SNL Open Thread: Felicity Jones Tries Her Best

Generally, SNL comes back from breaks refreshed and stocked with new energy. If that’s true, they must be saving it for next week because this episode was rough.

It began, as all of them begin these days, with an extra long chunk of Donald Trump, as SNL offered a parody of this week’s press conference (kind of a parody to begin with), including appearances by both Putin and Steve Harvey, which I suppose helps protect it from being just a bunch of jokes we already read 100 times on Twitter.

After that, however, it was time for host Felicity Jones to take over. Signs that the episode would underwhelm began when her monologue duties were handed off to a hologram of Tina Fey, who basically pre-excused the following show with jokes about the tricks SNL pulls when it knows it has a stinker.

Sure enough, they jump directly into a lame The Bachelor parody in which Beck Bennet listens to lady after lady say crazy stuff, a structure best served way later in the show.

Not even Weekend Update could rise above this low standard. It’s possible I’m just not the target audience for Colin Jost and Michael Che’s approach to political humor, which seems to think Trump is weird but people who hate him are equally strange. At one point Pete Davidson came on to make jokes about how Trump’s cabinet picks have funny looking faces. Boy, they sure do! Even your racist Aunt has to admit that!

Next week brings Aziz Ansari. And with him, hope. Which is what rebellions are built on. I wish I could remember who said that.