March 5, 2016 - Jonah Hill / Future (S41 E14)

Cold Opening – CNN Election Center

• I’m starting to get really tired of Darrell’s Trump impression, even though the replacement isn’t any better…
• Hey, at least we have Bobby as Chris Christie to give me some of my expected laughs.
• Kate’s pretty funny in her speech, especially her part about bringing people together, like the people standing behind her.
• Seeing Beck’s Jake Tapper in the same scene with Taran’s Cruz reminds me of Beck’s one-time Ted Cruz impression in the Awkwafina episode in season 44. A much better impression than Taran’s, to be honest.
• Jason Sudeikis!! Great to see his Mitt Romney back.
• Some good lines from Jason, delivered as professionally and impeccably as one would expect from him. And his affable, yet sleazy portrayal of Mitt Romney is as sharp as ever.

Rating: ***1/2

Monologue

• Interesting that this monologue immediately turns into a Q & A, why not have Jonah deliver a normal monologue all by himself? He certainly could hold his own as an actual comedian.
• Ugh at that “medium fan” comment from Kyle, the episode is already starting to annoy me, and remind me of what’s to come for me from it.
• Wait, what? This Q & A monologue has now suddenly turned into a musical one with Future joining Jonah on stage? Why do the questions part in the first place if at the end you would perform a musical number out of nowhere? The writing of this monologue is a mess & unnecessarily convoluted.

Rating: **

Racists For Trump

• A very famous short from this season.
• An absolutely hilarious reveal of the Nazi arm band in Taran’s scene, as well as the KKK robe in Vanessa’s scene.
• This short is starting to die horribly after the first two reveals, as the other reveals are not worthy of few chuckles from me. Much like the selfie pretape earlier in the season, this commercial has NOTHING outside if its shock reveal.
• Also, let’s not mention how badly aged this commercial’s “joke” is now with the Trump presidency and what came along with it, there’s nothing laugh-worthy about white supremacists and hate groups.

Rating: **

Fond Du Lac Action News

• It feels a bit odd seeing Cecily get a lead comedic role this season, considering how overshadowed she is by Kate & Vanessa throughout the year.
• Why is Jonah cracking up all of the sudden? Inside joke?
• This sketch seems to be our usual goofy accents sketch, but the commitment from the cast and the harmless nature of it makes it more tolerable than some others.
• Taran is excellent in his whole scene here, and absolutely steals this entire sketch, which is sad as we are approaching the end of his tenure on the show.

Rating: ***1/2

The Champ

• Solid dramatic acting from Kate at the beginning of this short, and Jonah is usually in his element in these pretaped pieces.
• Aaaaand now we get the twist of why everyone is being nice to Jonah at the beginning, as this short now turns into our obligatory Jonah Hill humiliation sketch #26626.
• And we now also get our obligatory bathroom mention, which is another staple of the Jonah Hill-hosted episodes till this episode so far.
• Yeah, this sketch is pretty much Jonah Hill being beaten down over and over and over and over…
• I have no use for pieces like this; pieces that do not go anywhere interesting and are just mean-spirited & uncomfortable to watch for the sake of it. This short reminds me of the also-awful The Loser short from season 46, and I most certainly don’t need to be reminded of the wretched John Krasinski episode around here anymore…
• Where is the joke supposed to even be in this short? Is it that Jonah’s character is nothing but a loser? And that the acts of kindness towards him are nothing but a joke to fool around him? How is this supposed to be funny in the very first place? How did this short get approved in the first place with a premise as mean-spirited & flimsy as this? So many questions, so little laughs.
• A colossal waste of my time in general. One of the absolute worst shorts not only of this season and era, but of the whole 2010s. An absolute joke that this piece even got approved to be filmed in the very first place. Absolutely shameful.

