One New York Life

Despite my friend Matt’s incessant linking, I tried to keep my exposure to the onslaught of “this is my definitive version of what happened” to a minimum. For two reasons. First, my initial thoughts when the credits rolled was that I liked it… kinda. I was in a tenuous situation where reading too many thoughts could talk me in to the author’s interpretation. I didn’t want to read any interpretations until I knew which thoughts were mine and which weren’t. I only cheated with Low Resolution and the Open Thread on OverthinkingIt. Second, I needed to digest the finale, think about it, sleep on it, and possibly watch it again. The only litmus test I used was Twitter because getting deep in 140 characters isn’t possible. In the closing scenes — from Christian’s speech onward — I knew reaction would largely fall in to five camps: cop-out (they didn’t explain anything!), totally didn’t get it (they were dead the whole time?!), sci-fi people picking apart the idea of spirituality (get your God out of my show!), didn’t care about the mythology (they’re all happy!), and trying to reconcile the finale with the series as a narrative (so, what IS the Island?). Let’s look at them individually.

First, the easy one — those who totally didn’t get it. The vast majority of these folks, somehow, interpreted Christian’s speech and the church as the characters were dead all along. This is despite Christian explicitly saying “the things on the island actually happened and they mattered” and the writers, time and again, telling fans that the island characters were alive in the regular sense. The time they spent on the Island and the time they spent in the flashforwards were real. In the sideways universe, they were dead. In the flashbacks they were, well, I’m still kind of in flux there. Given the sideways universe, and what Christian said at the end, is it possible the flashbacks can be interpreted as part of the sideways world? Where time has no meaning and there’s no “now”? More on this later. Really, the folks who think they were dead the whole time either 1) were totally out of it by the end and just heard them say the world “dead” or 2) were connecting Christian’s empty coffin in season one (which is admittedly troubling) with this empty coffin or 3) way over-interpreting the imagery of the plane’s wreckage over the credits.

Next, the cop-out — or, as they put it on Ron and Fez today — “They had a story-telling Ponzi scheme and couldn’t pay it off so they just said f*ck it.” Here’s the thing, I’m not sure at what point in the series they decided the monster was going to be black smoke in its natural form, but I think that was the point at which they collectively decided “you know what, Dharma is here to study the Island, they don’t know what’s going on, I don’t think we’re going to really describe it ever.” And, really, I can understand why these fans are mad. They wanted to find out what Dharma was doing that created all these crazy things on the Island. Instead, they discovered that the science experiments were meant to figure out why crazy things happened on the Island. It was a chicken and egg scenario and the writers, validly if not lazily, took the easier route. These folks probably feel robbed and, really, they’re not wrong. The problem is that they were expecting a logical, pseudosciency explanation for a monster made of smoke and seeing dead people and black horses and forest whispers. These people ARE the Dharma Initiative… they all wanted answers they couldn’t find.

The third group is a subset of the last group. The folks who find some of it to be a cop-out but are mostly mad that in the last three episodes they decided to say “it’s magic” and be done with it. Across The Sea was Cuse and Lindelof’s version of a creation myth. The light has always been there. Asking where the light came from is like asking what was before the Big Bang. If we assume the sledgehammer of symbolism, the light’s first guardians — who were probably also the first humans — were “birthed” from the cave. The Island’s the source of life. It’s Eden. A magical place that can move around the Earth and will cause doom if it falls in to the wrong hands. Even though we didn’t know it at the time, it being underwater in the sideways world was a fancy way to say “there’s no life here.” This group’s reaction was the easiest to call because we just saw it last year with Battlestar Galactica’s Daybreak. BSG spent an entire series being about spirituality and the hand of God (or gods) driving the characters from the colonies to Earth. When the finale confirmed, in fact, God really was driving the characters from the colonies to Earth, the genre folks freaked, called it a cop-out, hated it, and asked why God was in their science show. The Internet Atheists are an interesting bunch — they have their own idea of how we got here, and they will angrily argue that any other interpretation is wrong… and the irony is unapologetically ignored. Much like the BSG finale, though, the clues toward all of this being about spirituality was around well before Across The Sea. That they willfully chose to ignore it is their bad, not the writing staff’s.

The fourth group, and this is where I started when the credits rolled, were people just glad to see the characters who they came to love end up happy. This group is probably the easiest to explain. People ultimately wanted these characters to be happy, so we were willing to forgive a lot of stuff for a finale that made some jokes, went over some of the good times with us (Star Wars jokes, nicknames, etc), and let the characters find what they were looking for. These are the people struggling to defend a finale that left so much unsaid and unmentioned (like why the Others stole children, who the heck was helidropping food on to the island, where exactly Christian’s body ended up in the real world, or who was the “Wallace” Jacob wanted Hurley to summon) and using platitudes like “it’s about the characters, not the island.” That’s kind of bull because The Island WAS a character — maybe the most important on the show — and we really don’t know that much about it. For me, that’s the only cop-out. I think “Across The Sea” was supposed to tell me that The Island was someone’s version of Eden, and the fact we can’t really describe Eden is why we can’t describe the Island. What the cork meant, and the cave meant, and what the monster was, and what the light was is left up to individual interpretation and, really, that’s the nature of spirituality.

The final group, which is what I’m slowly bleeding toward, are people struggling to put the finale in the proper context of the entire narrative. You’ll be able to spot these people as they try to break down The Church. I found the Church to be the least bothersome part of the Purgatory. Christian’s speech summed it up entirely and it’s partially Beer Snob Mike’s Cosmic VCR Blu-Ray Player Theory. At the end, you get to look back on your life and see what would have happened if you made those seven or eight life-altering decisions differently. Lost has always been about love. Cuse and Lindelof have stated it explicitly on occasion. The people in the church were the candidates and the people who they loved the most. When Boone died, I’d argue his great love was Shannon. When Shannon died, hers was Sayid. When Libby died, it was Hurley. All these people waited for each other to be ready so they could move on as a group. As always, Jack was the bull-headed guy who came around to spirituality last, but that doesn’t matter since there’s was no “now”. The characters had the ability to flash around both their real lives and their perfected version of it. In that way, maybe the flashbacks really DID take place in the sideways world. The characters were looking back at the life decisions that got them to the church together at the end. Since there’s no “now” in the sideways world, they can experience their whole life at once outside the rules of linear time. They got to see what made them special while waiting for everyone else to come around… and that’s OK, too. Michael doesn’t get to go with one of the nice ladies he murdered because Hurley’s love overrules that relationship. Walt knew the island people for about 40 days and never saw any of them again. He went home with his dad, went to a decent high school, probably was a first round NFL pick, was special in the same kind of mysterious way that Hurley and Miles were special, and found people to love. Ben and Eloise don’t get to go simply because they don’t want to. I like the idea that people who miss their soulmate get a second chance to find them in the end. Ben’s redemption is that he gets an off-island life with a regular family. He earned it. Then there’s Eko.

