“You can hear in my voice that I'm white”
Cold Open: Trump's People
2 Stars
Trump speaks to his supporters in a rural town. He keeps cutting programs they depend on (healthcare, federal rehab programs) but they continue to support him because they're dumb hillbillies. Even though it's broken up with questions from the audience it's still basically a "President talks directly to camera" cold open which have never been a favorite of mine.
Louis C.K. Monologue
4 Stars
Louis tells jokes about racist chickens, giraffes, sex with goats, dirty motels vs. fancy hotels, and white privilege. Could be in the wrong mood but I feel like Louis has done better monologues. Still funny.
Lawyer Lashes
2 Stars
This had a little bit going for it but fumbled hard at the finish line. Louis is a lawyer with long, luxurious eyelashes. His lashes hypnotize the judge, the witness, and the jury. Fine premise, decent execution, but the punchline is just Louis looking into camera while a Maybelline graphic is displayed. The weakness of the ending ruined any goodwill I had.
Thank You, Scott
5 Stars
A triumphant anthem for the man who solved all of the world's problems by re-posting articles on Facebook for his 84 friends to read and putting 'Black Lives Matter' in his Twitter bio. Fun dig at people who post things on social media and think it changes anyone's opinion. Loved the doves flying around him as he lays on the couch staring at his phone and being raised to the heavens while sitting on the toilet. The song is catchy too, it's been stuck in my head all day.
Soda Fountain
2 Stars
Another one with a good premise that just falls apart at the end. The thought of Louis as a 1950's soda jerk asking a young girl to a school dance is just the kind of creepy and taboo sketch I'm looking for in a Louis C.K. episode. Louis takes Cecily on a test run of what their date would be like, complete with shooting passersby who object to their relationship. Then Leslie walks in to completely flub a line and giggle at herself for doing so and things just crash and burn. Turns out everyone is aware that Louis is a pervert and they only come to his shop to tease him and feel powerful when he hits on young ladies. Then Louis cuts his hand on a jukebox and we fade to black. I was enjoying this right up to the point where Leslie walks in and then I forgot everything I initially liked about the sketch.
Pepsi Commercial
3 Stars
I remember this from when I first saw this episode but wasn't sure how it would hold up years later. The sketch provides enough context but it does lack the freshness of airing the week of the controversy. For backstory, Pepsi came out with a commercial set during a protest. Cops have guns drawn at black people and Kendall Jenner hands them a Pepsi and basically solves racism with a delicious soft drink. Obviously everyone thought this ad was completely tone-deaf. This sketch follows Beck as the director of the commercial learning just minutes before the shoot that the commercial is just using the struggles of black people to sell soda. He calls his wife, his friend, his black neighbor, and they all tell him not to do it. Everyone but Kendall Jenner is against it, she thinks it's a cute idea. Well edited and good performance from Beck.
The Chainsmokers
"Paris"
Weekend Update
Cecilia Giminez makes her 3rd appearance talking about the bust she made of Renaldo after she previously showed terrible portraits she made of Jesus and someone else I can't remember. Most of the jokes come from how horrifying the statue looks. I don't recall Cecilia being overly flirtatious with Colin in the other installments but to be fair, I barely remember this character.
The O'Reilly Factor
2 Stars
Alec plays Bill O'Reilly talking about the big scandal in the news. Not his own sexual assault allegations but the Obama administration. A few fun things, Cecily reporting from a parking lot exactly 500 yards away from Bill and the show's new sponsors of Dog Cocaine, Cialis For Horses, and the movie CHIPS. But the majority of this is reserved to have Alec talk to Alec as Bill interviews Trump via satellite. A novel idea but didn't really pack any punch after the reveal. Kinda funny that at this time there were more than several people who were not enjoying Alec on SNL so the show decides to literally double down and give us two Alecs in the same sketch.
