sketches are becoming the better ones, when that was never the case before.
The Worst Sketches:
J-Pop, obviously, but also that Bitch sketch which was tiring after the first 10 seconds.
Weekend Update:
I thought this was one of the better Weekend Updates we’ve seen this season. I loved the Ding-Dong and Mrs. Claus characters (which we’ll get to in a minute) but the whole thing felt fresh and didn’t drag like it sometimes does. I think it works best with two-guest characters max. While I loved the Mrs. Claus character, and I thought Aidy Bryant did a brilliant job, I couldn’t help but think that this could’ve been even better as an actual sketch.
Next week Martin Short hosts with Paul McCartney as the musical guest.
What was your best and worst sketch from the episode? Let me know by sounding off below or find me on Twitter (@jordanapps)!