Think about it this way. If this wasn’t the first time we saw the sideways universe, doesn’t that redefine Mr. Eko’s final moments? After Eko was smashed to death by the Monster, the final scene is of him when he was still a child — before he became a warlord and made awful decisions — with his arm around his brother Yemi, casually tossing a soccer ball in the air and peacefully walking away. Be this by design, or by fortuitous coincidence, isn’t this how you’d envision Eko moving on? The church is just a construct. That’s why it had a stained glass window with symbols from multiple theologies. The church doesn’t matter — it’s just the vessel by which these people chose to move on. In the same way, we got to see the version of Eko he’d want to be forever, the innoncent one, embracing his brother and moving on. There was no Eko in the church because Eko had already found the only person he loved. And, really, I think that makes Eko’s sad end a little better.

My personal contextualizing of the finale has been easier than it’s been for some. I think the reason is simple — I’ve always thought the Island was a spiritual place that existed to give characters something they wanted and test them. The writer at Overthinking It refers to it as “Total Redemption Island” (based off my comment!). In a 2006 column I wrote for Inside Pulse, I said:

For most of the first season, the writers led the viewers into believing the island is a spiritual place. Many theories coming out of the first season had the island as heaven, hell, or purgatory. This theory was supported by various instances where people see the dead on the island. Jack, in early episodes, sees his father walking around on the island and is eventually led to his father’s empty coffin inland on the island. Sawyer is visited, he thinks, by the soul of a man he killed in the body of a wild boar (the man’s dying words were: it’ll come back around, which you hear in the woods during the episode).

The overwhelming message of the first season is the island giving the castaways something they desire in a way to give them a second chance and to make them want to be on the island. Locke is given back the use of his legs, he’s wanted and respected, and he’s away from his cubicle job. Kate is no longer being hunted for murder and is able to assume a new identity, for a while, but is given a life not on the run. Michael is given a chance to bond with a son who really wanted nothing to do with him. Walt is given Locke, someone who appreciates him. Hurley, who hates what winning the lottery has done to him and his relationships, is allowed to be just another dude again. Claire is given her baby and the ability to raise it with someone. Charlie is able to get off heroin and is given the chance to create a family. Every character, in their flashback episode, is given something they desperately wanted. This frequently led the discussion toward the Island of having some spiritual meaning. Were the characters dead? Were they sucked into an alternate universe a la The Langoliers? Was the island some sort of utopia that responded to desires and fears?

As it turns out they weren’t dead, but they were on some sort of utopia that responded to desires and fears. Really, I think that’s why the finale worked for me and, when you wrap it around everything else the series has done, it does work overall. It’s not like the clues weren’t always there that the Island was reacting to the characters’ hopes and dreams; but people wanted real-world explanations for it other than “it’s magic” and weren’t ready to accept a finish without a tidy resolution. Given where the series went, I don’t believe that Lindelof and Cuse “always knew what they were doing” — though I do believe they always expected the final shot was going to be Jack’s eye closing after he died doing something heroic — but I do believe they never intended to come up with an explanation other than “it’s magic” for the Monster.

Ultimately, I think the “history of television” will look back on Lost favorably. It was one of the first shows to really embrace an online audience. It was the first show to use the Internet over its first offseason to keep people engaged with their “online treasure hunt” stuff. It was the first show to promote a season by creating three-minute web episodes to fill in some blanks. It was the first show ever to create a “DVR Moment” — that is, a moment specifically designed for people to pause live television, screen grab, and devour — when the Blast Door Map was revealed in Season Two. It’s likely X-Files would have been this show had it come along a few years later but, well, it didn’t. When we look back at it, I think we’ll remember it as a one of a kind show for a network. It really embraced all audiences, all media, really never listened to the network when it came to dumbing down the content, and ended on their own terms in a way they knew would probably be unpopular. I would ask the people who hated it to look at it through a lens where the Dharma Initiative were people searching for the same answers as you and to remember that the show was more about mysteries than answers.

The unfortunate part of this ending is the people who liked it and the people who hated it are never going to find a middle ground on which to agree. Both groups will think the other is extremely stupid and will insult each other (“you didn’t get it” vs. “you accepted crap”) and platitude each other (“it’s about the characters!” vs. “it’s about the explanation”) forever. A lot of this is Cuse and Lindelof’s fault for fostering the overthinking of the series and never really shooting anything down unless it was just too off the wall. They left everything in play and, really, they couldn’t pay it off. Due to the nature of the Internet, it will get increasingly heated and Lost will probably go down as one of the more divisive finales in history. And, really, maybe that’s fitting.

For a show that spent a lot of time on the Man Of Science vs. Man Of Faith debate, they turned it over to the audience to debate forever. The Men of Faith probably liked it. The Men of Science probably hated it. And, again, that’s probably fitting.

1) They converted Clark’s outfit from the red jacket and blue undershirt to a black trench coat with his emblem crudely painted in silver on a black shirt. If you don’t watch, here is the action figure. The outfit is much more Batman than Superman which fits the more Batman, protect-from-the-shadows vibe with Clark this year. I understand the point (they can’t really use the Clark/Superman secret identity) but it still makes Superman much more angsty and dark. Doomsday and Jimmy are (obviously) gone from the cast and a non-superpowered version of Zod (clearly the eventual big bad) has been added. The Kandorian orb at the end of last season contained Kryptonians stored as blue-Kryptonite tainted DNA. Apparently, Jor-El’s last ditch effort to continue his planet’s lineage was to create Kryptonians unaffected by the yellow sun so they could incorporate in to Earth’s society instead of immediately trying to conquer it because, as established, all Kryptonians are dicks.

