“I’m gonna need more balls”
Cold Open: Fox And Friends
4 Stars
The Fox and Friends are back getting facts wrong and interviewing Fox president Rupert Murdoch about his ethics violations (which they misinterpret as ethnic violations). As usual we end with a text scrawl of stories they got wrong. Patricia Heaton did not win a Nobel Prize for Everybody Loves Raymond and yellow and blue actually make green and not ‘blellow’.
Eli Manning Monologue
2 Stars
Eli takes some questions from the audience and shows how little he knows about New York (the best restaurant is the Olive Garden, Cats is the best Broadway show). Nice to see they’re still getting mileage out of that Marisa Tomei Season 20 monologue. This same premise has been used at least one other time (Scarlett Johansson maybe? I can’t quite remember but at least one other person has done the “I love NY but know nothing about it” bit).
amazon.com
4 Stars
The hottest gift for mom this year is Fifty Shades Of Grey and we see Kristen reading it in bed with her massager, Vanessa in the tub, and Nasim riding the washing machine next to a photo of Joel McHale.
Motion Capture
5 Stars
They’re filming the touchdown celebrations for a new football video game. Taran reprises his Tim Tebow from the Jimmy Fallon episode, Kenan and Jay do some fun end zone dances, but it’s Eli who gets most of the laughs. His celebrations consist of hugging an imaginary woman, dribbling two basketballs, brushing his long curly hair, and most hilarious making a sandwich, dropping it on the floor, and eating it off the ground. It’s hard to make boring funny but Eli is incredibly funny doing it.
Text Message Evidence
5 Stars
Text messages from Eli’s character prove his alibi in court. Jason is perfect in this, seeming to get a perverse pleasure from the embarrassing sexts by making Eli act out his emojis. His delivery on ‘who dis?’ and ‘you up?’ was impeccable and bringing in the internet search history at the end was a nice icing to the cake.
Little Brothers
5 Stars
Peyton got a pre-filmed short with kids so Eli gets the same treatment as he helps little brothers beat up their older brothers giving them wedgies, swirlies, and stuffing them in trunks.
WXPD News New York
4 Stars
5th and final Herb Welch until Bill returns to host. He’s at the Occupy Wall Street protest and getting mad at hippies. There’s also a nice clip package narrated by a confused Herb which I think is a new bit for these sketches. Is it just like all the other Herb Welch sketches? Yeah, but it’s still fun and I’m enjoying the episode so I don’t mind something I’ve seen before.
Rihanna
"Talk That Talk"
Weekend Update
Patricia Krentcil the tan mom comes out to make some jokes about being tan.
Admiral General Aladeen to shamelessly plug the new movie The Dictator, I mean do a comedy bit where he hooks Martin Scorsese to a car battery.
What Is This?
4 Stars
What is this, Abby getting the lead in a sketch? Abby asks simple questions to contestants but things get awkward when she gets to Eli who she’s not sure where she stands with romantically. Abby proves she can carry a sketch finally and just in time for the end of her run on the show. Bill has a lot of fun lines too as a clueless contestant answering ‘nighttime sun’ for moon and ‘letter hole’ for mailbox.
Helga Lately
3 Stars
A Swedish version of Chelsea Lately provides plenty of silliness and flurgens and another good showcase for Kate. I’m a little surprised we didn’t see Andy reprising his role of The Swedish Chef in this one.
Rihanna returns with "Where Have You Been"
Miss Drag World
0 Stars
Fred, Bobby, and Eli compete for Miss Drag World and Eli throws a hissy fit when he comes in third. This was terrible but I can’t put any blame on Eli. Shame, the show was going so well.
The Essentials
2 Stars
Cheech & Chong once had a partner named Richard who was a square who would exit the film once drugs were introduced. This feels like something that is probably a better idea than it is a sketch. I like the premise of Cheech & Chong having a Zeppo but it isn’t all that funny when you see it. I did get a laugh from Jason’s Robert Osborne rolling a joint and a chuckle from Eli’s dumb looking grin at the end.
FINAL ANALYSIS
“What are those big boobs of yours doing right now?”
Average
3.4 Stars
MVP
Jason Sudeikis
amazon.com, Motion Capture, Text Message Evidence, WXPD News New York, The Essentials
Best Sketch
Text Message Evidence
Worst Sketch
Miss Drag World
How I Would Have Lorne Michaels-ed It
Just cut Miss Drag World and you got yourself a pretty damn near perfect episode. I could also do without the commercial for The Dictator in the middle.
Host Analysis
One of the best athlete hosts ever and even though it may seem hack to compare him with his older brother, I think he did a better job. Outside of the monologue he was solid throughout the show. The writing helped, he had to play mostly clueless lunkheads. Even in the dud that was Miss Drag World I thought he was fine. In fact I felt bad that he had to stoop to the old put the host in drag gag.
Final Thoughts
I’m not sure if there is a general consensus on which Manning episode is better but I’ll pick this one. It’s just a tick higher in sketch average. The Peyton episode does have Locker Room Motivation which is one of my favorite sketches ever, but this one has that one-two punch of Motion Capture and Text Message Evidence. Peyton’s United Way ad vs. Eli’s Little Brothers ad we’ll call a draw. This one has a big old stinker in Miss Drag World but don’t forget that 300 sketch where Peyton refused to throw a boulder. Musical guest rules in favor of a tie and Rihanna trumps Carrie Underwood. This one wins.
Up Next
Will Ferrell returns to host for the 3rd time with musical guest Usher
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