On SNL, five-timer Will Ferrell gets plenty of help, doesn’t need any of it – The A.V. Club

Id kill my own mother for a time machine.

Nobody needs to be sold on the premise, Will Ferrell = funny at this point, but, if youll all indulge me. Ferrell is one of the best (like, if hes not in your top 5 all-time, youre disqualified) Saturday Night Live performers ever, for the simple reason that he has never been any less than 100 percent present. No matter how dire the sketch, Will Ferrell is in. And while that hasnt always carried over into his movie career, well, I suppose its harder to maintain that level of commitment when youre asked to sweatily keep a 90-minute bad joke afloat than a 5-minute one. But in the sketch comedy (or late-night talk show) form, theres never been anyone more willing and able to command focus like Ferrell. As with tonights monologue, watch Ferrell on a talk shownever content to just put in the studio-mandated time, hes always armed with a bit, his bottomlessly febrile and restless comic animal too primed to allow anything like coasting.

Back hosting SNLfor the fifth time, there wasnt a Five-Timers Club bit. And there wasnt a single returning Ferrell character, although no doubt the audience (and the show) would have been more than content with Ferrell wheeling out any one of a dozen or more. And while there were even more returning SNL pals (Maya Rudolph, Fred Armisen, Rachel Dratch, Tracy Morgan, Alec Baldwin, whos essentially a cast member/hostage at this point), and others (Ryan Reynolds, Larry David, Woody Harrelson) than usual when theres an alum in the house, Ferrells contribution took the form of all new material and characters, about which, once more, I ask you to stick with me.

Ferrells stock-in-trade is thwart. Hes got those small, deep-set eyes that he can seemingly will to go doll/shark-black in an instant once his characters own desperately smiling confidence isinevitably revealed as faade. Its in this gift for conveying the inner storm raging under the placid outer appearance of white male assurance that powers a Will Ferrell sketch character, and turns a premise as simple and potentially unprofitable as, say, ketchup bottles that make fart sounds into something more akin to improbably potent characterization haiku. When Ferrells seemingly serene Thanksgiving dinner dad responds to his familys harmless jokes about him cutting the cheese, Ferrells tightly controlled burst of a line, Its not who I am! transforms the sketch from a simple observational toilet-joke into a tiny gem of characterization, all in the never-blinking blink of those eyes.

The same goes for the Cinema Classics sketchyes, a repeater, but not a Ferrell repeaterwhere the central gag becomes more about the righteous ire of Ferrells diminutive doctor than that Dorothy (Kate McKinnon, killing it) could only dream up insulting dream stereotypes for the surprising number of accomplished little people in her Kansas life. There, too, its Ferrell, and its one line (What were we wearing!) that flicks the sketch alight with the flash of a seemingly ordinary guy whos got a whole lot more going on inside than it first appeared.

Even the monologue was the sort of self-contained piece of performance art that Ferrell invariably brings to his in-person TV appearances, the joke that the flustered Ferrell cant get over the fact that Ryan Reynolds is right in the front row turning into a tightly controlled exercise in manic absurdity. No way, its too late, Im locked in! is this Ferrells on switch this time, his star-struck semi-self fanning out in too-awkward-to-please catchphrases until he lapses into a ranting Tracy Morgan impression, and until hes one-upped by Morgan himself, both of them eventually shouting about the prophecy!, and the whole loopy enterprise working better than any monologue in a while. Reynolds did some fine embarrassed underplayingcredit where its duebut it was Ferrells stubbornly hilarious unwillingness to go through the motions that made the whole monologue (and episode) work.

For the worst, check politics below. Otherwise, you get to see just how much better Will Ferrell can make your sketch comedy show.