2) Biggest issue at the beginning of the season: hundreds of Kryptonian symbols begin appearing all across the planet burned in to mountains and scorched in to the desert. All this apparently happened on the same day. Chloe, who knows exactly what Kryptonian symbols are and, according to show canon, monitors literally hundreds of news sources via Watchtower while tracking the Justice League, somehow knows nothing about it? Tess Mercer’s people immediately bring the symbols to her attention. On top of ALL that, Chloe has access to Lana’s old monitoring system in the mansion and somehow missed the Kandorian orb and everything else that went on in the mansion? Unbelievably huge season plot hole.

3) Tapping a little more in to the DC library this season, John Corben (Brian Austen Green) appears in the season premiere and we have our Metallo by the second episode. This version of Metallo was a reporter searching for the truth about The Blur when he was hit by the bus instead of after committing a murder; so the Smallville version of Metallo is more “flawed hero” than “crazy psycho.” I assume they decided to finally pull the trigger on Metallo because the green Kryptonite power source in the middle of his chest looked a lot like Tony Stark’s in the Ironman movie. Also appearing this season, The Wonder Twins as heroes inspired to do good by The Blur’s efforts. The Wonder Twins episode was OK, but was saved by Jayna’s telephone’s ringtone being the monkey from Superfriends’ laugh. Also, Great Moments In Ringtones this season — Lois’s ringtone for The Blur’s incoming calls being Bonnie Tyler’s “I Need A Hero”. The closest thing we got to great moments in music this year.

4) I was sad to see that Smallville completely abandoned using well chosen songs this season. I understand they probably did it as a cost-saving measure, but still — the music selections in the early seasons really added to the show and it’s another sad part of the music industry that it’s better for people to not hear it than it is for people to hear it cheap. I can’t imagine why this industry is still on its heels.

5) In a strange episode, Clark is temporarily granted telepathy by Jor-El. Why would Jor-El only give this to Clark as a temporary ability? Wouldn’t this be a really useful one to keep indefinitely? We’ve largely established that Clark is really bad at figuring out good guys from bad guys and is fooled all the time. We could have maybe skipped seven seasons of Lex screwing with him. And, besides that, after Clark discovers that it’s possible for him to be temporarily granted telepathy, wouldn’t it make sense that he might want to try to figure out how he was temporarily granted telepathy? In case it ever came in handy again? Yes, yes, the fortress is the Smallville Writers’ deus ex machina, I know.

6) My favorite part of the first half of this season was Oliver’s inability to deal with Jimmy’s death. I found it interesting that they chose Oliver to take it the hardest because he had the least to do with it. Chloe had world’s more to do with it than Oliver and she was over it in like an hour. Oliver’s path of self-destruction and losing himself in to his pre-Green Arrow drinking and whoring was great and so was his symbolic burning of the costume. It was all undone a few episodes later when he got over it, but the trip was fun.

7) So, the Orb from last season was not a tool to control Superman. It was instead a tool by which to preserve the city of Kandor if the people were slain by war. These Kryptonian artifacts are fantastic things. This one generates Kryptonians out of nothing. But just in case the Kandorians figured out how to get their powers back, Jor-El ALSO sent a key to Earth which would teleport all non-blue-Kryptonite infected Kryptonians on Earth to a new planet where they could set up a new Krypton. This was in case they got rowdy which, given everything we know about Kryptonians (who are all dicks) was absolutely going to happen. Now, I understand why he’d infect the people of the orb with a blue Kryptonite virus (since they’re all dicks) but you also think he’d realize that if his son was on Earth with regular Superpowers that they’d all try to get superpowers from him. Jor-El is an odd duck — he couldn’t quite figure out if he wanted all Kryptonians on Earth exterminated or if he wanted them to live there.

8) The explanation of how the Luthorcorp tower’s ability to change the yellow sun in to a red sun was somewhat lacking. The Luthorcorp tower collects the radiation from the yellow sun, “changes the yellow sun’s radiation to it red”, and beams across the the Earth via Luthorcorp satellites. Really? REALLY? And they can bring this down via hacking? This was all very odd to me. The claim that the red sun (which has always been available on Krypton) would now, on Earth, superpower the blue Kryptonite infected Kryptonians but also render Clark powerless seemed way too crazy. And, yet, somehow green Kryptonite still affected them? Knowing that, it seems like the Watchtower people would all have giant rocks of Kryptonite on their persons. I find it really difficult to believe that Chloe, of all people, wouldn’t be carrying a giant rock around with her at all times — especially when they apparently had enough to fashion arrows and blades. Kind of a bad episode as it made humans seem extra dumb.

9) I’m sad that Clark’s fatal flaw — his inability to let anyone die and belief everyone can be saved — did not lead to anyone’s death this season. Zod was shot before he had powers and was dying. Clark, in a last ditch effort to save him, cut himself with a Kryptonite dagger and sprinkled his Kryptonian blood in to the wound. Clark’s untainted blood healed the wound and saved Zod’s life. However, this transfusion also eventually killed the blue Kryptonite virus in Zod’s body and led directly to him — and the rest of his army — getting their Kryptonian abilities back. Now, granted, in the season finale Zod stabbed Clark and threw him off a building, but I think we all know that this isn’t going to be Clark’s death. Zod really should have killed someone due to Clark’s tragic flaw and, knowing that Allison Mack isn’t really going to be in much of next season and that Chloe isn’t part of the “Superman” part of Clark’s life, it probably should have been her. Also, the symbolism of Clark falling backward in crucified position — dying to save humanity — was an OK use of the sledgehammer of plot. But, ultimately, Clark’s bad decision worked out and it probably shouldn’t have.

10) At the beginning of the season finale, Clark’s mother — seen for the first time in years — leaves him a gift. It’s his real red and yellow emblem. As next year is confirmed as Smallville’s last season, I’d imagine that all of next season is going to deal with Clark’s transition from The Blur to Superman. I imagine he’ll probably finally figure out how to fly (which is good, as it’s kind of getting to be a huge plot-hole now in which his joking “fear of heights” doesn’t really cover) and finally get a full grasp on his destiny. Then it remains to be seen if we get a Superman spin-off. Also, given the fact we saw a future headline about Lex Luthor’s presidency in a 2012 Daily Planet, I do hope that we get at least a small story arc with Lex Luthor such that his story didn’t come to end in the back of a flatbed truck. Of course, this could also lead to a fun little “then who did I kill?” storyline with Oliver.

