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Bruce Willis Hosts SNL. Shrug.

By Courtney Enlow | TV | October 13, 2013 |

By Courtney Enlow | TV | October 13, 2013 |


Sorry this is up a bit later than usual. My little brother got married last night, and I partied pretty hard. And by that I mean my unconsumed glasses of wine kept disappearing and I came home with a seriously worsened cold and hit the NyQuil pretty hard. But, other than that, it was a great time, and, frankly, if I could rally through sickness and disappearing alcohol to totally jam out at my brother’s wedding, you’d think anyone involved could have exerted the tiniest modicum of energy in the making of last night’s SNL.

The cold open was one of those classic examples of an idea that is funny only as a tweet, but SNL attempts to make it a full sketch, with the Gravity characters unable to reach Houston during the government shutdown. The most notable part of the sketch is that the Bullock character is inexplicably renamed “Janet Stone” instead of “Ryan Stone.”

The monologue was stilted at best, but does feature Willis going full Bruno if you’re into that kind of thing.

One of the best sketches of the night, and, remember, this is a low bar, is the 24-Hour Energy for Dating Actresses.

I included this Barber Shop sketch because if you don’t want to watch any of the other sketches, this is summarizes it quite nicely. Every other cast member is at least attempting high-energy fun, and Willis is just kind of…there. And I’m genuinely not sure if it’s any fault of his own. I cannot tell if it’s Willis’s lessening ability to do comedy, the writing or if it’s a case of Willis’s now notorious diva dick tendencies limiting what the show could do.

Not only was Willis a semi-awkward Robitussin dose injected into every sketch he in which he partook, but the writers couldn’t even bother to write original sketches, with a rerun of “E-Meth” (rerun commercials are a sign of a lax episode, to be certain) and two appearances by what now seem sure to be recurring characters that weren’t that funny the first time. One was Killam’s “glice” guy from the Justin Bieber episode last season (not including the re-do, it’s too annoying), and one was this, Bobby Moynihan’s “kitty keeyat” guy. Sure. Why not.

Per uszhe, Weekend Update was the highlight of the night. Cecily Strong continues to come into her own, and between her strength in the Update chair and her strength in sketches, she’s one of the show’s MVPs. I’d argue that the ladies in this iteration are some of the strongest performers in the show’s history. These ladies are killer.

New cast member Brooks Whelan popped in to talk about the armed forces tattoo cutoff and speaks volumes about my own decision to get a lower-back tattoo of a dragonfly at 18 (they weren’t called “tramp stamps” yet, I just didn’t know!)

The Beer Pong sketch was probably my personal favorite sketch of the night. I just like elaborate games. Design your ideal roller coaster!

However, there were a few moments of Willis seeming to actually enjoy himself and one of them was “Boy Dance Party.” Becks Bennett can shake that ass and Taran Killam can shake that sack, guys.

Katy Perry is a terrible live singer. “Walkin’ On Air” was very ’90s, and for the first time ever, I don’t mean that in a good way.