Saturday Night Live Season 39 Reviews - Episode 20 - Charlize Theron / The Black Keys

"One man's trash is another man's cat"

Cold Open: A Mother's Day Message From Michelle Obama And Hillary Clinton

1 Star

Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama address the nation on Mother's Day

First reaction, I love hearing Don Pardo introduce this.  Man, I miss his voice setting up a sketch.  SNL just hasn't sounded the same without him.  We get Sasheer as Michelle Obama and...Vanessa as Hillary Clinton?  Not sure who I like more as the former first lady/senator/secretary of state/presidential candidate, Vanessa or Kate but this gives us a glimpse at what could have been.  Michelle and Hillary undercut one another with backhanded compliments until this sketch ends.  Sasheer doesn't have a very strong Michelle Obama, Vanessa doesn't really have a strong Hillary, this isn't a very strong sketch, but for the second week in a row Sasheer gets to join in on the "Live from New York...".

Charlize Theron Monologue

3 Stars
Charlize sings about how she can’t sing

The last time Charlize hosted she appeared in a Gemini’s Twin sketch but did very little singing.  Since she can’t sing, the cast sings a song about how terrible she is at singing but how great she is at everything else.   Not the greatest monologue but Charlize is coming off charming as all Hell.

Come Do A Game Show With Your Mom, It'll Be Fun, Yes It Will!

4 Stars

Mom hosts a game show with her kids

Kate plays a mother who asks her kids question about that actor she likes and which of her friends she hates.  It’s a game show sketch which makes it feel lazy but it’s smartly written and won me over with its charm.  I especially got a kick out of the dad round where Bobby just asks “How you doing?  You doing good?”.

Girlfriends Talk Show

1 Star

The girlfriends interview their drama teacher

My first reaction to seeing this is “Aw, fuck!”.  But then I think maybe Charlize can save this.  But pretty quickly I realize that I get bored with recurring characters, I get bored of talk show sketches, and this is both and I’m bored.

HBO First Look - Dragon Babies

3 Stars

A disgraced cop voices a cartoon

Mike plays a retired police officer who is voicing a cowardly dragon in a new CGI cartoon.  For some reason they animate everything he says, even when he’s coughing or talking about the cheese on his sandwich.  We come to learn that he is the AA sponsor of the director and that’s how he got the job.  A nice character piece for Mike but it was hard to laugh when we find out that the reason he’s not on the force anymore is because he shot an unarmed kid.  You need to handle that kind of thing just right and I don’t feel like this sketch did.

Dating Seminar

4 Stars

Heshi and her friend Gail motivate single women

Heshi becomes recurring just in time for Nasim to leave the show.  Not that I’m complaining, I think recurring characters work best when they are confined to a season.  Target Lady exists throughout the Kristen Wiig era but Heshi and Shallon are unique to Season 39 and I know this is the only season I’ll have with them, so it makes it seem a little more special.  I freakin’ love Heshi and I don’t know why.  Nasim brags about how good she is doing with men (making eye contact with one last night) while timing her pelvic thrusts to sound effects.  This time she’s brought along Charlize as the equally sad but optimistic Gail.

The Black Keys

"Fever"

Weekend Update

At one point Colin says they have some breaking nudes.  Cecily corrects him to say breaking news but Colin insists that he was correct.  He then throws to video of naked men break dancing.  When they come back they both just shrug off what just happened like it’s a really stupid bit.  I, on the other hand, was shouting at my screen that this is the kind of stupidity they need more of.  The Jay Leno monologue style jokes ain’t working for me but random bits of absurdity always will.

Speaking of things that ain’t working for me, what the Hell is Barbara Walters doing here?  We get a clip package of Gilda, Rachel Dratch, Cheri Oteri, and Nasim doing impressions of the TV journalist before the woman herself stops by.  For a woman who has made her career reading off teleprompters you’d think she’d be a little more comfortable on camera.  She is stiff and awkward and seems like she’s reading these words for the very first time.  She’s here because she’s retiring but why should fans of SNL care?  Because other ladies did an impression of her?  This all seems really unnecessary.