Final Thought: I’m assuming that the shadowy grandmother figure seen knitting outside Tess Mercer’s room as she died is Granny Goodness (another excellent DC character name). By that, the “not Kryptonians” who attacked Oliver were probably the Female Furies, which means that Tess will probably be brought back as Bloody Mary since she’s a redhead, dead, and every show needs vampires now. If that’s the case, Smallville’s last Big Bad is looking to be Darkseid which, if Lex is where it started, Darkseid may as well be where it ends.

In the interest of full disclosure, I kind of fell out of Grey’s Anatomy this season. Really, I only ever watched it with PLR and, even then, only half paid attention. Once PLR started watching the unwatchable Private Practice on the same night, I couldn’t sit through them both and gave her the “please watch these when I’m not here or in bed” request. I’m not saying this in some effort to mitigate the man-foul — as most of you know, I unapologetically love Glee, am a huge Buffy fan, and at one point in my life had a working knowledge of the events on five different soap operas — but to set-up that I have almost no knowledge of this season’s storylines. I know that Derek and Meredith are fake married, I know that Christina and Owen were together, and I know some stuff about various other relationships. I also know that Derek is in charge of the hospital and there was some kind of merger, which is where all these new doctors came from… so I’m only really tangentially acquainted with the “other doctors” and I have no idea the storyline that led to the shooter coming to Seattle Grace. I watched the finale because the series recording picked it up, I heard some decent buzz, and was in a full court press to clear DVR space before cramming 6.5 hours of ABC HD Lost finale.

All that said, I don’t get what all the fuss was about. It felt like a cop out. With all the promos about the gunman, I was kind of expecting at least ONE primary character to die and no, random merger doctors don’t count. By the end, I just had the same feeling I had when the last of the Tailies were killed off on Lost; that the writers had added in a bunch of new characters, had no idea what to do with them, so decided on a killing spree. As someone who didn’t watch much of the season, the only reaction I had to Reed getting shot in the head was “holy shit, a somewhat main character just got shot in the head… appetizer!” By the end, the biggest question I had was “how did Alex manage to crawl in to an elevator and be alone on it for 20 minutes before it finally got to a floor where someone could find him?” In fact, I recall reading back in October that fans were reacting to these new characters much as we Losties reacted to the Tailies and Nikki & Paulo; less “yay, new characters” and more “who are these annoying n00bs polluting my show?”

Which means when Dr. Percy died with Dr. Bailey and Mandy Moore — in what was supposed to be a big, powerful scene — I just didn’t care. All I thought about was how much more amazing that entire sequence would have been if it had been Bailey who got shot and Dr. Percy was trying to save her, only to have her die on him. Now, since Shonda Rhimes posted that she couldn’t even bring herself to have Bailey shot, I can figure out why Bailey didn’t die… but sadly I didn’t care at all about these extraneous characters getting bumped off.

In that post, Rhimes says that she thought the most powerful moment of the episode was Meredith’s miscarriage. I agree, but I don’t necessarily thing that is a good thing. Rhimes says: “I love the scene where she tells April that it took her forever to find Derek and then it took her forever to realize she wanted to be his wife, have his kids. That’s a changed woman. The very fact that being pregnant makes her happy makes her a changed woman. And then she lost the baby. It took my breath away. That wince that Meredith gives before she says she is having a miscarriage, it took away my breath. Reed dies and Charles dies and it’s sad. But the miscarriage, that’s devastating. For Mer.”

Yeah — it was the most powerful moment in the episode. Because she was the only character on the finale actually affected by something. The shooter didn’t kill any of the people he wanted (The Chief, Derek, and Lexi all made it out alive and, as of the end of the episode, unhurt), and Rhimes’ post is basically like “yeah, it’s sad these characters died, but I couldn’t really kill any of my faves and, oh yeah, Meredith is going to be messed up again! Yay!”

It was a good episode and an OK season finale, but I can’t shake the feeling that it was a cop-out. I wanted more out of it. Nothing happened, there was no claimed “game-changer” and everyone’s back where they started before the extra doctors came over. Color me underwhelmed.

Brooklyn Dark Matter

Brewed By: Brooklyn Brewery
Brewed In: Brooklyn, NY
ABV: 7.5%
Type: American Brown Ale

What They Say: I got this in a growler and, in fact, I’m not sure if it was bottled at all. I don’t see anything on their website proper, but they have a lengthy blog post with a similar theme as the Black Ops. The relevant highlight is as follows: Anyhow, they say that back in 2007, a small amount of Dark Matter was created alongside Black Ops, but very few people had an opportunity to taste it. The Brooklyn Brewing Team decided that this shortage was unfortunate – plenty of Dark Matter for themselves, but not enough to share with all their friends. So last autumn they decided to recreate Dark Matter and open up the Brooklyn Barrel Room to a wider world..

Website: I’ve mentioned in other Brooklyn reviews that I’m a fan of their website. We can leave it there.

Why I Picked It: A recommendation from the Big Show, followed by a drunken sample at Rattle n Hum, plus a sighting of it at the Whole Foods Growler station. That’s pretty much the universe telling me it’s time to sample. Sadly, a combination of circumstances (including a trip to central New York and a fresh, once-a-year growler of Wagner Valley Maple Porter kept this growler in my refrigerator for almost two months before I finally got to it.

