Last night’s episode of Saturday Night Live, hosted by everyone’s favorite scowl, Josh Brolin, and featuring musical guest Gotye, was a pretty solid evening of sketches, with no enormous flops and no immediate classics, either. Brolin was sorely underused, his talent shining in the few bit parts he did get, but largely missing from the festivities — Gotye, on the other hand, got an entire digital short (the second digital short of the episode) about how much Andy Samberg and Taran Killam love him. All in all, it was an enjoyable evening. Click through to watch the best and worst sketches of the episode, and let us know if you agree with our assessments, or think we’re totally off the mark, in the comments.
Note: for some reason, a lot of these sketches aren’t available online yet. We’ll check back and update once NBC posts them — or you can just watch the whole episode here.
The Best:
Behind the Scenes of Game of Thrones
Come on, you knew we were going to love this one. This sketch would have made the best list for Taran Killam as Jon Snow alone, but Andy Samberg as a 13-year-old obsessed with boobs? Predictable, yes. Hilarious, also yes. (Watch the sketch here)
The Californians
So much breaking so early in the episode! Let’s get real — only Wiig and Armisen could really do the accent and everyone spent the whole time looking at Armisen and trying not to crack up. That said, this was one of those occasions where it was actually fun to watch them flail about and make the dumbest joke in the book — people talking funny.
Laser Cats 7
We have mixed feelings about the Laser Cats franchise, but — Stephen Spielberg! That’s all you need to know.
Slow Motion Highway
We liked this send-up of the ubiquitous slow-motion cool-kid high school hallway walk, especially when it devolved into the principal making dad jokes and answering theoretical questions about possible hallway physics/evil witches. Cute.
The Worst:
The Time of Our Lives
Okay, full disclosure: we actually kind of liked this sketch. Though it’s not saying overmuch, we thought it was on the high end of this season’s political cold opens, if only because it made us smile as opposed to making us roll our eyes. That said, the song effect didn’t actually work that well, and the whole thing was a little bit awkward.
Weekend Update
A slow night for Weekend Update, but we’re a little biased — we’ve always sort of hated Garth and Kat. Plus, Seth Meyers debuted a new segment called “What Are You Doing?,” which was fine, but only made us think about how much we wished we were watching “Really? With Seth and Amy.”
America’s Next Top Empire State of Mind Parody Artist
This sketch was okay, but it could have been much, much funnier — the parodies were just too random. However, Jay Pharaoh’s Jay-Z was, as ever, top-notch.