After Kerry Washington hosted Saturday Night Live last weekend—and the show took the opportunity to address criticisms about the lack of diversity in the cast—things were decidedly less meta this week as Lady Gaga pulled double duty as host and musical guest. Gaga took every opportunity she could to play up her over-the-top image, parodying her songs and fashion choices in several sketches.
Of course, those parodies were hit-and-miss (with a lot of awkward thrown in). Things started with the monologue, in which Gaga performed a big band version of "Applause" that was all about her not taking herself too seriously. Then there was the "The Worst Cover Songs Of All Time," one of those sketches in which the cast gets to trot out some obscure, hilarious impressions (Rick Ross singing “Cups,” Lana Del Ray And Nathan Lane singing Shaggy’s “It Wasn’t Me”). Gaga covered Madonna's "Express Yourself"...by performing "Born This Way."
A particularly notable sketch featured an elderly Gaga living in an Upper West Side apartment in the year 2063, forgotten by everyone. The sketch was intellectually compelling—was this purely driven by the writers, or is this a peak at how Gaga views her own legacy?—was well acted (with Gaga performing some brief piano takes of some of her hits), and had a great, creepy ending. But was it funny? Not really. The audience seemed particularly confused as to whether they should be laughing or "awwing" at the situation.
All three of Gaga's sketches (Monologue, Worst Cover Songs, Elderly Gaga) are not available online because of copyright issues. (Luckily you can see her excellent performance of “Do What U Want” with R. Kelly on push-up duty).
Overall, there was only one bad sketch that never worked (the Condo Board one, another NYC-centric sketch). All of the other bits had strong performances: Bobby Moynihan continued his season of scene-stealing by portraying Rob Ford in the political cold open. Jay Pharoah showed off a near-perfect Kanye West impression in Waking Up With Kimye. Vanessa Bayer killed it as a child actor in Spotlightz. Blockbuster was a strong, eerie (but not funny "Ha Ha") digital video, a la last season's Sad Rat.
The best performance of the night belonged to Taran Killam as speech critic Jebediah Atkinson on Weekend Update, who hopefully will become a regular there. Click through for all those sketches, plus a couple fake ads. And appreciate the good this week, because next week the host is Hunger Games third banana Josh Hutcherson. Who? Exactly.
