Season 40 Episode 20: Reese Witherspoon
And we’re back! We apologize for the long time away, but our vacation and SNL’s production schedule just didn’t align. It felt good to take some time off, but now it’s good to be back.
Speaking of coming back after a long time off, this was the first time Reese Witherspoon had hosted since she was the first person to host the show after the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001. Would being away from the SNL stage for more than a decade leave Witherspoon feeling like a rookie? Let’s take a look.
Reese Witherspoon took the top spot of the episode with 30 points. Within the cast, we had eight people (so just over half) in double figures and two people (Cecily Strong and Kenan Thompson) with scores over 20 points. On the other side of the scoreboard, the only cast members to score less than five points were the Weekend Update anchors.
Reese Witherspoon and Cecily Strong combined for 25% of the episode which makes sense since the appeared together in all but three of this episode’s sketches. It was as though Strong said, “You feel like you’ve been gone too long? Stick with me and you’ll do just fine.”
With more than half the cast in double figures, two with more than 20 points, and the most of the lower-performing half in the high singles, this episode had the highest cast average yet. It helped that there were very few cameos and that 90% of this episode’s sketches called for five or more performers.
As great as this episode was for the cast as a whole, it was split for the individual main cast performances with four increases and four decreases. Of those four cast members with increases, three (Bobby Moynihan, Cecily Strong, and Kenan Thompson) achieved their highest scores yet this season. Meanwhile, no one with a decrease had their lowest score.
Things were also fairly positive for the featured cast with five increases, one steady, and one decrease. Beck Bennett was the only featured player to tie his high score for the season, while Michael Che was the only featured player to tie his season low (but in his case that’s a regression to the Weekend Update norm.)
Reese Witherspoon had a solid score and was a great team player, but that balanced hosting approach places her in tenth place, tied with Kevin Hart in the middle of the host scoreboard.
In terms of material we liked, we found this episode to be on the middle to lower end of the season. We enjoyed the opening monologue’s inclusion of a majority of the cast’s actual mothers as well as the embarrassing home movies of the cast. However, most of the episode’s sketches had mixed qualities. We credit “Be Scene in L.A.” for approaching the “California is vapid” premise differently than “The Californians,” but it still had a very uneven rhythm. “Picture Perfect” let Bobby Moynihan play to his strength of conveying childlike regression, but its topicality felt forced. “Bad Week” let the ladies of SNL work together in a way that reminded us of the old “guys bonding over doing terrible things and singing ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s'” sketches from a while back, but it could not stick the landing. We were surprised to see “Student Theater Showcase” as a recurring sketch, and while it expanded on the premise of the original it lacked the resonance of the first time. The only other sketch that was mostly positive was “Whitewater Kingdom,” for having a unique premise, an impressive set, nice pacing, and one of the best lines of the episode delivered from an otherwise walk-on Kenan Thompson (who was also in fine form as his recurring “Willie” character on Weekend Update.)
Next time we’ll continue playing catch-up as we cover the season finale with Louis C.K., followed by our comprehensive wrap-up of Season 40.
Staturday Night Live 