Pretty good episode. I especially liked ‘Cialis for threesomes’ and the wedding skit (wont spoil it). Jean K. Jean’s appearance on the Weekend Update was excellent as usual.
The emperor and pool boy skit were pretty subpar.
The Emperor skit was interrupted (inadvertently, I’d guess) by a campaign commercial for our local governor’s race.
The Rahm Emmanuel apology was awesome, and the wedding skit was short but very sweet. I thought the pool boy one was OK, and my wife laughed at the Burn Notice game show because she knows I watch.
Not bad overall, though Ashton had very little to do with it being as good as it was.
How 'bout the musical guests? I liked the overall sound but thought Grohl is a better singer than the guy doing the vocals. Who was the bald guitar player?
The Rahm Emanuel skit was brilliant. So was the middle-aged punk band. I can’t believe those two skits were buried in the last fifteen minutes.
I enjoyed Them Crooked Vultures too. It’s a supergroup with Grohl, John Paul Jones on bass, and Josh Homme from Queens of the Stone Age on vocals and guitar.
Them Crooked Vultures is a supergroup w/ Grohl, Jon Paul Jones, and the lead singer of Queens of the Stone Age (don’t know his name.)
Yeah, I felt like this episode got off to a rocky start and then pulled it together in the end. In the first sketch there were a lot of awkward moments (looking at the wrong camera, looking for the cue cards, etc…). It just seemed like something was going wrong behind the scenes. And Ashton wasn’t helping… I can’t believe it was that guy’s fourth time to host.
Of course I’m a little biased because I’ve never seen his movies, and I don’t know what the hell that opening monologue was supposed to be about, but I tried to go into it with an open mind. But it still took fifteen minutes or so to get the ball rolling, which is time they can’t afford. But, as usual, when Kenan Thompson takes the stage, all becomes right with the world again. 
While we’re on the subject of vocals, I could not make them out. It wasn’t due to Homme’s unintelligibility but rather because they didn’t have the sound properly balanced between the band and the vocals. That’s a problem I’ve noticed with many SNL musical performances over the last few years.
Do they sound any better than that usually? Both songs they play sounded awful.
I liked the wedding skit and Rahm Emmanuel’s apology, but the rest of the show was forgetable.
I loved seeing Them Crooked Vultures perform, but yeah, the mix wasn’t good. Grohl was a monster on the drums, Homme kicks ass like usual, and Jones was right in there with his younger bandmates, putting out great sound.
“You go after me on Facebook? What are you, fourteen? Go back to the tundra, you fucking gimmick.”
Not to turn this thread into one about the poor sound mixing on SNL but I wonder why they’re having such problems now when the technology of mixing is supposed to be so advanced. I don’t remember this being a problem with the musical acts during SNL’s first 25 or so years of existence. I also notice poor band/vocal balance is a problem that frequently crops up on Late Night with David Letterman.
Maybe the problem is with my television.
I liked the bit about the venereal diseases so old that they have racist names.
I was surprised, I think they may have hit their stride with this show. I thought it was great.
-Superman and Mark Twain being served by a stormtrooper bartender!
-Keenan as Whoopi on the View. “This is playin at that’o’clock, That is playin at this’o’clock, it’s too confusin”
-Entertainment tonight, with the lady host’s hideous/hilarious bird like laugh, and Billy Bush “I just like being on TV”
Ashton Kutcher sucked, as expected. I laughed at the “What is Burn Notice?” gameshow, because I fit right into the target audience: see the show mentioned all the time, no idea what it’s about.