Saturday Night Live: Kevin Hart, Foo Fighters

December 16, 2017 10:41 PM - Season 43, Episode 11

Host: Kevin Hart, Musical Guest: Foo Fighters

• Whitehouse Christmas - Alec Baldwin, Cecily Strong, Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant, Beck Bennett, Leslie Jones, Scarlett Johansson, Mikey Day, Alex Moffat
• Opening Monologue - Kevin Hart
• Pandora Charms - Kate McKinnon, Mikey Day, Cecily Strong, Beck Bennett, Aidy Bryant, Leslie Jones
• Office Phone Call - Cecily Strong, Kate McKinnon, Kevin Hart, Pete Davidson, Beck Bennett
• Captain Shadow - Chris Redd, Kevin Hart, Alex Moffat
• Inside the NBA - Alex Moffat, Chris Redd, Kenan Thompson, Kevin Hart
• Foo Fighters - The Sky Is A Neighborhood
• Weekend Update - Michael Che, Colin Jost
  • Omarosa - Leslie Jones
  • Guy Who Just Bought A Boat - Alex Moffat


• Nativity Play - Aidy Bryant, Kenan Thompson, Leslie Jones, Heidi Gardner, Cecily Strong, Kyle Mooney, Mikey Day, Kevin Hart, Kate McKinnon, Alex Moffat


• Christmas Party - Kenan Thompson, Beck Bennett, Cecily Strong, Leslie Jones, Kevin Hart, Aidy Bryant


• Active Jack - Cecily Strong, Kevin Hart, Kate McKinnon, Melissa Villaseñor, Kenan Thompson


• Foo Fighters - Everlong/Chirstmas (Baby Please Come Home)/Linus and Lucy (Peanuts theme song)

posted by DizzyOnBugSpray (24 comments total)

...and closing with most of the cast skating The Rink at Rockefeller Center.
posted by girlhacker at 12:06 AM on December 17, 2017

Captain Shadow, especially Chris Redd, was awesome.
posted by rhizome at 12:58 AM on December 17, 2017

I think that Foo Fighters Linus and Lucy is my favorite thing of this December.
posted by Stanczyk at 9:15 AM on December 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

I think Heidi Gardner would have made a wonderful Ivanka, but I guess if you're dating Colin Jost you do SNL walk-ons.

Captain Shadow was amazing.

Inside the NBA was merely chuckleworthy but then Shaq came out from behind the desk and Kevin Hart was on stilts and I died.

(It's funny, I don't go out of my way to watch Kevin Hart's comedy specials, even though I love Real Husbands of Hollywood, which I would say I watch in spite of, rather than because of, Kevin Hart. But really he's pretty talented and good for a guaranteed laugh.)
posted by elsietheeel at 9:31 AM on December 17, 2017

AHHHH THE BACKSTAGE LLAMA IS CARRYING AN ENTIRE SKETCH!

(Sorry I'm still watching.)
posted by elsietheeel at 9:32 AM on December 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

I think Heidi Gardner would have made a wonderful Ivanka, but I guess if you're dating Colin Jost you do SNL walk-ons.

Scarlett Johansson played Ivanka in a previous episode when they did the commercial for an Ivanka fragrance called "Complicit."
posted by bluecore at 10:40 AM on December 17, 2017

No, that's the onstage llama, completely different llama.
posted by ckape at 10:45 AM on December 17, 2017 [3 favorites]

Scarlett Johansson played Ivanka in a previous episode when they did the commercial for an Ivanka fragrance called "Complicit."

Yeah I remember. I also remember when Darrell Hammond used to play Trump. Nobody has a claim to an impersonation and I think Heidi Gardner could do a great Ivanka. That's all.
posted by elsietheeel at 12:46 PM on December 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

Guy Who Just Bought A Boat was on some Bojack wordplay, I think the character may have come into it's own this week.
posted by rhizome at 2:01 PM on December 17, 2017

Guy Who Just Bought A Boat was on some Bojack wordplay

Agreed, I've been enjoying Moffat's work more and more lately, that and Eric Trump remain faves,.

I like but do not love Hart and this show seemed oddly uneven. A few good holiday type sketches and two real clunkers right at the end. Active Jack was funny up front and then turned into more "getting old sucks" sort of stuff which is SNL sort of at its worst. And that Xmas Party sketch, what was that? I wasn't even sure what they were going for.