Rating: *

Student Auction

• A pretty weak Arab accent from Jonah, and he seems to lose it and then regains all the time.
• As a person of Arab origin, I’m not that offended by this sketch, yet more baffled by it so far. Where’s the joke here?
• I LOVE Beck’s immediate change of heart after Jonah’s line about the family receiving money for the trouble of their kids leaving to the Middle East.
• Taran is everywhere so far into this episode.
• Taran is hamming it up here, and his whole addition isn’t improving this sketch in any way.
• A laugh from the 200 virgins line, which happens to be amongst my few laughs so far into this sketch.
• Not caring for the end, but Jonah at least gave it all for this dull, but still not bad sketch.

Rating: **1/2

Musical Performance – “Low Life” ft. The Weeknd

• Jesse Nathan: Why is Jonah holding a Styrofoam cup during his intro?
• And furthermore, why is Future wearing a coat?
• Uh-oh. If you’re very familiar with my musical performance reviews, you just know I’m not gonna care for this.
• Oof. Not only are Future’s vocals poorly mixed, but I hear a slight use of autotune in there. Why did the sound mixers think it was a good idea to use autotune on him in the first place?!
• I think I just heard a background vocal say “boring”. That pretty much sums up what this guy is to me so far in this performance.
• Well, at least we have The Weeknd here to hopefully add something to this performance.
• By the way, that makes this the second consecutive episode in which a musical guest got assistance from another musical guest we got earlier in the season.
• I’m having a bit of a hard time understanding what Abel’s saying.
• Sadly, this chorus from The Weeknd is just as boring as Future’s rapping.
• Ugh, stop saying “low life” over and over.
• Why does Abel seem as though he’s the only person invested in this performance?
• Cool lighting, at least.
• Wow, it’s over already? Yeah, this performance was pretty much a bust.

Rating: **

Weekend Update

• A pretty good Ben Carson voice from Michael, surprisingly so.
• The return of Cecily’s Girl At A Party character, this character, while pretty by-the-numbers, is amongst Cecily’s best work on the show, and she always nails her lines, which makes the format less stale each time.
• Cecily’s Girl At A Party’s line to Michael about Wall Street is hilarious, and one of Cecily’s better line deliveries as this character.
• Great to see a variation of “The Weeknd Update” with our musical guest Future.
• Future’s brief bit and his outburst to the camera is absolutely hilarious, probably my biggest laugh of the night so far, and I highly doubt it will be surpassed.
• Interesting to see a remote Update segment, and Kate is usually comedy gold as old ladies.
• Kate’s characterization is quite funny, and Vanessa’s controlled frustration towards her is pretty solid, but this commentary so far is kinda repetitive.
• Ok, Kate’s stern order towards Vanessa to leave gave me a big laugh just now, yet another example of how excellent Kate is with her line deliveries.
• Holy hell at the Jared Fogle (*shudder*) joke from Colin.
• Ah, great to see another Jay commentary as himself, considering how charismatic and likable he is as himself behind the desk.
• A very fun conceit to this commentary with Jay doing a series of impressions in a rapid-fire pace as he tells a story of black comedians meeting.
• Jay’s Kevin Hart impression sounds even better than usual here.
• Man, Jay is FANTASTIC here, and is absolutely killing it with the audience too. A bit sad, in hindsight, considering we are nearing the end of his tenure on the show.
• Great ending to the commentary with the reveal that Jay made this whole meeting up.

Rating: ****

Murder Mystery

• Great accent & voice on Kate at the start. Not only is her accent quite accurate, but is strangely endearing in some sense.
• On the other hand, I’m not really caring for the accents on the other performers, as they seem a bit forced to me.
• OH, GOD. Why did this sketch suddenly turn into YET ANOTHER Jonah Hill humiliation sketch, after we just got one!? God, this episode is absolutely KILLING me.
• This sketch now is nothing but more and more embarrassing & humiliating reveals that just beat down Jonah’s character to the ground much like that wretched Champ short. And much like that one, I have no use for sketches like this, sketches that are too ugly to sit through and uncomfortable in all the wrong ways.
• Overall, an awful & pointless sketch. Tonight’s episode is really starting to become torture to sit through.