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Presentation (5): So far as I know, this is draught/cask only. (N/A)

Originality (5): Maybe it’s increasing awareness on my part, but it seems like Brooklyn is attempting to grab a small corner of the “we do crazy stuff with beer” market currently cornered by Dogfish Head, which makes it even more strange to me that Mario Batali went to Maryland (Dogfish) and Sonoma Valley (Russian River) for his new Eataly Birreria restaurant instead of across the river to one of the Brooklyn brewers. Regardless, in this case, not only did Brooklyn decide to age stuff in bourbon barrels, but they decided to take the bourbon barrels that they previously aged the Black Ops in and use them again to see what happened. Can’t really go wrong there. 5

Body (10): The beer is an opaque brown with a very small head. The carbonation is incredibly soft and stays entirely out of the way of a smooth, creamy mouthfeel. The odor is almost entirely bourbon, with a consistency bordering on a porter. I usually imagine “brown ales” to be really thin and heavily carbonated (Newcastleish). That isn’t the case here at all… the barrel-aging entirely changes the characteristics of the ale… I’m not quite sure if it’s for the better though. 7

Taste (10): The flavor here is a lower-keyed Black Ops. It looks like they took a recipe — possibly their standard Brown Ale recipe — and just decided to see what happened. The flavor is a blast of bourbon and vanilla from the barrel with hints of alcohol around the edge. Most of the brown ale flavor is killed by the barrel, with nearly all the flavor coming from the barrel’s previous residents. Since the flavor is so similar to Black Ops, which I loved, it’s hard for me to deduct points for it here. The problem is this comes across as a slightly less powerful version of that beer. I like Black Ops as it is… I don’t know if I need a brown ale that tastes like it, too. The bourbon and vanilla also combine to form something that might be a touch too sweet for me and there’s not any carbonation or bitterness to tone it down. 8

Efficiency (10): It’s hard to argue with a 7.5% ABV for a regular-priced growler. Whole Foods is sadly moving on to a graduated pricing scheme with their growlers. Instead of $8.99 across the board for 64 oz, they’ve started to change the price based on the ABV and adding a cheaper 32 oz version for the wusses of the world. In this case, the alcohol seems a little more noticeable than the Black Ops and the sweetness is a little tough to take after awhile. The ABV is high enough that I got multiple sessions from one growler, but by the third I wasn’t looking that forward to it. 6

Versatility (10): Sadly, low. This is never going to be something non-snobs would enjoy. This is, generally, one of those Dogfish-Head type experimental things that folks like me can’t wait to try, but aren’t going to get out of the snob-subculture. Someday, when I have my man room in my 4 bedroom house in the suburbs with 3 kegerators, I’d love to have this in one of them. Unfortunately, the folks who would drink it would be limited to other writers on this site and maybe some of the readers. 4

The Snob Sez: A relatively decent brown ale with flavors that get lost in the barrel. Glad to try it, but not sure if I’d go out of my way to get it again.

Final Score: 30 (of 45) = 33 (of 50), good beer.

Posting this for completeness’ sake.

Host: Gabourey Sidibe (1). Gets the award for most nervous host of the season. She seems like a nice girl (editors note: guess not) but sadly live TV just wasn’t her thing. She sputtered over a lot of her strange monologue in which she reminded everyone that she wasn’t Precious and didn’t have a bad life. Then, they made her do a song and dance number in which she was clearly winded after the first minute or so.

Musical Guest: MGMT (1). An indie band that seemed generally horrific to me. Which means “I don’t get it”. Which means I’ll throw it to Radio Exile.

Best Skit: Public Employee Of The Year Awards. This was great, it was an awards show for the best public employee of the Metro New York area between an Angry DMV lady, a NYC Janitor who makes his full time residence in Florida, and a worker who’s on permanent disability for a bogus injury. Great satire sketch attacking something that needs to be dragged out and publicly shamed way more in the Metro NY/NJ area.

Honorable Mention: Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. Featuring special guest host Steve Harvey. I feel like they did a similar version of this before. The running joke here is Steve Harvey’s inability to pronounce things.

Line of the Week: “She calls my haircut the cutback, because she only cuts it in the back.” Kristin Wiig as Suze Orman. Or “The hottest new Manhattan club that answers the question “WHAAAAT?” by Stefon on Weekend Update.

Character of the Week: Weekend Update character Stefon. Apparently Stefon’s been on before but I haven’t seen it. LOVED this character.

Worst Skit/Digital Short: Cherry Battle. This was the most inexplicable digital short of the year. Totally off the rails and really didn’t make any sense — and not in a good way like Megan Fox’s Roommate.

Should Have Been Funnier: Crazy Black Lady In The Window. Gabourey is an old black woman who is sick and tired of punk kids sitting on her stoop and yakking to each other. But she engages in the conversations. Gabourey’s sputters hurt this sketch a little and her lack of timing hurt the sketch a bit, but her telling the boys to get off her porch was funny.

Weekend Update

• Stefon (Hader): This was apparently the second appearance of Stefon, but I don’t remember him at all. This character was so well received he was on the season finale two weeks later. Great new character for Hader and hope to see more of him.
• Judy Grimes (Wiig): You probably know the drill here (just kidding). You don’t know it but you want to (just kidding). You don’t want to but you see it any way (just kidding). etc.
• John Mulaney: One of the SNL staff writers comes out to rag on the general unavailability of Girl Scout Cookies. He wants to know why they aren’t available all year. Great bit for some good lines — “It would be like if you could only buy Coca-Cola once a year and only from the Knights of Columbus” and “According to the Girl Scouts, you can’t buy Girl Scout Cookies online. You know what you can buy online? Everything. You can buy everything online” — but an absolute study on how timing and delivery are massively important to joke telling. John Mulaney does not have either.
• There is a great bit in the favorites clip about the Arizona Immigration law.

Final Thoughts: I wanted Sidibe to be a better host than she was, it just didn’t do it for me. However, Public Employee of the Year was probably the best straight up “Let’s crush something about New York” sketches of the season, Stefon was one of the top Update characters, and the crazy black lady was good comedy. Sadly, the lack of timing across the board, the weird Digital Short, and a bad musical guest put this in the bottom half of the season.

Host: Alec Baldwin (15). Alec Baldwin pulls in to the tie with Steve Martin for most hosting gigs and, since he just gave the commencement address at NYU, the monologue is the SNL 2010 commencement address.

Musical Guest: Tom Petty (8) & The Heartbreakers (5). Is it just me, or is Tom Petty morphing further in to Neil Young as the years pass? I’ll take this moment to make an aside. Green Day and their pandering anti-Bush album has been converted in to a Broadway Musical and they’re now nominated for a Tony Award. Unreal.

Guest Stars: Steve Martin (via satellite).

Best Sketch: Some Big Shot: Returning to a “classic movie” in progress with a big shot executive and a hooker with a heart of gold. It took a bit to get to the punchline, but it caught me off guard and made me laugh. Great stuff for a last half-hour sketch.

