SNL: 9/22/12 Joseph Gordon Levitt/Mumford & Sons

This week’s episode of SNL was wrought with technical issues.  Production grabbed the wrong camera for a back and forth conversation, and the final sketch AND JGL’s sign-off were both cut short, right in the middle of a sentence for both of them, among other errors.  Not realy sure what was up with that, maybe a new producer?

Anyway, this show seemed a lot stronger than last week’s outing, so lets get right to the good, the meh, and the ugly.

The Good

Monologue(7): JGL did a Magic mike spoof that was fantastic.  Three cast members came out for the assist, and when they each took off their silk vests in turn, the first three revealed moderate to good abs, and Bobby Moynihan took off his to reveal…another vest.  I’ll admit, I loled.

Commercial-Low Information voters(7): “Can women vote? Because if they can’t, as a woman, I have a problem with that.”  This was a spoof on all the undecided voters, which seriously.  If you don’t know who you’re voting for yet, for real, then you probably would fit in very well with the people depicted in this commercial.

Commercial-Son of the Most Interesting Man in the World pt. 1(7): The various ways this loser was a loser had me rolling the whole time.  And then, he drinks Tres Equis, cause he has to be one better than his dad, of course.

Commercial-Son… pt. 2(7): The son is a douche some more, which was amusing on it’s own, and then Sudekis comes in as the actual man, and starts ripping on his loser son to grow up and get out of his house.  That was the cherry on top of a funny bit, for sure.

The Finer Things(7): Two rappers, rich from their exploits as rappers, go into the finer things of life:  fashion shows, thanking the police, and ladies purses.  It was probably an easy joke, but Kenan’s couch bounce had me laughing the whole time.  And who can forget the wine glass charms??

The meh

Cold Open-Kelly and Michael LIVE!(6): The whole joke in this sketch was Kelly it tiny but strong, and Michael is amazed this is a job, with a sprinkling of brooding!RPatz.  I think this would have been stronger if it were cut by a couple of minutes, but as it stood,  the sketch dragged on way to long, with Jay Pharoh getting his second “Live from New York” in two weeks.

Flynn Detective Agency(6): The entirety of the joke in this sketch was a PI, instead of taking photographs, drew caricatures.  The actual drawings saved the sketch from being ugly, but again, if this were 45 seconds to a minute long, this would have been a much better sketch.

Hypnotist(5): Taran Killan fakes out a hypnotist.  Again, way too long, but the way he faked out JGL as the hypnotist was amusing, and his commitment to the actual fake out brought up the grade on this one just a bit.

Commercial-G.O.B Tampons(4): Tampons made for a woman, by a 60 year-old man.  The execution was middling to okay, but I didn’t appreciate the content.

Weekend Update-Headlines(5): I found 9 of the 19 headline jokes amusing, so not great.  It was top-loaded with political jokes that just did nothing for me, and thus dragged the overall score down big time.   

Weekend Update-Segments(6):Two of the three dragged down the brilliance of the third, which is a total shame.  And just so you don’t think I don’t find anything poking fun at Republicans funny, the best bit of the entire evening was Ann Romney, who had a fantastic piece that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Reminiscing with the Beetles(5): This is about the third or fourth time we’ve seen a variation on this sketch, and while the live band was a good addition, I don’t really think the thing they were reminiscing about were terribly funny.  They went for the bait and switch on every single one, and it got old after the first guy.

Powers Realty(5): I think I would have been amused with the penis jokes if I were younger.  As it stands, I got a bit of a heh from this sketch, but not much else.  It didn’t help that this got cut off about two thirds of the way through, either.

The Ugly

Weird Parents(3): worst sketch of the night, least of all due to the fact that I couldn’t actually understand the lyrics they were singing, which was the entire point of the joke.  I gave it a couple of points for JGL in drag, but he makes a terrible girl.   Much more Cory than Shawn.

The Rest

The musical guest was great, but I figured they would be anyway, since I enjoy their songs. 

As I said up top, the technical issues that plagued the episode tonight were really distracting, but overall, I thought this was a strong episode.  Also: there was a random Asian guy in two of the sketches, and he had speaking lines…I have no idea who that person was.

Average score tonight is 5.71, which is lower than I expected, especially after the strong start, but the last few sketches really pulled down the average.

Ranking

1.  9/22 Joseph Gordon Levitt/Mumford & Sons (5.71)

2.  9/15 Seth McFarlane/Frank Ocean (5.38)