Drunk Uncle shows up to talk about graduations.  Something was missing from this one and I don’t think it was Seth Meyers.  This segment just felt off and an awkward ending didn’t help matters.  Not really sure what happened but Cecily starts to say “No, no, no” and we awkwardly pan out.

Bikini Beach Party

4 Stars

Teens serenade each other next to a dead whale

Taran thinks Charlize is really keen and he’d like to sing a song for her tonight.  He’s picked out a romantic spot, right next to the dead whale that’s filled with combustible methane gas.  We all know what’s going to happen as we wait for an exploding whale while Taran sings, but it still packs a huge laugh when the two of them get covered in whale guts.  It gets better when they decide to take cover next to the other dead whale on the beach.  If only they hadn’t ruined the ending by having Kenan come out and awkwardly sing a song. While we’re at it,  his eccentric fisherman character seems like a role Brooks was born to play.  Why do Kenan and Kate keep getting thankless roles this season when there’s so many newbies starving for airtime?  A weak ending hurts but this still gave me a huge laugh and gave us this next live TV moment as Charlize introduces the musical guest still covered in blood.

The Black Keys return with "Bullet In The Brain"

Whiskers R' We

4 Stars

Awkward women show off cats ready for adoption

The debut of a recurring character for Kate.  She shows off a collection of cats with odd quirks, one is a jewel thief, another only eats bald eagles, and another is a feline sociopath, while Charlize awkwardly tries to hit on her.  A lot of great lines in here and I know I will one day find this character repetitive and overdone but for now, I really enjoyed this one.

Tourists

4 Stars

Foreigners accost people on the streets

Another piece this season that includes unscripted reactions.  I always like seeing New York City in the pre-taped material and this worked along the same lines as Kyle’s earlier Super Champions bit.  Kyle, Kate, Beck, Jay, Bobby and Charlize all act like lost tourists and interact with passersby.  I enjoyed all the different bits, especially Bobby asking a woman for directions before giving her directions.

FINAL ANALYSIS

"I'm blind with whale guts"

Average

3.1 Stars

MVP
Charlize is the reason this episode is as good as it is, but from the cast I'll go with

Nasim Pedrad
Dragon Babies, Dating Seminar, Bikini Beach Party

Best Sketch

Bikini Beach Party

Worst Sketch

Girlfriends Talk Show

How I Would Have Lorne Michaels-ed It

We gotta talk about the cut for time sketches in this one.  They released at least 4 sketches online that were cut after dress rehearsal.  There was another Mornin' Miami (complete with another Topher Grace shout out), a filmed piece that parodied Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, a sketch with Charlize and Cecily as pageant queens turned lawyers, and a John Milhiser sketch (damn, so close) where he plays a little man who acts like Sylvester Stallone in Cobra.  These varied in quality but they were all better than another installment of Girlfriends Talk Show.  Cut the girlfriends, cut Barbara Walters and let me see some Milhiser for once.
Host Analysis

A pure delight.  I loved her in every thing she appeared in and she almost, almost, made Girlfriends Talk Show enjoyable.  Alas, there are some things insurmountable for even the great Charlize.  No matter how beautiful and talented she is, she can't make me care for a tired sketch I've seen too many times.

Final Thoughts

A definite step up in quality from the previous two shows and one of the more enjoyable episodes of the season.  Charlize had a lot to do with that because I can guarantee that if you threw another host in these same sketches I wouldn't have liked them as much.  There was some really good stuff here though.  The only things I flat out disliked were the cold open, Barbara Walters and Girlfriends Talk Show.  Everything else had something to like, even if I found the sketch forgettable on the whole.  We get the premiere of Whiskers R' We which will of course grow tiresome but we don't know that yet.  The Tourists piece was very well done.  I got one last appearance from Heshi and Bikini Beach Party had me laughing out loud at its sight gag.  This would have made a great final episode of the season so they could go out on a high note because, spoiler alert, the last episode of this season is one of the worst.  Speaking of which...

Up Next
Our season finale hosted by SNL alum Andy Samberg (and basically the entire cast of Season 37, have fun waving at the goodnights John, Noel, Brooks and Mike).