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Felicity Jones Hosted 'SNL' This Week And She Wasn't Very Good At It

By Dustin Rowles | Saturday Night Live | January 15, 2017 |

By Dustin Rowles | Saturday Night Live | January 15, 2017 |


It’s a new year, so before we get started, a quick reminder of how we do it around here: We can’t post every sketch, because the page will crash, so I provide video embeds only for the best sketches, which means it at least needs a 5 out of 10 to get the embed.

There weren’t a lot of embeds this week. The writing was bad, and Felicity Jones — bless — didn’t help matters much.

Cold Open — Baldwin returns to tackle this week’s press conference. It’s just as we hoped and expected: “Pee pee” questions and urine puns. And shirtless Putin brings out the tape and threatens Trump with it. They’re hitting all the necessary highlights, and appropriately making fun of Trump, but humor is more broad than cutting. I’ll take it, though, because it reinforces — unfairly or not — the embarrassing rumors about Trump and given what Obama had to endure for four years, I’m OK with that.

“If you repeal Obamacare, many people could die,” someone from the press suggests. “Listen missy,” Trump responds. “I’m about to become President. Everyone is going to die.”

Oh God. It’s not funny because it’s true. (Score: 6.5 out of 10)

Felicity Jones’ Monologue — It’s Star Wars-themed, naturally, and Tina Fey cameos as her, like, Yoda and offers some sage advice. Fey makes a jokes at the expensive of Trump, the SNL writers, Leslie Jones, and alerts us all that Keenan Thompson is the fatal flaw in the SNL institution. Remove him, and the place falls apart. It’ll do. (Score: 6 out of 10)

Beard Hunk — Basically, the entire sketch involves a rotating series of Bachelorette candidates saying incredibly dumb, insipid, and inappropriately sexual things to The Bachelor. “I do pee and poop out of the same hole.” Not much to this. Watch here. (Score: 3 out of 10)

Shondra & Malik — In a pre-taped segment, Keenan and Leslie make menacing threats on each other in the hood, but it gets awkward when Malik’s car breaks down and he can’t follow through on the angry, threatening “stay off my corner” drive away. It’s not very funny. The first two sketches are a bad omen for the rest of the show. Watch here. (Score: 3 out of 10)

Theater Donor — An ailing and wealthy, old philanthropist who donates money to the production of a play repeatedly interrupts the play to handle his medical ailments. It is a miserable failure of a sketch. Watch here. (Score: 2 out of 10)

The Princess and the Curse — A Maleficent type character curses a princess to an extra 15 pounds once she is married, which gives her Prince Charming pause about marrying her. It’s a short one-joke sketch. It’s a decent joke but not much of a sketch. (Score: 5 out of 10)

Susan B. Anthony — During a tour of the Susan B. Anthony house, a group of women repeat her name three times and Susan B. Anthony appears. Anthony gets increasingly annoyed with the complaints of the privileged white women, who are trying to figure out how many cabs they should order to get home. Another kind of well intentioned sketch that falls miserable flat. This night is not going well at all. Watch here. (Score: 3 out of 10)

Weekend Update — Che astutely compares the Golden Showers rumors to Richard Gere’s gerbil, which is apt (whether it’s true or not, it’s all anyone will remember). Che also remarks that it “sounds like every decision Trump makes starts with the sentence, ‘Hey! You know what would be hilarious? Gotta say: The one nice thing about not having a Democrat in the White House or controlling Congress is that all the jokes on “Weekend Update” are directed at Trump and the GOP. Small consolation. Che also makes another remarkable observation about how the news media reports black-on-black crime. Despite the spattering of clever jokes, however, “Update” remains — as ever — incredibly mediocre.

Pete Davidson also offers his “first impressions” of Trump’s cabinet choices. He makes a lot of broad, mostly apolitical jokes are pretty mediocre. Becks Bennett also does a singing segment that bombs. Watch here. (Score: 5 out of 10)

Hot Robots — A group of film critics expound on the Hot Robot franchise and explore the important themes involved in horny grandmothers and hot robot boobs. This sketch is straight-up pathetic. Watch here. (Score: 1 out of 10)

Corporate Retreat — It’s like karaoke for jokes … and all the jokes are about “being loose,” i.e., loose vaginas and loose butts, and I’m going to bed. Watch here. (Score: 2 out of 10)