After Louis C.K. brought a much-needed dose of weird to Saturday Night Live last week, there was a considerably different mood last night for host Anna Kendrick. The show gave Kendrick lots of opportunities to show off her voice, and seemed to turn into a giant musical theater production with five sketches devoted to musical numbers.
While Kendrick has a completely enjoyable set of pipes and is a charming presence overall, the sketches stuffed with singing themselves weren't so great (most of them also aren't available online due to song licensing issues). The Monologue (watch it here) worked fine (although it pales in comparison to C.K.'s stand-up last week), but The Little Mermaid was hampered by bad cues, and Pharrell Audition didn't have many laughs.
The most disappointing sketch of the night was Dongs All Over The World, a pseudo-sequel to (Do It In My) Twin Bed from earlier this season; while the latter was one of the two or best sketches of this entire season, Dongs completely missed what made that sketch special in favor of naughty words and obvious sight gags.
Thankfully, there were some truly excellent sketches to balance that out: Neighbors was the best Kyle Mooney/Beck Bennett digital short of the season, with a warped rom-com bent. The return of the recurring sketch Les Jeunes De Paris fit perfectly in Kendrick's wheelhouse. And, thankfully, this was BY FAR the best Weekend Update since Colin Jost took over for Seth Meyers, with visits from German Chancellor Angela Merkel, George R.R. Martin and some dude named "Brooks Wheelan."
Click through for all those sketches, plus the return of Jay Pharoah's Principal Frye, another forgettable cold open, Fox and Friends (Bobby Moynihan kills it as ever as Brian Kilmeade), and musical performances from Pharrell. Seth Rogen will be the host next week with musical guest Ed Sheeran; then SNL will take another few weeks off before the final episodes of this transitionary season.
