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Beacon of joy Anne Hathaway returns to host Saturday Night Live with musical guest Rihanna. Does Anne Hathaway fair better performing on stage without having James Franco along side her in drag? Find the answer to that and the rest of life’s questions in this review!

Cold Open: Saturday Night Live hasn’t relied on politics very much this season, and given the few times it has that’s probably for the best. That being said, this was one of the better one’s we’ve gotten. I liked the low-key vibe of the sketch and how it focused mostly on Romney and his milk-binging. While Bobby Moynihan didn’t serve much of a purpose as Karl Rove besides getting thrown off of a building, Taran Killam was great as three of Romney’s sons, as was Kate McKinnon as Ann. Mitt Romney ended up providing some good material for the show but now that he’s gone it’ll be interesting to see how Saturday Night Live does having to focus on President Obama. Hopefully they can find a way to make him work on the show. Still, this was a good opening and nice end to the political portion of the season. Score: 9 out of 10.

Monologue: This was mostly a waiting game to see how long it would take before there was a song, and it took about a minute. Having all the cast come out and sing was nice, and the sing itself was pretty good too. The monologues never offer anything great and mostly seem like they’re thrown together at this last minute, so this fared pretty well in comparison. Overall, this could be summed up as “That Was Nice”. Score: 7 out of 10.

Girlfriends Talk Show: What would happen when Saturday Night Live combines the two new female cast members they don’t know how to use? The result is a sketch that is much better than its name suggests. The premise isn’t anything new – one friend is jealous of a new girl who has taken her friend – but the writing and performances sold it. I’m still not the biggest fan of Cecily Strong but this is the best Aidy Brandt has been on the show, and Hathaway was great, as she is in everything. Score: 8 out of 10.

The Legend of Mokiki: With The Digital Shorts gone Saturday Night Live has gone back to the Adam McKay days of pre-taped shorts and so far they’re working wonderfully. This is an insane premise that is still funny for no particular reason. I have no idea what was happening but Taran Killam’s dance and blank stare were hypnotic, and Anne Hathaway was great, as she is in everything. Score: 8 out of 10.

Homeland: I’m sure this works well if you’ve seen Homeland, but since I’m someone who’s only seen the pilot, most of the sketch was lost on me. Still, I can appreciate some of the jokes, along with Anne Hathaway’s overly-committed performance and Taran Killam’s tight mouth. And once again, Hathaway was great, as she is in everything. Score: 6 out of 10.

McDonald’s: Your enjoyment of this sketch depends on how much you enjoy listening to Bobby Moynihan and Cecily Strong yelling, yet for this most part this worked on me. I wouldn’t put much effort into defending this against anyone who didn’t like it, but I enjoyed hearing insults for a couple of minutes. Score: 7 out of 10.

Weekend Update: Would Obama’s win give Seth Meyers some fire? Thankfully yes. It didn’t take long before he ushered Obama out and we actually got to see some life in Pharaoh. If they could maintain the quality I’d rather see him continue to pop up in brief appearances on Update than have his own sketch, because he works better playing off someone. Despite Bill Hader’s inherit greatness the fishermen didn’t do much for me, but we got the reliable Drunk Uncle to close out. Unlike a lot of callback characters Drunk Uncle hasn’t lost his drunken charm just yet and I enjoyed his political ramblings. Score: 7 out of 10.

Ellen: After Kate McKinnon debuted her great Ellen Degeneres impression I knew it would take long before she put into a sketch. Speaking of impressions, Anne Hathaway brought back her great Katie Holmes for the twenty seconds she was out there. That’s my main criticism of the sketch – it was funny but way too short. I don’t want the sketch to drag on until it loses steam but I’d like it to last longer than two minutes. Still, what we got was funny, and compared to what normally happens after Weekend Update, I’ll take it. Score: 6 out of 10.

American Gothic: This continues the trend of surprisingly not sucking post-Update. Anne Hathaway and Jason Sudekis were great and goofy together and made the best of a fun premise. This was funny throughout and built up to a perfect ending. Score: 9 out of 10.

Flaritin: For the end of the episode this was weak. “People make up allergies” wasn’t an original premise and given Saturday Night Live’s success with fake commercials in the past this should have been canned. Score: 4 out of 10.

Final Thoughts:

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this episode. I knew Anne Hathaway would be great, as she is in everything, but I didn’t expect her to have the best top-to-bottom episode of the season. There have been episodes with better sketches – even some that scored higher – but this was easily the most consistent. Next week is Jeremy Renner, whose style doesn’t exactly gel with Saturday Night Live’s. Hopefully it’ll be a good one.

Sketch of the Night: American Gothic

MVP: No one really stood out tonight so I’ll give it to Taran Killam for his great reaction shots.

Loose Ends:

“Donald Trump is doing a very amusing thing where he’s racist.”

“Yeah it looks like clothes dead women are found in.”

“If you wanted a House of Representatives you built it yourself.”

“So I didn’t go to Electoral College, okay?”

-Jeremy