SNL Scorecard: 'Sex Ed,' Emma Stone Lead a Backloaded Episode
The Bad
"Budget Costumes" (Thompson, Stone): Pretty forgettable sketch about budget Halloween costumes. A nice save at the end with the display of costumes with a stain, in which the store will always provide an item to place in front of the stain. Examples: Yoda with a pot of chili, Wolfman with an US Weekly.
Score: 5.5
"Digital Short: I Broke My Arm" (Stone, Ensemble): Another weird but forgettable SNL Digital Short. Emma Stone breaks her arm when she slips on some spilled jelly, then in the process of announcing her broken arm, she breaks every other bone in her body. Her computer voice was actually pretty funny, but then the spilled jelly started singing and dancing. Yeah, I know, they're not all going to be "Lazy Sunday," but this season's offerings have been pretty off with the exception of "Rescue Dogs 911."
Score: 5
"Baby Spanx" (Sudeikis, Hader, Wiig): I forgot about this about three seconds after it ended. There's nothing wrong with it, but there's nothing memorable. It just exists.
Score: 4.5
"My Brother Knows Everything" (Pedrad, Stone, Samberg): Another forgettable sketch. Nasim Pedrad plays a teenager (of course) who thinks her brother knows everything and relays to the Internet all of his advanced knowledge. I love Pedrad, but she plays way too many of these types of characters and they all have the exact same voice.
Score: 4.0
"The View" (Pedrad, Thompson, Stone, Wiig, Armisen): Wow, let me get this straight: In the last couple of weeks there's an incident where Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg storm off of The View while Bill O'Reilly is a guest. Now, add to the fact that SNL actually does a sketch about the View. What do we get? A Lindsay Lohan joke. Just awful, and a missed opportunity.
Score: 3.5
"Dream Home Extreme" (Wiig, Stone): Wiig plays the host for Dream Home Extreme who is upset because the winner of a new dream home, Stone, doesn't react excitedly like the past winners do (including Jay Pharoah, who of course answers the door with his penis hanging out). Basically an opportunity for Kristen Wiig to mug for the camera for a few minutes.
Score: 3.0
The Ugly
**"Obama-Harry Reid Cold Open (Armisen, Brittain): Obama joins Harry Reid at a campaign rally, Reid insults Obama in order to show the audience that they're not friends. Look, this sketch on it's own is fine, it's just that in a world that includes Christine O'Donnell and the "Rent is Too Damn High" guy, this seems like a really lame choice for the cold open. Plus, Armisen as Obama, it needs to end. SNL hires Jay Pharoah, who does an outstanding Obama, and it's going to waste. My favorite part of this sketch: Watching Pharoah in the background as an extra, just eyeing Armisen. There's no way he's not thinking, what the hell is this guy doing playing Obama?
Score: 2.0
Average Score For This Show: 5.88
Weekly Host Scorecard:
· Amy Poehler 6.04
· Emma Stone 5.88
· Bryan Cranston 5.79
· Jane Lynch 5.31
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Comments
This was by far my favorite episode of the season. I thought the "Les Junes de Paris" sketch was brilliant. Why don't they do more weird stuff like that? I also really enjoyed the “My Brother Knows Everything” and "Dream Home Extreme" sketches.
Emma Stone was great! I loved her monologue, it was by far the best intro of the season. Im not sure why you think that taking questions from fake audience members is only used when the writers cant think of anything else to do? Im willing to bet you have nothing to base that on other than the fact that you think it is lazy writing. Just because it is 'the easy way out' in your eyes doesn't mean it's not funny. You cant tell me that Andy Samberg didn't make you laugh your ass off, that shit was priceless.
Emma killed it imo.
"Im not sure why you think that taking questions from fake audience members is only used when the writers cant think of anything else to do? Im willing to bet you have nothing to base that on other than the fact that you think it is lazy writing."
Why do people write things like this?
A pretty bad show overall, they didn't give Emma much to work with. In an interview, Lorne Michaels said that after the open he always starts with the strongest sketch. Really? Another Kristen Wiig oddball character? Enough already. And Nasim playing another awkward kid? Jesus, the other players must roll their eyes each week when she introduces her new big idea ("Last week I played a nine-year-old but this week I'll do a ten-year-old!"). I, too, liked "Sex Ed," but I'm sure Lorne will now beat it to death every week.
As noted above, I liked the monologue.
For me this was simply a hot mess of a show until Weekend Update with Hader as Stefon. It's so outrageously random, coupled with Hader never making it through the bit sans smile, I can't help but find it amusing. Sex Ed Vincent came out of nowhere and I love it but overall it was a disappointing show.
So far I've only watched up to Update, glad to hear it gets better after that. And no, the cold open was not fine on it's own as a sketch. It just wasn't funny. At all.
What is the name of the song played in the sketch "Les Jeunes de Paris”?
The Souping thing was awesome. Anything that makes fun of the mainstream media and how they're fear mongering tragedy-junkies is good in my book. Glad to see it graded so high here.
The song from Les Jeunes de Paris is called
"Ta Douleur" by Camille....