Sarah Silverman returns to 30 Rock to host SNL for the first time. Silverman wrote and performed on the show for one season before being let go. How did her victory lap go? Let’s find out.

Silverman returns to the show that let her go in the early 90’s after one season where zero of her sketches made the air. With hindsight being 20/20 it is clear that SNL probably should have given her a season or two more before making the decision to let her go. Silverman has become one of the most dynamic and sharp-witted comediennes of the past decade. It has to be good for her to be able to return to the place where she most likely had one of her first “Was getting in to comedy the right decision?” moments in her life. Now over 20 years later, like a breakup with a bad boyfriend, she can look back and know confidently that it was them and not her. When accomplished stand up and sketch comedians come on the show, it is always a treat. (Melissa McCarthy, Will Ferrell, etc) It is no surprise to me that Silverman brought her “A” game to this show. While the episode wasn’t perfect it was a huge leap in the right direction for the show. Whether it was having a week’s production under their belts, or having a confident sketch performer like Silverman hosting, I thoroughly enjoyed this episode.

Cold Open – 60 Minutes

Jay Pharoah’s Barack Obama continues to be one of the most spot on impersonations of a president since Darryl Hammond’s Bill Clinton. Mannerisms, voice, Pharoah has got BO down to a science. As soon as I saw the White House set and Pharoah in his presidential attire, I knew that the sketch was probably going to be about the recent security concerns. The writers threw us a curveball and made the premise about ISIS and their scary social media know-how. When writing comedy dealing with such a scary and touchy subject the only way to not be awful is to take things into the land of absurdity. The writers accomplished this with some pretty great gags on how ISIS is secretly invading our social media with tweets like “One day the black flag of ISIS will fly over the White House #theVoiceisBack” or “We will destroy the infidels #thankyoujeter”. There were some great jokes here, but one thing bugs me about Jay Pharoah’s Obama. We don’t really see him playing a character at all. What made Will Ferrell’s George W. Bush, or Dana Carvey’s Bush Sr. so iconic was that it was more than just an impression. What makes Jordan Peele’s Obama so much funnier is that he is a character. SNL, unchain Jay Pharoah and let him get his freaky Obama on! Heck Dave Chapelle even had a black president character when BO was still sitting in the Senate in Illinois with more Nuance than Pharoah’s version.

Monologue

Ok, Silverman knocked this one out of the park. You knew this was going to be good, stand up is what SS can do. With her past of having been unceremoniously dumped from the show, before she even really got to show off her comedic talent, this felt like a victory lap to me. She plugged her HBO special, her knowledge of Judaism, and her trademark “blue style” in the monologue. Silverman had a lot of good jokes and felt pretty natural with the crowd, which makes sense as she does this kind of thing for a living. Things really kicked into high gear when she sat in the lap of a very nice lady in the front row named Lindsey. Silverman proceeded to give the clearly surprised woman some life advice and then heavily fished her for compliments. This definitely felt live and unrehearsed, Lindsey definitely wasn’t a plant. After the compliments, she continued her stand up routine from the woman’s lap before moving on to take some questions from “the crowd”. Answering questions from “the crowd” is an SNL tradition where they have writers or featured performers stand in the crowd and ask fake questions of the host. Though.. back in 1993, Sarah did some of this as a featured performer. Closing the loop in time, Sarah was able to answer her own questions from the 1993 version of herself. I loved that idea, I don’t know if they have done this with any other ex-cast members before, but it was really funny. This was particularly great because the questions were definitely meant for someone else “What are you going to do now that you have left Wilson Phillips?” This was smart and funny, and an excellent start to what turned out to be a very solid episode.

The Fault in Our Stars 2

A parody of the popular teen-romance/tragedy novel by John Green which was made into a film earlier this year. Fault in our Stars’ original plot had a terminal cancer stricken teen falling in love with a cancer surviving teen whom she met at a support group. The source material is all very emotional and heart-touching (this is my made up term for heart warming). SNL decided to make a joke about cancer.. by making a joke about another horrible disease… Ebola. Touchy territory here, but it worked. Thumbs up go to Taran Killam’s reaction faces and the reveal of the full title “The Fault in Our Stars 2: The Ebola in our Everything”. “If Doctors know so much, then how come my doctor is dead.. from Ebola?” I liked this sketch because it had that real gut punch I was looking for, but they went in a different direction than I was expecting I was expecting Silverman to go the route of “I just like breathing air out of this tube thingy” and be perfectly healthy, or something of that nature, but they took a more topical route. I loved the absurdity of the idea of Killam’s boyfriend character still feeling obligated to stick around this dying girl, but not wanting to get.. Ebola. I mean, how long does she have left anyway? Fun stuff, a great sketch to start off the show.

