Today's Evil Beet Gossip

What You Missed: Highlights from Last Night’s SNL

Photo: Steve Buscemi hosts Saturday Night Live

Steve Buscemi hosted Saturday Night Live last night. Final verdict: NOT ENOUGH STEVE BUSCEMI. (They compensated by giving Paul Brittain some stuff to do, though. Paul Brittain! I know! He never gets to do anything!)

Let’s begin with the opening monologue:

It’s unusual for the opening monologue to genuinely be a highlight of any SNL episode, but this time they’ve done it. And it’s really cute! It’s actually reminiscent of Buscemi’s 1998 monologue in a lot of ways. This time the idea is, Steve Buscemi only recently made the jump from “character” to “lead” actor, thanks to the success of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire. Watch what happens next.

Miley Cyrus (Vanessa Bayer) makes her triumphant return to SNL! And this time she is toting a bag of Doritos. Buscemi is woefully underused here, but he totally wins as “Jeff,” some dude Miley met at Burning Man.

This week’s Digital Short, “Batman,” gave me serious giggles, because this is a pitch-perfect parody of Christopher Nolan’s Batman. Can we all agree that Steve Buscemi is, after Gary Oldman, the world’s most perfect Commissioner Gordon?

Ah! The “Coach Bert” sketch is one of the best of the night. It is not too easy to make light of the Penn State scandal (or pedophilia, generally), but this is kind of darling.

The sketch’s strength has a lot to do with how creepy Steve Buscemi looks when he wears a mustache; he is also cartoonishly adorable the more exasperated he becomes, much like a Muppet. Poor Coach Bert! They seized his computer, and all they found were his 11 novels.

I’m not sure whether “Sex Ed Couples Therapy” is safe for workplace viewing—ahem—but it’s just nice to see Paul Brittain take the lead in anything.

SNL traditionally saves its weirdest skit for the end of the night. Uh. All I can say is, this is that skit.

2 CommentsLeave a comment

    • Eyeroll.

      It is illegal for any website but Hulu and NBC.com to host Saturday Night Live clips, just as it would be illegal for me to google how to watch Hulu outside of US for you.

      You’ve got bootstraps. Use them at your own peril.

      And FFS, I’m not responding to this line of questioning again.