overnights

Saturday Night Live Recap: Jon Hamm’s Ambiguous Gayness; Paul Simon’s Solid Performance

Ed Helms hosted Saturday Night Live last night. As many outlets noted, Helms was conspicuously absent for much of the episode, and he didn’t quite kill it when he did appear. The memorable clips involved celebrity guests (Lindsey Buckingham, Jimmy Fallon) and not the night’s host. Actually, not that many of the segments were particularly memorable, but Jon Hamm simulated gay sex and Paul Simon sounded excellent. Early reviews were negative, as they’ve been all season. Entertainment Weekly’s Adam Markovitz wrote, “It was a snooze. Our biggest jolt of excitement might’ve come when they flashed the names of the guests for next week’s season finale: Justin Timberlake and Lady Gaga.” HitFix said, “This might have been the weakest episode in terms of female representation all season. If they don’t have confidence in these women, fire them and get new blood into the mix.” Jezebel dubbed the episode “sort of fair to middlin’.” And Movieline called the episode “very sub-par,” noting that Helms’s opening monologue was “boring.” On that note! Let’s take a look at some sketches.

Most Attention-Grabbing
The Jon Hamm–Jimmy Fallon “Ambiguously Gay Duo: Live-Action” segment is sort of entrancing, if not actually laugh-inducing. It also gets SNL some headlines. (See above.)

Least Expected Cameo
The millionth “What Up With That?” is a bit messy, until the real Lindsey Buckingham saves it.

Most Samberg-Centric
In “One Take Tony,” Kristen Wiig plays yet another weird fancy lady. She’s still good at it. Andy does his thing, and it isn’t funny, but he can’t do much wrong in our eyes.

Most Wiig’d Out
In “Ann Margaret,” yep, Kristen Wiig plays a weird fancy lady.

Most Delightful
Paul Simon’s sounding good, performing “So Beautiful, So What.”

Saturday Night Live Recap: Jon Hamm’s Ambiguous Gayness; Paul Simon’s Solid Performance