While Ferrell himself made the aforementioned ketchup and Wizard Of Oz sketches into something, the pizza restaurant (chain name redacted because Im a bitch about doubling down on Lorne Michaels product placement deals) sketch matched Ferrell and Kate McKinnon for the first of two times tonight, and it was, unsurprisingly, pretty great. Those two made a different kind of funny in a similar sketch in the past, but here its more about character work than just goofing around on old Mainers at a diner. First up was Kate, her chipper mom lapsing into sullen, passive-aggressive murmurs once her kids object to her mom-joke about being all horned up for pizza. Then, once mom flees, snapping that at least the death row guys she teaches typing to appreciate her, its Ferrells dad who, unable to function without his wife to prop him up, has a different sort of breakdown. Asked by the director to just talk to his kids as he normally would, he first asks his teen daughter abruptly about her period before telling his son, haltingly, And son, um, fight me? He then reveals how lost he feels with a series of escalatingly absurd details (hiring a prosititute to teach him how the stove works when McKinnon was away for the weekend was the capper), before she came back to save the day with the reunited couples co-dependent assurance restored.

The weeks music video, about teens Mikey Day and Cecily Strongs house party being unnervingly disrupted by the smiling presence of Ferrells AP English teacher, lived in some funny details, like Ferrell inexplicably watching The Shawshank Redemption in the middle of things. But it was really all about Ferrels teacher and how his circulating air of placidly pleasant incongruity kept interrupting the teens party rap flow, culminating in a final, last-to-leave meltdown all the funnier because of how underplayed it is by Ferrell. Its a fine idea, but, with Ferrell at the heart, it was great stuff.

If there was one (again, toilet humor) sketch that even Ferrell couldnt do much with, it was the Native American Thanksgiving sketch. Look, I get that having Ferrell put a stop to the thing with a to-camera button about there being a lot of problems in this crazy, crazy sketch is a funny conceit/construction. (Although the only white actor playing a Native in the sketch, technically, is Ferrell, hes right that the idea is sort of 2014.) But having the sketch turn on a poop/corn joke wasnt the most sophisticated way to disarm the whole uncomfortable dinner conversations with racist old relatives premise, especially when Ferrells Native grandfather keeps using Trump minions talking points about building walls and dirty, criminal foreigners while describing, you know, the actual settling/invasion of white settlers, all the way up to and including germ warfare and genocide. (Instead of that white supremacist/Fox News/Stephen Miller nonsense white genocide.) I mean, self-mockery about SNLs history of black-/brownface is cute and all, but the parallelism of the underlying joke here is so wrongheaded as to remain queasily unrealized, even after the turn.

And I know what youre asking: Can Ferrell even make something of a sketch about a ventriloquist dummy hand up my ass gag work? See the ten-to-one section, O ye of little faith.

Is it fair to get annoyed that one of the still most-watched satirical fake news outlets on TV is content to take snarky potshots in one of the more dire and eminently mockable political and social crises in American history? Well, Im writing this, so I declare my annoyance is entirely justified. Che and Jost have just 10 minutes or so to cram in a weeks-worth of overflowing political material? Make it a tight, focused 10 minutes. This weeks Update was . . . fine. With Trump and the GOPs calumnious culpability in the undermining of everything America brags about standing for on bare-assed display all week in televised impeachment hearings, Jost and Che felt smugly comfortable lobbing blunt insults. (GOP conspiracy conspirator Devin Nunes looks like Spongebob? Trump is brain-damaged? Mike Pence is still in the closet?) Its . . . fine, especially since Trumps made it abundantly clear how even such so-so critical material gets under hislets call it skin. But smirking your way through some self-satisfied mediocrity isnt going to cut it when the possibilities for actual, insightful political comedy are as abundant and potent as they are.

There were a few jokes around the edges that worked better. Che ending his report on billionaire presidential candidate late-comer Michael Bloomberg performatively apologizing for instituting New Yorks blatantly racist stop-and-frisk policy with, Apology . . . noted stung. The fact that Jost is still willing to do jokes about college pal Pete Buttigiegs abysmal polling among black voters at least smacks of some comedy courage. (Well see how things go in that department when the co-head writers fiancee hosts on December 14th.) And Ches line about that whole Julia Roberts as Harriet Tubman story being titled Runaway Bride 2 was just solid.