Honorable Mention: Snipers. Keenan and Sudekis can’t quite figure out what their sniper commander is ordering them to do. For whatever reason, the straight-man/crazy-man interplay made me laugh more than usual.

Line of the Week: “It won’t solve all your problems, you’ll still be a woman.” In a pretty good parody of a pharmaceutical commercial. Very narrowly defeated “He’s got two things in common with Greg Lougainis… he hit his head on the diving board and I’ll let you figure out the second thing” from Hudson Valley Swim Team.

Worst Skit: Starfish. Couldn’t end the season without another bizarrely unfunny Kristin Wiig character. Seriously, I really hope they promote Abbey, Nasim, and Jenny from “featured” next season because Kristin has become WAY overexposed on SNL. The Target Lady was kinda funny — they don’t need 146 versions of the Target Lady.

Should Have Been Funnier: Timecrowave. Liked the concept, it just didn’t do it for me.

Digital Short: Great Day. Andy is a coked up stockbroker(?) who has a song about how this day is going to be a great day. I can’t decide if the tune of this song is more Mountain Town or It’s Easy, M’Kay from the South Park Movie. By the by, those links are to the Berklee College Of Music’s full orchestral tribute to South Park. I’m not kidding… here is Up There (Satan’s Song), too.

Weekend Update

• Snooki (Moynihan): A (probably) final visit from Snooki to the update desk. She talks about Miami and the difficulties she faces looking too much like oranges and Cheetos. “Summer is like the spring break of the seasons.”
• Stefon (Hader): I was worried this would be too close to the last appearance to fit Stefon in for one more appearance this year. Stefon gives us a few more suggestions about Manhattan’s hottest clubs. Stefon is running neck and neck with Larry The Goose for my favorite update character of the season.
• Garth (Armisen) and Kat (Wiig): One more appearance for the woefully unprepared singers. Armisen and Wiig couldn’t quite make it through the bit without laughing again. I feel like only Fred memorizes lines for this bit and Wiig just tries to imitate him, which leads to the giggles. I could obviously be wrong.
• “I gotta say when rich dudes come up with golf balls as a solution, they’re just looking around the room and naming things Usual Suspects-style. I know what we’ll try next… uhhhh… cufflinks.”
• “A man and a woman in Russia are getting married after meeting on a bridge that they both separately went to commit suicide on — so good luck with that wedding toast, Best Man.

Final Thoughts: Very up and down show for me. I thought the Oil Spill Cold Open was really good, then Starfish killed me until Update. Even another appearance of Grady Wilson Sex Tapes couldn’t perk me up. Also, I was wrong about Bedelia being a one and done character. This week, we get to meet her dad. They figured out the formula a little better.

All told, an OK show, but seemed dead after the Betty White episode which really should have been the finale. All the guest stars last week made it seem like a more special episode than the 15th Alec Baldwin. Not to say I didn’t enjoy Baldwin, but the White episode was really well done.

Host: Betty White (1): Two things. First, one of the writers on Cracked.com wrote an article that pretty-well summed up the confusion I share at the origins of the Betty White campaign. It’s one of those weird Internet things that just kind of happened. It seemed to rise out of nowhere with the only possible seminal moment being her appearance in a Snickers’ Super Bowl commercial. Why Betty White and not Abe Vigoda? Maybe because he already has his own Internet meme? I don’t know. It’s inexplicable. Second, Betty White delivered a great monologue where she thanked Facebook, and then spent three minutes crushing it for being a waste of time. “When I first heard of the campaign to get me to host Saturday Night Live I didn’t even know what Facebook was. And now that I do know what it is, it sounds like a HUGE waste of time. I’d never say the people on it are losers, but that’s just because I’m polite.” Jokes about vacation pictures and poking. I don’t know if she wrote this or Seth’s team did, but it was great stuff.

Musical Guest: Jay-Z (3): So, Jay-Z’s been my favorite rap artist since high school. I don’t often talk about it because I’m wholly unqualified to rate rap music. I either love it (Jigga, Dre, Eminem, Timbaland) or hate it (most of the rest) and I can’t explain why. Let’s just say that the Interlude/On To The Next One/99 Problems/Empire State medley was my favorite musical guest spot this season. Yes, even over Pearl Jam. I can’t believe it either. I also forgot how disgusting the line “you can kiss my whole asshole” was.

Guest Stars: Rachel Dratch, Maya Rudolph, Ana Gasteyer, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Molly Shannon. I guess it makes sense that comedic women in entertainment would want to be on the show with a pioneer.

Best Sketch: The Delicious Dish NPR Ladies. The Molly Shannon/Ana Gasteyer combination made immortal in the Schweddy Balls sketch return to discuss a new dish. I’m very sad I didn’t see “muffin” coming until it got there. This will be one for a “Best Of” show someday. Am I wrong in remembering the NPR Ladies existing in sketches other than “Schweddy Balls”? Have the rest of them just all been swallowed up by the “this didn’t make the hour-long re-run show edit” monster? Line of the week honors almost went to “a yeasty muffin can ruin your whole day.”

Honorable Mention: Four this week. First, Gingey, pretty much the Southern Girls with Amy Poehler playing one acting like a boy and grandma Betty White pointing out she’s a lesbian. Second, another installment of Scared Straight with McIntosh and special guest Grandmammy McIntosh — “Wizard of ASS!!!”. Third, Census Worker where Tina Fey is going door-to-door interviewing people who didn’t return their forms. Fourth, I’m guessing this was an alternate open — Times Square Bomber Press Conference — but it was also downgraded to Hulu-exclusive.

Line of the Week: A Weekend Update exchange during “Really!?! With Seth & Amy”. Amy: “There are terrorists to catch… and besides guys, ladies don’t care about penis size unless it’s really big or really small.” Seth: “Really?” Amy: “Really. I told you that before.” Seth (looking at the crowd): “You don’t know which I meant.”

Worst Skit: The Manuel Ortiz Show. They did this Latin talk show earlier in the season where the one-note joke was that the host and guests danced to salsa music all the time. This time it features Maya Rudolph and Ana Gasteyer. This was an unconscionable inclusion with the amount of talent they had on this show tonight. During the show, I thought it was awful of them to include another round of this terrible sketch and said this episode screamed for a new Bronx Beat or a new Debbie Downer. Then, Hulu posted BOTH a new Bronx Beat and Debbie Downer. The Manny Ortiz sketch was made 18-times worse with this knowledge.