Joan Rivers

This one didn’t really hit for me. I think that the premise here is solid. Imagine Joan Rivers bringing her trademark roast-style comedy to heaven to have a toast with the celebrities in heaven? Great right? People can do impressions, you can make some blue quality jokes, this should be an easy win right? Things just didn’t work out. They didn’t really have an idea where they wanted to go with this sketch. You could tell that everyone had impressions that they wanted to do, and jokes that Silverman could tell about those celebrities. For instance, to Freddie Mercury (played by musical guest Adam Levine) “You are so gay, even your teeth aren’t straight!” (excellent use of prop teeth here). Easy targets here, but there wasn’t really a plot or substance. I really REALLY enjoyed Bobby Moynihan’s version of Benjamin Franklin. I guess Benjamin Franklin is just one of those guys who is an easy laugh. “I don’t even know what you are talking about” while laughing so hard he can barely speak. Silverman’s impression here was so-so, but passable. I was hoping for something deeper from this sketch plot wise. Maybe we could have seen Joan on the red carpet to the pearly gates? When you create a scene you need a good who, what, where and why. I couldn’t figure out the “why” in this sketch, other than to do some impressions.

Whites

You know an SNL fake ad is good when it fools you into thinking it was a real ad. Train’s “Soul Sister” has been used in so many ads that when I heard the first few guitar plucks I went to typical commercial mode to check my phone. It took me a few seconds to realize this was actually a sketch. Good use of music here, especially when you are doing a political/campaign ad for white people? I love that this ad didn’t try to identify itself as anything, just a reason for us whites to celebrate the last few years we have left on top. “Till at least 2050… 2060 tops”. They did a “stuff white people say” kind of joke about hiking and camping that was pretty good. I think they could have gone with a third mention of hiking and camping for the comedy trinity though. Really enjoyed the absurdity of this one. Watch it, one of my favorite SNL ads in a while.

Forgotten Television Gems

I liked the idea of this sketch, but I guess I didn’t particularly like the pacing of it. Cutting out to a host to set up elaborate clips from an ancient defunct soap opera, where the women are actually nice to each other, was not particularly elegant. I am sure it was necessary to have these cuts to do scene changes live backstage, but it didn’t really work live. The cuts would have worked better if Kenan Thompson wasn’t straight up killing it as clip show host Reese De’what. I could have watched an entire sketch of that character ranting about anything and everything. Favorite lines from De’What: “Audiences tuned in in whatever the opposite of droves is” and “My wife wanted me to ask her “what did you do today” I said, I don’t know.. fit your ass into the car? …. worst anniversary ever.” Kate Mckinnon has been seriously underutilized this season, and it is a damn shame. Her awkward Hispanic cleaning lady character stood out in this sketch. I took particular joy in watching her execute a death grimace.

Weekend Update

Things in Weekend Update land felt a lot more solid this week. Michael Che definitely felt more at home behind the desk, and both he and Colin Jost continued the tradition of having the segment of the show with the most guaranteed chuckles. I love Weekend Update, it has always been one of my favorite segments, and Jost/Che are probably going to do just fine. When talking about Ebola, Che had one of my favorite lines of the night “Who goes to Texas AND Africa?”. The Reverend Al Sharpton came to discuss his ideas on how the white house could increase security. His plans involved having an elderly lady summoning a smelly wino with a mimicked bird call to scare away any trespassers. Kenan is killing it tonight! Thompson has a particular way of delivery that is perfect for these weird rants that his characters go on. We saw him flex this comedic talent with Reese De’What earlier and his Ray Rice impression from last week. Give Keenan some zany dialogue and an impression, and you got a funny 2 minutes. McKinnon and Silverman then joined the desk with some feminist singer characters. It was o.k. but I felt like the characters were a bit one-note, and Silverman’s choice to be an airy flower-child didn’t help the sketch much. Choosing a detached character in a sketch can be really tough as it forces the other people in the scene to give your character power by doing weird things that you don’t react to. Characters like these need a full scene to build the crazy to a level that gets laughs. Their song had some fun lines, but it didn’t really move to a punch-line to end the segment. WU was definitely improved from last week, and I look forward to the future of the premiere Saturday Night comedy news show.

Proud Mary

This sketch rocked! It is a shame that it isn’t available online, but I suppose singing the CCR classic “Proud Mary” was a rights issue online. The premise involved a group of three women nightclub entertainers singing “Proud Mary” on a crappy Nebraskan river-boat cruise. Each of the singers took a break during the song to make an aside to the audience of what interesting or terrible circumstances got them a gig working on a river-boat in armpit of Nebraska. Cecily Strong’s character was an ex-google employee that wanted to live her dream as a performer.. wondering now why she was so excited for this job. She bragged to her friends about this gig! Shaseer Zamata’s character was paying off her husband’s buffet bill, and Sarah Silverman’s character was stuck in a 90 month contract (You see, months seem like a short time, but 90 months is actually like seven and a half years). It isn’t all bad for Sarah’s singer character, as she is able to get some exercise on the boat.. by screaming. Kenan played an emcee character that was also stuck on the boat in less than ideal circumstances. Being in trouble with the parks department over a bear he was keeping in his home, Kenan’s character was unable to set foot on land. “Every time we pull up into a port they are there.. waiting for me, I just stand here waving right the hell back!” I really dug this sketch, great character work overall in a very fun premise.