And, in the one correspondent piece of the evening, the whole one-joke joke of Alex Moffats obnoxious Guy Who Just Bought A Boat at least brought out Reynolds to shore up the premise that overcompensating douchebags actually have lots of things to overcompensate for. The way that Moffat initially let slip his sexual inadequacies between his insufferably lame double entendre was a great little piece of comedy, but the dudes asides about his tiny wang have become more obligatory over time, and Reynolds (big wang that doesnt work) prep school chum just doubled down on the gag, giving the pair an excuse to say the grossest stuff they could get on TV. Meh.

I was anticipating more of a Kristen Wiig-style cavalcade of threadbare favorites, but Ferrell just wasnt interested, seemingly. Just Guy Who Bought A Boat and Cinema Classics.

Wow, does Alec Baldwin not want to be here. In the shortest and least-consequential Trump cold open in memory (which is saying something), the whole gag during a week were the House is on the verge of returning articles of impeachment against a sitting president is the premise here was that Trump likes to dodge questions by standing near a running Marine One. Ferrell dutifully donned a bald cap as GOP star witness who actually totally buried Trump Gordon Sondland, trying to wring laughs out of enthusiastically throwing his boss under the boss and yelling about people loving his ass, but at least this one was over with merciful quickness. (Baldwins muffed line didnt help things.)

Another Democratic debate sketch really brought in the ringers, as Dratch (Klobuchar), Harrelson (Biden), David (Sanders), Rudolph (Harris), and Armisen (Bloomberg), joined Ferrells unblinking Tom Steyer, and actual cast members Bowen Yang (Yang), Chris Redd (Booker), Colin Jost (Buttigieg), Strong (Gabbard), McKinnon (Warren), and Melissa Villaseors moderator Rachel Maddow. There were a few okay touchesI liked how Armisens coy Bloomberg kept interrupting things carrying big fountain sodas, and his joke about Trump fans finding nothing to conspiracy theorize about with a Jewish billionaire with his own media company at least went there. McKinnons Warren remains the best presidential hopeful impression of the season, here, enthusiastically telling would-be voters to just leave her alone to get on with fixing things like a mom who just needs everyone out of her Thanksgiving kitchen. But the rest was just all quick-hit nothing jabs at the easiest targets, leaving the whole overstuffed exercise inoffensively forgettable. Bernies old, GOP operative Gabbard is evil, Bidens also old, Yang and Klobuchar exist. The joke that other billionaire attempting to buy his way into office Steyer walked unsettlingly straight toward the camera was at least some funny Ferrell business. And Mayas Kamala Harris benefits from Maya being Maya, but the joke that Harris (a formidable debater with a few good showings under her belt) is relying on meme-able moments to carry her debate performance is just . . . an idea that SNL would have.

Alt-pop wunderkind King Princess is 25 years younger that Saturday Night Live, which isnt a knock, just an observation to make myself feel old. Her two songs were energetic enough. I like that her teasingly raunchy Hit The Back went straight-up disco partway through, because, again, old.

After finally getting a decent showcase last week, where the hell was Ego Nwodim? Same goes for Pete Davidson, whose peek-a-boo season continued with a very successful disappearing act. Chloe Fineman had very little to do once more, although hers was the best and most committed of the munchkin voices, so thats something.

Its dispiritingly apparent that Lorne isnt interested in letting his actual cast members prove themselves in political sketches, as he deployed just a limo-load of ringers throughout. Seriously, hes got both Fineman and Villaseorfine impressionists bothand theyre barely used in that capacity, even when the DNCs inability to whittle down its debate roster provides nothing but opportunities. It was a sparse night generally for the cast. Cecily had a few plum parts, but its Kate again, thanks to her Elizabeth Warren, pizza mom, and Dorothy.

If you see a sketch performer bring out a ventriloquist dummy, the joke about having a guys hand up my ass is, more than likely, going to make an appearance. That Farrell (plus horrified audience members Kenan and Cecily) managed to score with this brief bit (it started at 12:56, by my clock) was a neat combo of all-around commitment, gross-out comedy (so much lube), and good old ten-to-one (four-to-one, in this case) weirdo spirit. (My name is Lewis Maldonado! Someone please call my wife!)

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On SNL, five-timer Will Ferrell gets plenty of help, doesn't need any of it - The A.V. Club