Birthday Clown
4 Stars
Bobby arrives to a house as a birthday clown and is surprised to see the party is for an adult man who has invited no other guests. This was a very funny piece with a lot of great awkward comedy moments, Louis getting up to pee in the middle of the act made me laugh. Also enjoyed Bobby's performance and the ending where Louis flat out tells him that he's going to chop him up into little pieces and put him in his fridge. Downside of this sketch, it was apparently stolen from a short film made by Tig Notaro, who had worked with Louis in the past and claims he was well aware of the short's existence. Having seen both this and the original short I fall on Tig's side. There's way too many similarities, not counting the premise itself. Weird that Louis would be involved in this considering his own public "joke stealing" feud with Dane Cook. Not knowing anything about the gestation of this piece I would like to side with ignorance or parallel thinking or maybe someone saw the short late at night and then wrote it thinking they came up with the idea themselves. I hate to think that it's flat out thievery but it very well could have been. Still, I'm going 4 stars because it's good and watching the show live I had no idea it was ripping off someone else. Not like this show is nearing classic status anyway, this 4 star rating just evens out the duds we've gotten so far.
Sectional Sofa Emporium
4 Stars
Louis stars in a commercial declaring his love of sectional sofas. He speaks very grandiose about a couch you can connect to another couch to make an even bigger couch. Then it gets great when we find out that this isn't a commercial. This is just a guy who bought a lot of sectional sofas, lost his family in the process, and bought a store to show off his collection of sectional sofas. Please don't come into the store though, none of his sofas are for sale. He just wants to be left alone with his loves.
The Chainsmokers return with "Break Up Every Night"
Tenement Museum
2 Stars
Students tour a 1913 tenement apartment complete with actors re-creating what live was like back then. Louis and Kate play the actors and they almost immediately start breaking due to Louis's terrible accent work. The sketch then just turns into a lot of jokes about greasy Italians which didn't work for me. I know some people love it when actors start giggling during sketches. You'll see little to no love for that from me.
“Compared to you, MLK didn't do shit at all”
Average
3 Stars
MVP
Aidy Bryant
Trump's People, Lawyer Lashes, Soda Fountain, Sectional Sofa Emporium
Best Sketch
Thank You, Scott
Worst Sketch
Tenement Museum
How I Would Have Lorne Michaels-ed It
I would swap out the Cold Open for The O'Reilly Factor then add something else that was cut from dress. I also don't like Lawyer Lashes as a lead off sketch but I'm not sure what you could replace it with, maybe Tenement Museum. Having that at the beginning of the show may prevent the giggling. Then you could end the show with Sectional Sofa Emporium or Soda Fountain. Also, The Chainsmokers didn't do anything for me.
Host Analysis
Other than his Season 39 episode I haven't watched any of his other ones since they originally aired but I'm tempted to say this was his weakest both in overall quality and his performances. He only appeared in 4 live sketches and outside of Sectional Sofa Emporium I wasn't crazy about any of them. His stiff and awkward delivery works well in sketches like Soda Fountain but I think he actively derailed Tenement Museum (not that it had much going for it in the first place).
Final Thoughts
Not abysmal or even bad but certainly a letdown. I remember when Louis C.K. first hosted, I was so excited. He'd been my favorite stand up for a while at that point and I thought his first show was hilarious. Even the terrible sketches felt so uniquely him that I loved all of it. After that I looked forward to my yearly Louis show. This, his last one for a multitude of reasons, didn't pack the same punch. Nothing in it felt specific to him. This episode could have been hosted by John Goodman and had the same feel. Looking at the sketches, there's not really anything I would recommend as a must watch. Thank You, Scott and Sectional Sofa Emporium are both fun, Pepsi Commercial is good but really only works during the week it was relevant, Birthday Clown is great but tainted, even the monologue isn't close to what I expect from him. A 3 Star average is perfectly appropriate. I didn't hate anything, I didn't love anything, but I wanted it all to be better.
Up Next
Jimmy Fallon returns to host for the 3rd time and we get the first episode broadcast live simultaneously on both coasts.
No comments:
Post a Comment