(S33E11) I honestly was not worried about Shia LaBeouf delivering a less than stellar performance, as his first stint on Saturday Night Live showed that he works well with the cast and is naturally very goofy. With a funny guy like this, one can only pray that the writers use him as much as possible and work super-hard to give him embarrassingly crazy sketches. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. Again. The writing was okay, but it did not do LaBeouf justice. Also, there seemed to be a strange flow to the episode, as the energy of sketches would start dying halfway through and eventually end on a really weird line. Let's hope the writers aren't already losing steam. They still have a season finale!



"Cold Open: Hillary Clinton": I had my back to the TV for the first part of this sketch and the full impact of Amy Poehler's Hillary Clinton impression hit me. It's really bad. I mean, wow. I don't think I've ever realized it before, but Poehler sounds absolutely nothing like Clinton. If Kristen Wiig toned down her Suze Orman a bit and cut back on the enthusiasm, she'd probably be closer than Poehler. Anyway, this was a pretty well-done cold open. I probably would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't kept nitpicking Poehler's lack of nasality. "Nasality"? Is that the right word? Let's pretend it is.



Monologue: Yes, yes, LaBeouf is the new Indiana Jones sweetheart. Of course, if the writers have any reason to bring out Darrell Hammond's Sean Connery, they will do it. It's not like Hammond does anything anyway if McCain isn't making big news. Seeing Short Round was okay and the melting Nazi was a bit predictable. I mean, not that I'm complaining. I love melty Nazis that sound like Will Forte.



"MacGruber: Silo": LaBeouf's repeated punching in the intro made me laugh uncontrollably. Going by that logic, if something as minor as that made me crack up, I should have been rolling on the floor throughout the episode. Strange. As usual, both LaBeouf and Forte's subtle reactions were hysterical.

"It's a Match": For some reason, this felt unusually un-SNL-y and was a poor choice to kick off the evening. LaBeouf was funny, as was Fred Armisen's Paul Lynde/Charles Nelson Reilly hybrid, but that was about it. Casey Wilson still makes me cringe. I really want to like her, but I can't! I can't.



"Scared Straight": Kenan Thompson is probably the least scary person on the entire cast. I'm just saying. Not that the "deposit" line wasn't creepy.



"MacGruber: Rebel Training Camp": When they pixelate stuff like that with such tiny, tiny pixels, they might as well not blur it out at all. Come on.

"Suze Orman Show": Wiig's Suze Orman is so spectacular! It's gotten to the point where I don't even think of it as an impression anymore, just a character. The writing on these sketches are totally spot-on, as well. This was probably the best sketch of the night. I. Heart. Wiig.

"SNL Digital Short: Best Look In The World": Is it safe to call this the least funny Digital Short in a long, long while? As much as I like to see the pasty legs of SNL guys and Samberg and LaBeouf looking super fly in stetsons and aviators, this was not a particularly good short. The song wasn't even catchy! And illiterate genies aren't as funny as one might expect, apparently. I think the SNL promos that Samberg and LaBeouf did were a thousand times funnier.





"Weekend Update": Pssht. More like "WEAKend Update"! Am I right? Yeah. Vlad and Niko weren't as funny as they could have been and Thompson's "French" comedian was only so-so. Zut alors!





"La Rivista Della Televisione": Thank goodness they didn't bring out the random dancers and costumes that they normally do at the end of this sketch. Keep it simple, guys. For once, I wasn't super-annoyed at this sketch. Instead, I developed a massive craving for spaghetti at 12:30 in the morning. Also, I feel like it is important to point out that Lorne Michaels totally looked like a pimp. Awesome.



"MacGruber": Samberg and LaBeouf are totally gay for each other. It had to be said.


"Girls Trying On Dresses": When in doubt, put the host in drag. This wasn't a particularly funny sketch, but that is to be expected this late in the night. Too bad we didn't get to see the show end with a bang.