Sarah Silverman was the host of last night's Saturday Night Live, which at the very least, went a lot better than her brief tenure as an employee on the show. She was charming in the cold open, she unleashed a Joan Rivers impression (more on that below), and she seemed to push the show into some fun female pairings. Overall, it was a step down from last week's season premiere with Chris Pratt, but nowhere near as bad as some of last season's potholes.
The Joan Rivers Roast was the most notable live sketch of the night, and certainly the most polarizing. Some people thought it was way too soon for such a gag, even if it was wrapped up as a tribute to Rivers (complete with somber title card at the end). Her actual impression seemed pretty hilarious to me, but it was clear the audience was not totally on board. Adding to the awkwardness was the fact Silverman stumbled over a few lines.
The best sketches of the night were mostly pre-recorded bits: the quick-and-biting "Whites" (a possible parody of this ad) which included an appearance from Mike O'Brien, and the equally quick Fault in Our Stars 2 Trailer (because Ebola is a romance killer). The all-star of the episode was Kenan Thompson, who stole every sketch he was in, most prominently the excellent Forgotten TV Gems. The 'women can get along!' premise was good, but it was Thompson's bizarre line readings as host Reese De'what that made me laugh out loud.
Unfortunately, there was a lot of misses this week: the cold open was bad, boring, and toothless; both Traffic and River Sisters (neither are available online because of music rights issues) were dead in the water; and even the Kyle Mooney/Beck Bennett sketch, Poem, was a bit of a letdown after last week's hilarious Roommates.
Similarly, the revitalized Weekend Update was not as good as last week—but equally long. Kate McKinnon is almost always great, but even she couldn't quite energize the stilted Garage and Her visit; Michael Che had a few fantastic one-liners, and was genuinely chuckling at some of Colin Jost's jokes, which I can't say I did.
One of the biggest problems this week: all the absences. Bobby Moynihan unfortunately didn't get much to do (although he was fantastic with whatever he got, including Benjamin Franklin at the Rivers roast, and as the jilted boyfriend in the Traffic sketch), Jay Pharoah was basically gone after the cold open (his Richard Pryor impression certainly wasn't his finest), Vanessa Bayer was a no-show until the disappointing Vitamix final sketch, and I don't think I even saw hilarious new guy Pete Davidson. But you know who was all over the episode? Adam Levine, who is slowly turning into SNL's second string Justin Timberlake (substitute Robin Gibb for Freddie Mercury, and voila).
Click through for all those sketches, plus music from Adam Levine's side career, Maroon 5. Next week, beloved SNL alum Bill Hader returns to host his first ever episode, and we would wager we'll get a lot of returning characters (Stefon!) and probably quite a few other SNL alum cameos.
