Saturday Night Live: Melissa McCarthy / Kanye West

February 13, 2016 11:06 PM - Season 41, Episode 13

A vehicle for The Boss two months in advance? Will there be a Ghostbusters tease? Plus musical guest, "Kanye West."
posted by rhizome (11 comments total)

This was a good-but-not-great. McCarthy gets tossed into too many of the Kristen Wiig weirdo roles for my taste, but it's a fair part of her non-SNL shtick as well.

How have we never got Vanessa Bayer's Rachel before? It was note-perfect.

I don't generally like SNL's reliance on "Race issues make white people uncomfortable", but "The Day Beyoncé Turned Black" was high on the list of the use of that. Maybe they've got it out of their system now.

Pete Davidson is rapidly ascending the ranks, and the Terminator sex scene worked perfectly on every level.

All in all, a solid B, but I feel like McCarthy is one of those performers that everyone should be stepping up for, and there were enough Meh skits to drag it down a bit.
posted by Etrigan at 11:03 AM on February 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

I tried so hard to stay awake for the whole thing, but alas. The horror movie focus group made me wonder what skits *don't* make it, but I thought McCarthy was good and game, perhaps more than the show could deliver.

Also she has the singing voice of 1980s Lucille Ball.
posted by rhizome at 11:21 AM on February 14, 2016

How have we never got Vanessa Bayer's Rachel before? It was note-perfect.


It was scary good...
posted by Alexandra Kitty at 1:40 PM on February 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

I had to kinda close my eyes before I really got it.
posted by rhizome at 1:40 PM on February 14, 2016

Ok... VB Rachel was unreal...why have they been hiding this gem? It was amazing.... But the rest of this show SUCKED!!! I love Melissa... But omg!! The "Beyoncé isn't white" was ok... If not mildy cringeworthy... But I couldn't bear the rest. Unusual for me. I can usually push through. And Kanye.... I have no idea what the hell he was trying to do. And I have a degree in music. Damn.
posted by pearlybob at 7:53 PM on February 14, 2016

"We are Farmers! Bum ba-dum bum bum bum."

And I thought the Beyoncé bit was the best thing they've done since Tina's take on "I can see Russian from my house."
posted by The Wrong Kind of Cheese at 11:34 PM on February 14, 2016

To mis-quote and paraphrase Roger Ebert (originally from his review of the movie "Pearl Harbor"), this show can take 10 minutes worth of laughs and cram it into 90 minutes.

Melissa saved the day every time she was on the screen, though. I think I might start only watching this show when either she or Alec Baldwin is hosting.
posted by jbickers at 12:56 AM on February 15, 2016

It's so one-note, but the 'Kats R We' never fails to crack me up, plus cute kitties, win-win. I thought the Von Miller cameo was fun too. These weren't Kanye's best SNL performances, but it seemed like he was having a great time up there which was fun to watch.
posted by Fig at 8:37 AM on February 15, 2016

The day Beyonce turned black was the best thing SNL has done in years. Kanye was terrible live. He's really gone off the rails. The freestyle he did was pretty fun to watch though. But ultimately things are still as they were. McCarthy was great in a few skits - namely the pickup skits (Leslie breaking actually made me smile), the news had one or two funny bits, and Leslie was awful yet again. However, I'm guessing Leslie wrote a good portion of the Beyonce short, so I say again to her, "yo dre, stick to producing". She's as talented with a pen as she isn't with her performances.
posted by cashman at 10:11 AM on February 15, 2016

I think the point of Kanye's songs was to showcase the wardrobe he put together for his fellow performers. He wanted to make sure we wouldn't be distracted by the music.
posted by scalefree at 2:24 PM on February 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

I love Leslie in performance. She's fresh. I do wish she had more different things to do.
posted by amtho at 10:50 AM on February 16, 2016