Rating: *1/2

Side Note: Much like his season 37 episode, the footage before commercial shows us a set being built for a sketch that we will never see being performed live. This one seems to be an awards show sketch or something similar to that. Yet, I guess they realized the show was running late for our musical guest to perform his second musical act, so they cut this sketch during commercial and we ended up with a pretaped piece instead of our planned live sketch.

Inside SoCal

• Great to see another one of these, sadly this is the last one of these Inside SoCal shorts. A real shame. I’ve always enjoyed these pieces in the past, and also upon a rewatch while doing these reviews.
• Ah, you can always count on Beck & Kyle to give me something to laugh at and be entertained by in this dreary episode. After the majority of segments earlier tonight, I actually forgot how to LAUGH.
• A big laugh from the whole conceit of this edition of Inside SoCal, with it revolving around Cecily’s character getting a breast reduction surgery.
• Very funny visual of the many guys awaiting outside of Cecily’s hospital room with sullen demeanor.
• Cecily’s characterization is very funny here, and her interview portion is easily my favorite part of this whole short.
• Great ending with the very brief in memoriam montage of Cecily’s character big breasts.

Rating: ****

Musical Performance – “March Madness”

• Jesse Nathan: Oof, I called the last song boring, but I’m currently 12 seconds into this performance, and ALREADY, this takes the cake.
• Wow, the very start of the song absolutely BOMBED, as Future’s heavily-autotuned vocals were drowned by the instruments. This just illustrates the problem with both SNL’s sound team and the decision to use autotune on live TV.
• Future’s vocals are kinda hard to hear, but that’s probably for the better.
• I kinda like how the DJ and guitarist are bumping to the song, but unfortunately, this song is not deserving of that.
• Why does Future seem like he’s about to crack up?
• This whole breakdown is doing nothing for me.
• Not caring for the ad-libs in between lines.
• I had next to nothing to say about that. So boring.

Rating: **

Silver Star Catering

• OH, NO. After the nice upswing in quality with our Beck & Kyle short, we return to this episode’s awfulness, as Jonah enters the scene as an annoying, broad, and extremely hammy gay stereotype.
• Watching this episode is making me feel like I’m in hell.
• UGH. This sketch is DEATH so far. WTF with this supposed comedic conceit? How is this supposed to be funny in the first place?! How did this sketch get past dress?!
• Man, I’m more than halfway through this sketch and it is fucking TERRIBLE so far. Absolutely unwatchable. What is this sketch even GOING for?!
• The “comedic” conceit of Jonah Hill as a gay southern stereotype (a dead giveaway that this is an Anderlette sketch, by the way) who just exaggerates how the food is being eaten, with him flat-out saying that the food was raped at one point is the death of comedy. I also feel very bad especially for Jonah who’s always given absolutely terrible sketches each time he hosts.
• Awful ending.

Rating: *

Segments Ranked From Best to Worst

Weekend Update / Inside SoCal (tie)

Fond Du Lac Action News

CNN Election Center

Student Auction

Monologue

Racists For Trump

Murder Mystery

The Champ / Silver Star Catering (tie)

Final Thoughts:-

• A terrible episode. I enjoyed very little in this, and if you couldn’t tell by my frustrated comments throughout the review, this episode made me increasingly miserable while reviewing it. If you take out (not counting Update & the open as they are not sketches) Inside SoCal & the lead-off live sketch of the night, you get an episode that is literally unwatchable. This is the first episode that I hated since way back when Donald Trump (*shudder*) hosted in November, which at least shows you how damn well this season has been doing since then. And this episode’s lows were not only weak, but are some of the absolute WORST of this entire season, some brutal lows for this season were reached in this episode alone, such as that dreary and pointless Champ short.

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