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Videos: Woody Harrelson Hosts Best <em>Saturday Night Live</em> Of The Season
By
Ben Yakas
Published Nov 16, 2014
Modified Nov 16, 2014
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Nov 16, 2014
Modified Nov 16, 2014
Share
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Woody Harrelson entered Studio 8H in a cloud of purple kush to host Saturday Night Live last night. The weed-friendly host provided plenty of weed-friendly jokes throughout the episode, but this was no hollow high: this was truly the most consistent episode of SNL so far this season.
And the highs were actually high this week: the monologue seemed like it was going to be a messy singalong, but ended up getting hijacked by Harrelson's younger Hunger Games co-stars, culminating in yet another charming Jennifer Lawrence moment (all about weed). There was Match'd, a hilarious dating sketch that gave Beck Bennet & Kyle Mooney the chance to channel some of their weird personas into an actual live sketch. And the show had a lot of fun with NYC's new marijuana policies in a Pete Davidson-led sketch.
The episode had a little of everything the current SNL cast does right: there was the pure surreality of Camp Fire Songs, featuring a tune just as catchy as "Too Many Cooks." There was the return of one of the best recurring sketches of recent seasons, Last Call, featuring a very erotic cellophane wrap make-out session. Leslie Jones bounced back from her Chris Rock-episode awkwardness with a great (and loud) Weekend Update appearance. Taran Killam might not have a good Mitch McConnell, but he nailed Matthew McConoughey during Weekend Update.
Of course, the political cold open was pretty boring (though ever so slightly better than usual, thanks to the fact it had an actual concept as opposed to having someone say toothless political jokes at a podium). The football safety sketch Halftime Speech was pretty middling, except for Kenan Thompson's hilarious (but sad) ex-player.
Click through all those sketches, plus an absolutely incredible performance from Kendrick Lamaar (which was probably the best musical performance since Kanye West did "Black Skinheads" and "New Slaves" in 2013). Cameron Diaz will host next week, with musical guests Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars.
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saturday night live
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Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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