Saturday Night Live Season 39 Reviews - Episode 18 - Seth Rogen / Ed Sheeran

"Drugs are like a fun treat for a special occasion”

Cold Open: Coachella

3 Stars

Republicans campaign at Coachella

Jeb Bush, Paul Ryan, Bobby Jindal and Rand Paul try to drum up support from a bunch of fun loving druggies.  They try to make themselves look and sound hip but their awkwardness comes off as just awkward for most of it.  Good on Brooks Wheelan for trying to pull a late season surge.  Two weeks ago he’s playing Harry Styles, a Weekend Update piece last week, and a “Live from New York...” this week.  It’s cute how he thinks he’s still part of the cast.

Seth Rogen Monologue

2 Stars

Seth reads from his journal before welcoming some cameos

Seth reading from his journal was a solid way to make a lot of self deprecating jokes about his drug use, his laugh, his buddy James Franco’s recent Instagram scandal, and the fact that Jay thinks he’s Joe Rogan.  This all would have been a fine monologue but then for no reason Zooey Deschanel, Franco, and Taylor Swift show up so the four of them can stand in a straight line and read off of cue cards.  I still have never read anywhere that people like this sort of thing and yet the show continues to do it week after week.

Drug Safety

3 Stars

Shallon learns to say no to drugs

It’s the last few episodes for Nasim and they are getting their money’s worth.  This marks Shallon’s 3rd and last appearance and even though it’s basically a carbon copy of the first two sketches it’s still fun.  I especially like Bobby in these and John Milhiser makes the most of his few lines specifically when he dreams of growing up to be a crack dealer.

CNN Pregnancy Test

3 Stars

The pregnancy test with false alarms

If I recall, this is based on an actual event where CNN overhyped a story (the Malaysian airline story, perhaps?) but it still works without context.  Beck and Vanessa await news of their pregnancy but instead get bombarded with breaking alerts that there is nothing to report.  Pretty cute.

Steakhouse

1 Star

A man tends to his injured wife

I wasn’t liking this sketch and then Seth farted.  Then I started hating the sketch.  None of this was working for me as Seth helps Aidy with basic tasks due to her two broken arms.  What started as a bad game of Helping Hands turned into a setup for a fart.  The one laugh I did get from this was when John and Brooks came out as the waiters and made the most of a walk-on role by really talking about those steaks.

Monster Pals

5 Stars

A monster searches for his friend

Two monsters are getting hassled at a bar when one says he is thinking of getting plastic surgery.  The other monster worries that he will never see his friend again.  The next day we follow a monster looking for his buddy through the streets of New York City complete with real reactions from people.  When he finally finds his newly transformed friend it turns out to be James Franco, which would have been a surprise if we hadn’t already wasted him in the monologue.  A really nice piece that not only made me laugh but made me feel for the character.

Blue River Dog Food

4 Stars

Dog owners chastise themselves for buying inferior food

Seth and Cecily say that they switched to feeding their dog Blue River dog food after finding it has better ingredients.  That isn’t enough though as Cecily can’t forgive herself for buying the wrong food in the first place.  She also wants someone from the dog food company to apologize.  Cecily is such a strong actor and sells this by playing it completely straight.  The more dramatic she plays it, the funnier it gets.  Sketches like this make me sad that she devolved into breaking and giggling later on in her tenure.  She’s also able to get laughs here while being upstaged by closeups of a cute little pug.

Ed Sheeran
"Sing"

Ed plays acoustic guitar until the chorus and lights come up to reveal his whole band.  This is a damn catchy song.  Love it or hate it, it’s gonna get stuck in your head.

Weekend Update

David Ortiz makes his first of, I believe, 147 appearances.  I don’t get why they keep bringing this back since it hasn’t made sense since this first time.  He was criticized for taking a selfie with Obama with a Samsung phone when he had an endorsement deal with the company.  He talks about other products he endorses like Bats For Bats and Chick-Fil-A.  In subsequent appearances he would be brought out to talk about the World Series only to again bring up funny product names.

Jacob The Bar Mitzvah Boy returns for the 456th time.  I thought partnering him with Cecily would provide some freshness but it’s the exact same bit we’ve seen too many times already.

Engagement Party

1 Star

A cousin hiding a secret

Seth and Vanessa are getting engaged but their party is interrupted by Cecily who is a very loud cousin.  She lets out a secret that Seth once sucked a dick at camp when the dude was sleeping, but that doesn’t make him gay.  I’m trying to figure out why I didn’t like this because I enjoyed Cecily’s character and had fun with Nasim in a silent role.  I think it was because the comedy came from a man being ashamed of who he was.  The fact that he couldn’t be honest with who he was is the joke of the sketch and that bothered me a little.  Plus, like a lot of bad sketches this season, it has no ending and just fades out once they have repeated the joke too many times.

Undercover Sharpton

1 Star

Al Sharpton busts a drug deal

You know, say what you want about Kenan, he does a great Kenan Thompson impression.  If you hadn’t told me this was supposed to be Al Sharpton I would have assumed it was just a dumb Kenan character.  Al Sharpton is undercover but he comically messes up the drug deal by bringing the wrong briefcase.  This was lame sauce.

Ed Sheeran returns with "Don't" which is another catchy tune.

420

2 Stars

A fake stoner celebrates weed

Kyle sings songs and shares traditions of the national weed holiday 420.  It turns out that Kyle’s character doesn’t even smoke and is making all of this up.  I wasn’t sure what they were going for exactly with this one.

Herman & Sons

3 Stars

A sperm bank turns into a yogurt shop

Kenan and Seth are closing the doors on their sperm bank and need to unload their surplus.  They have a lot of hobo sperm and need to move it out before the turn into a TCBY yogurt shop.  Of course this culminates in Seth eating a cup of frozen jizz, did you think something else would happen.

FINAL ANALYSIS

"We are swimming in hobo sperm”

Average

2.5 Stars

MVP

Cecily Strong
Blue River Dog Food, Weekend Update, Engagement Party, Undercover Sharpton

Best Sketch

Monster Pals

Worst Sketch

Steakhouse

How I Would Have Lorne Michaels-ed It

Cut those cameos out of the monologue.  Their not fun and they ruin the surprise of James Franco showing up in Monster Pals.  Move the CNN Pregnancy Test commercial to right after the monologue.  I miss the old days where a fake commercial followed the monologue.  Finally, swap Engagement Party and Steakhouse.  They're both bad sketches but Engagement Party has a little more of a structure and doesn't have a fart as its punchline.  I think that fart turned me off to the episode too early.

Host Analysis

I'll say one positive thing, this felt like a Seth Rogen episode of SNL.  There were a lot of drugs, penises and farts and that was either Seth's influence or the writers catering to his style of humor.  Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing depends on your taste but I thought Seth handled himself fine in sketches and this was leaps and bounds better than the recent Jonah Hill episode.

Final Thoughts

A weak episode with two really good sketches.  Monster Pals and Blue River Dog Food will probably make my best of the year list but everything else in this episode kinda stunk.  The one-two punch of Engagement Party and Undercover Sharpton really killed the back half of the show, and let's not forget the fart that started things off.

Up Next
Andrew Garfield hosts with musical guest Coldplay.  We’re gonna get another celebrity cameo and an introduction to a future cast member.