Doing some research it seems that at best the sketch was heavily influenced by a Groundlings sketch, by members Kimberly Condict and Vanessa Ragland, and at worst the premise and overall execution was ripped off wholesale. (there is a clip of the sketch there… watch it, it is funny) 2 weeks in a row with some “borrowed” sketches. Oh boy.

Backseat Proposal

This live sketch is also not available online. Two of my favorite sketches of the night aren’t available for repeat viewings. I liked this sketch a lot. The sketch took a small concept, like a surprise proposal in a car, to some crazy places. The premise is that Sarah Silverman returned from Italy to be picked up by her brother from the airport. She reveals that she cheated on her boyfriend… who pops up from the backseat to admit he was just going to propose to her. Awkward! The timing in this sketch was impeccable, as things continued to get off the rails when Sarah’s parents emerged from the backseat after things started getting awkward. Excellent pacing here, it felt like every time things were running on a bit long another person appeared from the backseat to enter the scene. Adam Levine also popped up, as he was supposed to sing their favorite song as he proposed. Adam Levine gets bored and hungry for Pizza Hut and ditches the car to be immediately run over by a semi. In an SNL (and live comedy tradition) his dummy body was thrown across the hood of the car. You got to love a good sight gag like that. While I enjoyed the characters and overall bottle-episode aspect of the car-ride, the sketch didn’t really have an ending.

Poem

In my notes this sketch was called “Weird Sketch”. This pre-recorded scene was no doubt another Beck Bennett/Kyle Moody joint. The premise is that the characters do that thing in movies where they start finishing each others sentences as the music swells and they fall in love. Moody spies Silverman reading a hipster novel in a park and they strike up a conversation about their interests as the music swells. In this instance, however, Moody’s geeky guy is confronted by the boyfriend, who was just out of frame. The boyfriend and Moody have a moment where they finish each others thoughts about getting beaten up. “I am going to… ” “Kick my butt?”

I am really digging the Moody/Bennett connection going on in the show this year. The sketch Bad Boys from last week and this one really stood out in the shows. Both ran pretty late in the night, which hopefully means that the writers are letting these two put up their sketches in the post weekend update slots. The late night slots are often reserved for some of the more experimental (and funny) sketches. I hope that they continue to keep putting out these weird sketches every week. This particular sketch wasn’t really perfect, but I dug the direction it was going in. The absurd idea of people having those movie moments in real life is pretty funny, but I don’t think you could carry an entire sketch on that concept. SNL, Keep letting these guys put sketches on the air, they are going to hit something great soon.

Vitamix

The final sketch of the night had “friends” Sarah Silverman and Vanessa Bayer returning home from an unspecified exercise session. Bayer was quick to show off her new blender, an absurdly expensive Vitamix model, to her friend. The sketch quickly devolved into Silverman’s hatred of how Vanessa Bayer’s character was throwing her wealth up into the faces of all of her friends. This sketch was completely down to earth, and I loved it. One of the best things you can do in a sketch is keep things grounded. The best comedy comes from a real place, and I think we all know someone like Bayer’s character… lording their riches over us all. When you learn how to do improv, you strive to make scenes like this one. Two characters who define themselves throughout the scene get into a conflict over something that is deeply personal. This is good sketch writing 101. Loved it.

Wrap-up

This was a very solid episode. After watching the episode, I felt like I was able to breathe a sigh of relief. Last week had me scared that we were going to be treated to another dark period of SNL. We always end up having these dark periods when transitioning from old casts to new casts when popular performers leave the show. In the early nineties we saw a nasty transition from the Carvey to the Farley era (wherein Silverman was a casualty in the writer’s room). The less said about the ill fated Joe Piscipo era, the better. To be successful things need to keep moving forward, and the show needs to continue to commit to the new cast members and trust the new sketches. When we sit back on our heels and have sketches like the Joan Rivers one, nothing is moving forward. We a need a show full of “Whites” quality fake ads and more Bennett/Moody sketches. I hope that they let Bennett and Moody have a sketch each week akin to Andy Samberg’s consistently funny “Digital Shorts” If SNL is going to transition to its new cast, they need someone to be positioned as the star of the show. Nobody has really stepped into the power vacuum left by Wiig/Samberg/Hader and I don’t see anyone close to their level. Someone to create a new memorable SNL character that can stand out and give us 2-3 good sketches a season. Now is the time for a new classic. Last week I was worried that the new cast and writers wouldn’t be up to the task. Week one was full of one note sketches and characters where their character is the accent. These are not good sketches, these are lazy time-fillers. This week, the things that stood out to me were the excellent live sketches, and Kenan’s character performances. Maybe Kenan could step into a larger role on the show? Who knows. I think he could. Next week (for my birthday) we have Bill Hader hosting. This should be a good one.