SNL Review: Melissa McCarthy (spoiler summary)

Recent Emmy winner Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids and TV’s Mike & Molly) hosted the second episode of the new SNL season with Lady Antebellum as the musical guest.  The quality in writing took a sharp turn downwards from last week’s solid start with Alec Baldwin.  The only real positive note was McCarthy’s opening monologue.  C

Opening Skit: The Lawrence Welk Show.  Fred Armisen hosts, as Taran Killam strides onto the scene telling jokes and introducing all of those Merrell sisters all the way from the Finger Lakes dressed in blood orange dresses fit for Fall.  Shirley (Abby Elliott), Nancy (Nasim Pedrad) and Tony (Vanessa Bayer) enter smelling of sugar and spice, before Kristen Wiig as Judice (Dooneese?) does her gimp-handed shtick.  This time, McCarthy provided assistance as her slow-witted sister companion with plastic muscly arms.  Just when you thought they couldn’t go anywhere with this skit, they inch it along a bit further, nonsensically, of course.  B-


Past Renditions of the Merrell Sisters
Anne Hathaway: Hathaway, Amy Poehler, Casey Wilson, Wiig
Will Ferrell: Michaela Watkins, Wilson, Elliott, Wiig
James Franco: Pedrad, Elliott, Jenny Slate, Wiig
Elton John: Pedrad, Elliot, Bayer, Wiig

Opening Monologue.  Song and dance jazz number with Kristen Wiig about an impending dance.  Taran Killam and Bobby Moynihan join them for a short appearance, before the ladies retreat behind a scrim concealing two dancers moving for them.  Cute, harmless and refreshing.  B+

Lil Poundcake commercial.  Cast with a bunch of little girls, as Bayer and Wiig look on.  Well-produced and subversive, it isn’t quite a home run about a doll for 10-year olds which administers HPV shots.  C+

Office seduction skit.  As Arlene, McCarthy recreates her Bridesmaids airplane seduction scene by putting her moves on Tim (Jason Sudeikis), a coworker.  She plays it very heavy and never lets up.  It gets marginally better towards the end when she starts to dance and sexually assault a horse balloon.  Best line: “I’m working on the lady boner this one done put in my pants.”  Also starring Kenan Thompson and Bill Hader as Kyle, who has some moves of his own.  C+

An SNL Digital Short: Stomp.  Hader and Andy Samberg play cops in a precinct along with Thompson and Sudeikis as hoods, accompanied by a cast of others to create a Stomp bit.  Shortly thereafter, Armisen and another guy show up as the Blue Men group, but are confused as aliens.  The whole cast stops stomping and begins shooting them repeatedly with machine guns.  Like the HPV commercial, well-produced and creative, but doesn’t provide many laughs.  C+

The Comments Section.  Sudeikis is host Jeff interviewing various people who comment on articles on the Internet, including Matthew Knox aka XXXDeathbyFartsXXX (Bobby Moynihan), who gets his just deserts and scolded by a grandmother (Pedrad) for being rude to her anonymously.  Also, there is Karl aka UltimateStud2GoodToBeTrue (Taran Killam) and Jennifer Evans aka DaTruf (McCarthy).  Hader plays Tommy who punches all three of the spineless guests.  D+

Chris Rock in Rock’s Way.  Pre-recorded commercial for a Rock video.  This is Jay Pharoah’s season debut, having not been in the first episode.  Rock does a stage act taking on various plays and musicals including Romeo & Juliet, Oliver and Annie.  Thompson, Bayer and Killam play fans who just saw the show interspersed between the stage footage.  Pedrad plays Juliet and Elliott plays Annie.  Pharoah’s impression is spot-on.  He then disappears from the rest of the episode.  The term Blacktacular seems to be catching on.  B-

Lady Antebellum: “We Owned the Night.” 

Weekend Update with Seth Meyers.  Meyers doesn’t look all puffed up like last week; I guess he was padded?  Update included special guests Gaddafi’s Two Best Friends From Growing Up with Armisen and Bayer. Kenan Thompson can’t do impressions, but Update still parades him out as Tyler Perry to poke fun at how much money he makes off of his crap movies.  D+

Hidden Valley Ranch Focus Group.  Roger (Bobby Moynihan) runs a focus group with Killam, Sue (Elliott) and the highly enthusiastic Linda (a curly brunette-wigged McCarthy wearing a Spock sweatshirt).  They taste test Hidden Valley Ranch dressings.  Her Linda is reminiscent, again, of her Megan Bridesmaids character.  It got kind of painful, but Eliot looked really hot.  It ended with a gag they kind of borrowed from a Horatio Sanz/Kelly Ripa skit from years back.  D

TCM Turner Classic Movies with Robert Osbourne (Sudeikis).  A look back on vaudevillian Lulu Diamonds (McCarthy), a Mae West knockoff in her films Do Not Not Disturb, Do Not Disturb Me Not and Disturb Me in an Hour.  After bantering with three suitors (Killam, Samberg, Moynihan), McCarthy spouts off the line, “Why don’t you come upstairs and see me up there sometimes?” before ascending up a staircase.  Each time, she falls and slides down the steps injuring herself.  Silly, but dumb.  D+

Lady Antebellum: “Just a Kiss.”

Love-making Skit.  Don (Sambeg) hits on McCarthy at a bar.  Bayer interrupts and complains about their past love-making.  Pedrad and Wiig do the same.  Paul Brittain plays a bartender.  Thompson is a mail person who brings in a huge bag of complaint letters.  Hader makes an experience.  D-