Should Have Been Funnier: I have to say — nothing. Other than the Manuel Ortiz Show, everything else pretty much hit spot on. CSI: Sarasota wasn’t quite there (and I can’t link it because no sketches using music are ever available on Hulu) but the visual of Rachel Dratch dressed up as an old Jewish Man (who looked a lot like last week’s Mort Feingold made up for a lot. The ongoing “who would have wanted this 103-year-old man dead?” “Nature” could have stood a little more fleshing out but the sketch got its point across.

Digital Short: Golden Girls Tribute. Sadly, this also appears to be unavailable on Hulu likely due to using the Golden Girls theme song. Betty White appreciated the sentiment, but then pulled on a black facemask and performed the death metal version that she prefers.

Weekend Update

• Whitney Houston (Maya Rudolph): This also appears to be unavailable on Hulu. They did play small samples of Whitney songs during it as Rudolph tried to sing and either forgot the words, ran out of breath, or started coughing. She was there to defend her current tour and say the reviews stating her voice has gone to sh*t are just being mean.
• Sally O’Malley (Molly Shannon) and Dottie O’Donikan (Betty White): I think this was just an excuse to get an old Shannon character on. This was the woman who liked to “KICK” and was “50 years old”. Sally was 50 years old in the 2000s, so I think Sally O’Malley is pushing 60 at this point. Dottie O’Donikan was 90-years-old and was unimpressed by the 50-year-old shenanigans. “Accomplishments? You know what’s an accomplishment? Staying awake on the toilet.”
• Really?! With Seth, Amy, & Tina: This started off as Really?! With Seth and Amy about the Times Square bombing, which eventually got to the TSA agents fighting over small penises, the Dow crash “a guy can enter a billion dollar transaction without a manager approval? When I pay with a fifty at Starbucks it’s a four man operation”, and eventually Greece “where do you think your money’s going to come from? Royalties for inventing civilization?” This is where they wanted input from someone with Greek blood and it turned in to Really!?! With Seth, Amy, and Tina. “[Greece's] retirement age is 54? In America, old Greek people work the register at the diner until they die.”
• “A new law will prevent pedophiles from operating ice cream trucks. “Not Fair!” said kids who will now have to pay for their ice cream.”

Final Thoughts: My gut reaction is that this was the best show of the season. Jay-Z’s first segment was probably the top musical guest segment (even beating Pearl Jam, which kills me to admit). Update was great, hitting good nostalgic notes with Sally O’Malley and getting Amy and Tina behind the desk. The Digital Short got back to being funny instead of bizarre. If Manuel Ortiz had been replaced with a What Up With That (imagine Rudolph’s Oprah, Gasteyer’s topless Martha Stewert, or Shannon’s Courtney Love on with D’Andre Cole) or the Debbie Downer sketch, this would have been solid top-to-bottom. This would be the episode where I’d say “if you only watch one episode all season, watch this one” and “if you didn’t like this, you’re either going in to it preconvinced it’s not funny and trying not to laugh or SNL clearly isn’t your thing.”

Not nearly as good as I wanted it to be. Predictable finish (of course) where Vince Vaughn realizes that everything he’s been honest about for years isn’t really what he wants. Funniest part of the movie was Vaughn’s high school buddy who married Vaughn’s divorced mother and it wasn’t given nearly enough time. Also, can anyone explain to me why both main characters’ Northern California families — except Jon Voight, who probably said “what is this bull-sh*t?” — have southern accents? When was the decision made that every “off” person in new movies must have a Southern accent regardless of what region of the country they actually live?

Current Record: 14-9
April Record: 14-9
Standings: 1st Place (up 1.0)

1) The Mets’ opening day line-up involved Alex Cora leading off, Mike Jacobs batting clean-up, and Gary Matthews Jr. in center field. That, my friends, is a depressing line-up with which to go to war. Jose Reyes missed the first week of the season. Anyone with a sense of, you know, timing, had some idea the first homestand would be a little rough. They grabbed the opening day win and went 2-2 pre-Reyes. This was fine, and there was a potential hot start on the horizon as the Mets had two to go against the Nationals. It was not to be, though, as we all decided to forget that Reyes hadn’t played a competitive baseball game since last May and also had no Spring Training.

2) To that end, Reyes looked horrible in his first few starts. He looked tired on the basepaths, almost clueless at shortstop, and overmatched at the plate — climaxing with an 0-7 in the 20 inning game (pairing slickly with Jeff Francouer’s 0-7 in the same game to tank my fantasy week). Then, Jerry let him sit for the first game of the Greatest Homestand In Team History, finally pulled the trigger on batting him third (which I was totally wrong about) and he’s started to come out of it. Jerry’s point, which I wrongfully ignored, is that Reyes’ being on base doesn’t matter much if the 3/4/5 can’t knock them in. The man has a point.

3) Gary Matthews Jr should probably not be playing baseball anymore. I understand the Mets were hoping they could showcase him against the Marlins, Nationals, and Rockies (in Denver) and maybe entertain a few trade offers, but he has nothing left. Jerry Manuel, because he’s a loyal, level-headed dude in an insane, over-reactive market, gave him way too long to “come out of it”. Angel Pagan is not a long-term answer at centerfield, but his .244/.314/.346 is Williams-esque as compared to what Matthews has done. I thought that Matthews would likely end up in a trade package near the deadline when Beltran was finally ready, but at this point it seems more likely that he’ll be designated for assignment since I’m not sure anyone would want him. He’s a replacement level player (Prospectus has his WARP at 0.2) and he’s certainly not a “perk” for any GM with a clue. As a defensively-decent center fielder, it’s really hard to be “not worth it” for $1M — but Matthews has found a way.