Other stuff I liked--YAY the llama!--and I actually really enjoyed the Foo Fighters. First song rocked and that medley was FUN. Acoustic Everlong is lovely. Was funny at the end watching who wasn't skating.
posted by jessamyn at 6:32 PM on December 17, 2017 [3 favorites]

I have a really visceral dislike of both the Foo Fighters and pop Christmas songs. But I watched the medley because jessamyn said it was FUN. When the stage lit up, I actually gasped, and, dare I say, felt a little bit of that holiday magic? I mean, it's not my holiday (though I appreciated the menorah!) but the staging was really well done. It was, indeed, FUN.

(Acoustic Everlong was lovely, too.)
posted by Ruki at 7:26 PM on December 17, 2017 [5 favorites]

I cackled my way through the Pandora charms commercial. I think Pandora charms are fucking hideous, so it hit my sweet spot. FUTURE BOYFRIENDS, IF YOU ARE TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHAT TO GET ME FOR A BIRTHDAY/CHRISTMAS/VALENTINE'S DAY PRESENT BY TRAWLING MY INTERNET COMMENT HISTORY, DO NOT GET ME A PANDORA ANYTHING THANK YOU.

The llama was cute, as was its sudden sideways siddle when Kevin Hart yelled a line.

And now we know who among the SNL cast can ice skate and who can't.
posted by orange swan at 7:28 PM on December 17, 2017 [3 favorites]

For those playing along at home, technically Luke Null was in this episode for a second as the guard who forced Omarosa away from the White House window. Apparently we're all the way back to the "no Null is a good Null" status.

Poor guy.

and hey maybe he's killing it in the writer's room or something, I dunno.

aaaanyway I am strongly on Team Moffat and Day Need To Be Promoted because they're so solid. Just so solid. It's hard for me to understand that the same guy that plays Eric Trump can play the guy who just bought a boat - not to mention I don't think I've seen him corpse yet, and Colin was really aiming for him during Weekend Update.
posted by komara at 7:28 PM on December 17, 2017

Michael Che sure seemed to be doubling down on his "I am definitely not a leftist" thing, with cracks that "blacks aren't Democrats" and that Trump was "more likeable" than Hillary Clinton. (IN WHAT FREAKING UNIVERSE, MICHAEL CHE?) It sure doesn't make me optimistic about his prospects as new co-head writer. Trump's gang will probably be even more heinous in 2018, but I suspect the show will probably waste a lot of time going after the scourge of clueless white girls with their scarves and Lena Dunham paperbacks. Lorne Michaels isn't nearly as lefty as you'd think, and it seems like he's hand-picked a guy who will keep the show "balanced" at a time when the occupants of the White House are not so much politicians as hissing, venal creatures straight out of a Ralph Steadman cartoon. I guess our only hope is Colin Jost, which is a sentence nobody should ever have to write.

The Captain Shadow bit was funnyish, but the point was muddled because up until the cop planted the coke it kind of seemed like he had some decent reasons for pulling them over. Captain Shadow was driving 100+ MPH on city streets, with a weird teenage boy in the passenger seat bragging about how they live together in a cave! I had some similar issues with the thing a few weeks back where all the POC were hassling Batman for his vigilante brutality in their neighborhood, but the way it was written it kind of made Batman the sympathetic character. Somebody on staff really wants to make some points about racism using Batman, but they never seem to quite think it through.

I was sure surprised Pete Davidson didn't show up during WU to show off his new Hillary Clinton tattoo!
posted by Ursula Hitler at 9:25 PM on December 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

(Just remembered that it WAS Captain Shadow's coke, and it wasn't even planted! The bit's even more confusing to me now.)
posted by Ursula Hitler at 10:11 PM on December 17, 2017

Michael Che was sort of down with (okay...let's say he was amenable to the *idea* of) DJT prior to the election and has only committed to making a stand against him when it comes to Donny being *INCREDIBLY* unhinged (I remember reading/watching interviews with Che prior to the election where he said he was willing to give Trump a chance in the interest of DRAINING THE SWAMP, of all things).

Che absolutely does not want to be identified with anything having to do with the left but I feel like he suffers the association for the best interests of his career....for now. But if I had to narrow Che down to a specific political ideology? He's a fucking Libertarian. Yeah, he's using his platform (right now) for mostly good, but I don't trust him to not flip when the Dems are back in control. And this isn't a new thing...if you go back to when he first started on SNL, and include reading interviews with him during that time, it's obvious he's absolutely not a liberal and/or Democrat.

