Katy Perry and the Perfectly Mediocre Episode of ‘SNL’

Well, that was just…fine? “Fine” is the worst thing that can happen to “SNL.” You’re always hoping for an outstanding episode (something to argue about in the comments: when was the last top-to-bottom A+ episode of “SNL”?), but a truly awful one can just be just as entertaining. Katy Perry hosted the show this weekend, and although she wasn’t great (her timing was a little off and she tripped over her lines occasionally), she didn’t bomb, either. The rest of the cast at least looked comfortable around her, unlike when Miley Cyrus came to Studio 8H last season. She sang and smiled a lot, and wasn’t asked to do too much heavy lifting — and there was only one joke about her boobs, which came during the last segment of the evening.
So, yeah, it was fine, with the exception of the Bowl-Cutted One, Robyn, who kicked ass.


Yikes. This was Darrell Hammond’s first return to “SNL” since his tell-all, and it couldn’t have been more disappointing. The Donald Trump-based jokes fell flat, because all Donald Trump-based jokes fall flat — he’s too obvious of a target. It really made me pine for the days of Donald Trump’s House of Wings.

Worth it for Jay Pharoah’s impression of Cuba Gooding Jr. and the fact that the promo left in Seth Meyers, who actually appears in New Year’s Eve.


Kristen Wiig’s new character, Kalle. Thoughts? I thought she was fine (Wiig played her well, but there was only one joke: “We have a clip!”), but if history has taught us anything, we’ll hate the over-used Kalle soon enough. Also: check out the number of times Perry blinks. It’s terrifying. (Perry needs to ditch the blond hair, BTW.)

It’s nice to see Val Kilmer off the streets.


Weekend Update had my two favorite segments of the evening, neither of which was Alec Baldwin’s guest appearance as the American Airlines pilot who kicked him off his plane. They were: Wiig’s flirtation expert, Rebecca LaRue, and Bill Hader’s Stefon. I could watch an entire episode of Wiig playing with her hair and Stefon doling out such holiday hot spots as Hey!, now managed by Fat Sayjak. Like Hader, I lost it at the second mention of Spud Webb.


If you were waiting for the writers to make a boob joke, the closest you got was Perry revealing that she has a tattoo of Jewel above her right breast. That’s the most action Jewel’s had since 1997! Ba-zing! But yeah, this would probably the best actual sketch of the night.

Robyn’s awesome. Lip-syncing, I think, but still awesome.

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