'SNL' recap: James Franco shines despite show's Al Franken problem
Saturday Night Live was prepared to throw a softball right over the plate this week; it’s the holidays, after all. No contentious Alec-Baldwin-as-Trump appearance, nothing mind-blowingly surreal in the 12:50 a.m. slot. The cold open was full of adorable (and some, fittingly, not-ready-for-primetime) children, and host James Franco was as charming and inoffensive as they come.
In general, the show was great. Like Baldwin, Franco has developed a reputation as a serious actor but has a willingness to make himself look foolish that is really the sweet spot for an SNL host. His ease with the format means none of the rest of the cast has to try too hard and the show should be a simple and easy affair.
Then Al Franken announced he was resigning from the Senate. The show was raked over the coals for ignoring the Harvey Weinstein case a few months earlier, so they couldn’t just ignore it. Franken is a legend as both a writer and a performer on SNL. And, while their attempt to wrestle with his misdeeds didn’t derail an otherwise enjoyable show, it was definitely the fly in the ointment.
“Sexual Harassment Charlie” featured Franco as an executive ousted for harassment and Kenan Thompson as a security guard ostensibly ousted for the same. The sketch cast Franco as the innocent guy fired for mildly inappropriate talk while Thompson’s hypersexualized antics are laughed off as “just Charlie.”
At another time, this would just be a silly and forgettable character sketch, but in late 2017, it’s a tone-deaf muddling of a complicated issue. It’s possible the sketch was written long before the Franken story broke, but putting it in this week’s show absolutely makes it SNL’s commentary on the situation: A powerful man is unjustly brought down by an overly sensitive culture. It’s a serious misfire.
Sketch of the Night: “Visit with Santa Cold Open”
The best thing about this sketch is that it’s actually the most professional of the child actors that ends up looking dumb; it’s irritating to watch the regular cast not make eye contact with each other while reading cue cards, but when kids do it, they look like scary plastic robots. Ironically, it’s the ones who flub their lines and nearly drag the scene to a grinding halt that are the most endearing. Also, try to pick which kid will be sitting on a late night couch in 20 years when the host dredges up this clip as his or her first on-camera credit. Our bet is the opioid kid.
Tried and True: “Gift Wrap”
Look, once a season or so, somebody’s going to run a plastic tube up an actor’s costume and it’s going to spit out something awful. Sometimes it’s blood, sometimes it’s vomit, sometimes it’s milk. Like fart jokes, there’s no use fighting it — they’re going to happen and you’re either going to be grossed out or you’re going to love it, and that’s just the way it is. If you are a hater, though, try this: Focus on Leslie Jones. See if you can figure out whether she had lines but is too appalled to get them out, or if her character was written to just sputter in horror. Either way, it’s fantastic.
The Commitment Award: “Za”
This sketch must look like a mess on paper. But somebody in the writers’ room probably sold it by saying, “Don’t worry: Franco’s got this.” And he does. By pure, stubborn force of will, he turns a scene about a weirdly abbreviated word into something greater than the sum of its parts. That being said, please don’t try to use “suh” to refer to pizza when you go into the office Monday morning; you will get slapped and they will be right to slap you.
Show MVP: Heidi Gardner
Kate McKinnon needs to steal four or five scenes in a night to win this; for the featured players, all they have to do is make it on stage, really. Like Luke Null’s class clown character from a few weeks back, Gardner’s laid-back dirtbag cousin of James Franco isn’t groundbreaking. But “Reunion” does hint at her potential to play a wide variety of characters — she also did a great job as the straight man in the “Za” sketch — and become a force in upcoming years. McKinnon and Cecily Strong don’t have many seasons left in them and they’ll leave a void that Gardner is poised to fill.
Line of the Night: “Little Pig Boy comes from the dirt.”
Breaking on stage is a cheap way to win over an audience and is rightfully scorned when overused. But watch Franco’s smile creep its way onto his face in the “Spelling Bee” sketch. He doesn’t want to break, and you can see him fighting it by doubling down on the seriousness of his character. Of course, that makes it even worse and — by the time he’s asked what country Little Pig Boy comes from — he’s earned that grin.
Intern Achievement Award: Whichever low-paid page’s job it is to catalog SNL segments deserves every accolade in the book. How many sketches in SNL’s 43-year history must have generic and forgettable names like “Spelling Bee” or “Reunion” or “Visit With Santa”? How could you possibly keep them straight? The award should be sent to whatever asylum that poor soul must now be living in.
Saturday Night Live airs Saturdays at 11:30 p.m. on NBC.
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