Also I am ambivalent in re: Foo Fighters (and I *hate* Chrismas music), but that show-ending medley really warmed my cold dark heart. And it made me understand why Everlong is my cousin and his wife's song (played at their wedding, even). Everlong was poignant but the rest was joyful, so the combination of the two, plus Dave Grohl's very existence and all that he's gone through, was perfectly bittersweet. I liked it very much.

(Finally, I'm sorry, even though I enjoyed the Guy Who Bought a Boat, it wasn't THAT good. Moffat flubbed more lines than Leslie and Kenan put together and although he was working his ass off to sell it, he did not...although he came close.)

(P.S. Team Kenan 4EVA!)
posted by elsietheeel at 2:36 AM on December 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

Che as Libertarian does resonate. He hates taxes, likes freely available weed, seems to be a lot more DIY about things and, and this is my main issue, seems to sort of dislike women. I mean, I'm sure there are a lot of women he likes, but he has way too many lulzy "And I don't use birth control and tell all my girlfriends to get abortions" styles of jokes for my tastes, even though I find a lot of his comedy including his stand-up hilarious. If I'm reading the articles correctly there are now four male head writers and two women (I think?) as writing supervisors.

Somebody on staff really wants to make some points about racism using Batman, but they never seem to quite think it through.

I agree entirely with this. I thought the sketch was funny but Captain Shadow was definitely a sketchy superhero so I felt the "point" was a little muddled.
posted by jessamyn at 5:50 AM on December 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

Completely mediocre in every way. Mediocre host, mediocre musical guest, mediocre sketches.

This has been my less-than-mediocre review.
posted by bondcliff at 6:55 AM on December 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

The Captain Shadow bit was funnyish, but the point was muddled because up until the cop planted the coke it kind of seemed like he had some decent reasons for pulling them over.

The cop didn't plant the coke, though, did he? The sidekick confirmed it was Captain Shadow's energy dust or something. I'm confused.

As for Che's "Blacks aren't Democrats" thing, IDK, I read that more as a take on how the DNC takes the black vote for granted, but maybe that's because there was a discussion about that on one of the megathreads right after Doug Jones won so that was still fresh in my mind.
posted by Ruki at 2:24 PM on December 18, 2017

When The Foo Fighters launched into their second set, my first thought was surely they've played Everlong on Saturday Night Live before, so then I looked it up and it turns out they hadn't.
posted by ckape at 2:31 PM on December 18, 2017

Cut for time: New Year's Kiss
posted by ckape at 4:10 PM on December 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

The cop didn't plant the coke, though, did he? The sidekick confirmed it was Captain Shadow's energy dust or something. I'm confused.

I said in another post that I'd remembered the cop didn't plant it. Maybe the point of the sketch was just "Batman is actually really sketchy when you think about it," but by making him a black guy it complicated things in the wrong ways. In 2017, seeing a black guy pulled over and hassled by cops has some really dire associations. We were primed to sympathize with this guy being hassled for doing all the same stuff white Batman does, but then it turned out he really was sketchy and the cops were right to bust him. Maybe that reversal was supposed to be a joke, but it just seemed off to me. I'm sure this wasn't what they were going for, but it almost played like some racist meme: "Q: What would Black Batman have on his utility belt? A: Drugs!"
posted by Ursula Hitler at 1:31 AM on December 19, 2017

I like Che a lot, but I do get the misgivings. I feel like there's an element of "women, amirite?" to Che's persona that isn't great for 2018. It would have seemed perfectly okay as recently as 2008. Maybe he will, as they say, get woke on this subject (or maybe in ten years he'll be Bill Maher). I'm otherwise fine with him challenging the ethos of the center left, which generally could use a little challenging.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 3:58 AM on December 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

I thought it was an adequate episode except for the final two sketches, which were probably the worst I've seen in years. Really, you don't have to do that, SNL. You don't have french kiss the giant teddy bear in front of all your employees. No, really. Please put the teddy bear down.

And if they think getting old sucks? Well, maybe bring in Garrett Morris and Laraine Newman to play the aged versions of the characters. Sheesh, talk about two really shitty sketches. And I'm not counting the one with actual dookie! That was funny. SNL, you should call your Nana more often.

Also, Alec Baldwin as Trump now comes across merely like Alec Baldwin saying things Trump would say and half-assedly miming Trumpish gestures, instead of being a scathing doppelganger.
posted by not_on_display at 2:52 PM on December 20, 2017 [2 favorites]