Saturday Night Live: Tina Fey And Arcade Fire

Saturday Night Live: Tina Fey And Arcade Fire

[Ed. Note: Jenny Nelson is a writer, a student, and — most importantly — a Videogum intern. She will be recapping Saturday Night Live. Welcome her!]

I’m really glad that Tina Fey hosted the premiere of this season’s SNL. I’m glad for a lot of reasons, including that she’s a super great and funny person, but also because I saw the ad mid-episode saying that Miley Cyrus is hosting next episode, and felt relieved that someone experienced, talented, and kind-hearted like Tina was there to get this season started right. She also was there to introduce the show’s new featured players, of which there are six. All six of them got a reasonable amount of screen time on Saturday, and the show was funny pretty much throughout, so I’d say good job with the casting! Nice work on the show, excited to see how this season plays out.

The cold open about Obamacare was very relevant. I was watching MSNBC yesterday and the anchors were talking about the cold open and how relevant it was. Do political news anchors always talk about SNL cold opens? This was maybe a bit long, but I liked all the civilians Obama clearly didn’t want to be talking, especially Aidy Bryant’s, Kate McKinnon’s, and Taran Killam’s Ted Cruz and OMG JESSE!!!

In her very cute monologue, Tina Fey looked back on some of her popular recurring characters she did while on SNL (Queef Latina is an obvious frontrunner) and introduced the new cast members, who she made dance around her in sparkly jackets. Very cute, very sparkly.

I loved the Girls promo. Kudos to newcomer Noel Wells and co., they look and talk just like the real Girls! This was a good joke and executed extremely well, probably my favorite of the episode.

The airport sketch, then, was probably my least favorite, but only because I liked everything else a lot. Even when you’re ranking things you liked, something’s gonna be the worst! I did love Kenan’s giant suitcase, though, so funny (because people boarding planes are always having big suitcases).

Another good introduction for new featured players was the game show New Cast Member or Arcade Fire, which is self-explanatory.

I liked the E-Meth commercial because what could have been a one-note joke to give reason for Aaron Paul to come back got fleshed out into a pretty good sketch because of the actors being funny. Great job!

Then came Weekend Update! Cecily Strong was very good at her first time as co-anchor, and she and Tina did a cute thing about the Update Desk legacy. The other bits from Update were good, too: a character from new player Kyle Mooney (yay!) and a visit from Drunk Uncle also featuring his meth nephew played by SNL Host, Jr. Aaron Paul.

Of course, there were other sketches, including the porn girls, one with Mike O’Brien as the first ever used car salesman that I liked, and Cinema Classics, which I think actually was my least favorite.

Then Arcade Fire played, which I liked because I like Arcade Fire. Did everyone stick around for the half-hour special afterwards (directed by Roman Coppola!)? I did but I was tired, although I did enjoy the cameo appearances from comedians we like, some of which were in Spanish and some of which lasted for more than four seconds maybe!

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