4) When I wrote about Mike Jacobs back in the preview, I kind of expected him to come out of the gate strong. He said all the right things in Spring Training and really led me to believe he had something to contribute. Then, he hit .208/.296/.375 with 1 HR and 7 K in his first 7 games. In a normal year, that might have been a slow start the team could absorb. Unfortunately, an impatient fan-base, not-particular-hot ticket sales, and Ike Davis destroying AAA to the tune of .364/.500/.636 with 2 HR, 9 BB, and 5K in 10 games led to Jacobs getting coyly designated for assignment after the 20-inning game to “make room for a pitcher.” On Monday, Ike was summoned from Buffalo. Ike’s .306/.409/.472 and 6 RBI out-performed the Tatis/Jacobs platoon. Just like that, Davis claimed first, Tatis was a bench player, and Daniel Murphy has no clear role on the team after he recovers from one of the most poorly-timed injuries ever. While I’ll grant that the list of guys who’ve come up and galvanized a team only to flame out quickly is a long one, Ike seems to control of the plate and plays some superb defense at 1B. While I’m still taking a “wait and see” approach with him, a big spring, a big debut, and success at all levels of the minors is, well, exciting. As for Murphy, it’s likely he’ll end up Banished To Buffalo and I don’t know what happens. Francoeur has taken something of a leadership role on the team, left is Bay’s for the foreseeable future, and Castillo (despite the fans’ insane and inexplicable desires) is still playing well at second. Unless Davis swoons hugely in the next few weeks, Murphy will have lost his job to an ill-timed ligament tear in a freak baserunning injury during Spring Training. Not a story you want to tell your grandkids someday.

5) When Jerry Manuel came home from St. Louis at 4-8, I honestly thought the team was getting ready to fire him. Fair or not, the team needed to get off to a big start and the bats were all quiet. Most of it, though, was easily explainable. Jose Reyes had no spring training. Jason Bay was off to a terribly slow start. Oh, and their clean-up hitter was MIKE JACOBS. They were 5 games out of first and the columns being written, predictable, said they were a bottom-dwelling team, a waste of money, and wouldn’t be better than fourth place the entire season. Then, they went 9-1 at home and took a half-game lead from the Phillies (which should have been a whole game, except for Bruce Bochy inexplicably pulling Tim Lincecum after 8.1 and leading to this insane box score). Manuel shuffled the line-up, discovered that his most solid card was Pagan, Castillo, Reyes, Wright, Bay, Davis, Francoeur, and Barajas, Gary Matthews was banished to the clubhouse, the pitchers stepped up, and the Mets took advantage of some suspect play from the Braves. Suddenly, Jerry’s a genius and everything’s fine. I love Mets’ columnists.

6) And by “the pitching stepped up” I really mean “the pitching and defense stepped up”. Mets pitching in April had a total ERA under 3 with a way-too-high 1.4 WHIP. Mets’ pitchers during The Homestand let way too many guys on base, but made big pitches when they needed it and kept runners from scoring.

7) After watching Jeff Francoeur gun guys down at third and home from all parts of right field, I’d like to start a campaign to get him to adopt the Dikembe Mutombo finger wave whenever he records an assist. I saw one live (I went to the Mets/Nationals loss when Santana decided to give up 4 runs in the first inning because I was there. He hates me) and it’s like watching Vlad when he was in Montreal. You don’t believe there’s any way for him to do it, then he does it, and it’s breath-taking. Until that game, I also forgot how annoying it was to play against Livan Hernandez. He just lets a ton of guys on base, makes the crowd think there’s a rally coming, and then mows down the guys he knows he can get out. It’s terrible.

8) Pelfrey, Maine, and Perez have, collectively, been slightly better than expected. The bulk of this goes to Pelfrey who, in his first four starts went 4-0 with a 0.69 ERA. He also pulled a “gimme the damn ball” in the 20-inning game to collect the rarely seen Win-Save-Win. His ERA got violently snapped back to normal by giving up 6 (questionably Earned via hometown scoring as both Reyes and Castillo dropped infield flies) runs to Philly on May 1st. Maine got off to something of a rough start, but seemed to have an A-Ha Moment following his 3.2, 3K, 1ER appearance against Braves in which he was pulled for still-not-sufficiently-explained reasons. Following that performance, he went 6.0 strong against the Braves with 9Ks and 2ER. He’ll get another soft landing spot tomorrow in Cincinnati. Perez… who knows. At this point, Jerry Manuel has given him almost no leash and Hisanori Takahashi has essentially become his caddy, coming in when the walks get out of hand, saving the bad inning, and collecting the win. Perez will also get a soft landing at Great American Ballpark this week.

9) Two solid strikes against Jerry Manuel. First, he sticks with guys way too long. We covered this above with Jacobs and Matthews. His second problem, it seems, is managing a bullpen. During the 20-inning game in St. Louis, he got K-Rod up in the bullpen six or seven times before finally putting him in. At that point, it was almost expected he would blow the save. Rodriguez said after the game he believed he threw something like 100 warm up pitches. Isn’t warming up a closer on the road pretty straight-forward? The manager makes one phone call and says “as soon as we score a run, get ready.” Not if there’s a guy on third, not if there’s a guy on second, but when we actually score a run. Then, the next day, Jerry had him up AGAIN at least once. If not for a fortuitous 5-inning game called for weather followed by a PPD rain-out against the Dodgers to give the bullpen two full days off, K-Rod and Fernando Nieve would be dead… in April.

10) Too many people were totally out on this team, making insane proclaimations about the season with literally 150 games left on the schedule. As I mentioned to friends, the NFL season will be four games deep by the time baseball season ends. There is, literally, no declaration that can be made in the second week of April. To do so is insane. If there is ANYTHING that concerns me, it’s the fact that the Phillies are so far in Johan Santana’s head that they can actually see out his eyes. But that’s a post for next month after their Yankees/Phillies homestand. I remain cautiously optimistic. Wright, Francoeur, and Bay look good. Reyes is recovering, Castillo is doing what he does, and the Barajas/Blanco catcher combo have been calling awesome games. The team is not bad. Their hitting is not as good as the Phillies but, top-to-bottom, their pitching is as good. Johan Santana and Mike Pelfrey are fly ball pitchers — that they got crushed in Citizens Bank Park on consecutive warm, humid days is not shocking. It will be much more disconcerting if they get equally crushed in Citi Field at the end of May.

Host: Ryan Phillippe (1). Even during Ryan Phillippe/Freddie Prinze Jr. he never got the hosting gig. It took him getting attached to a SNL character movie to get the nod. In other news, Freddie Prinze Jr hosted SNL a decade ago. Jesus. Pretty funny monologue where Target Lady and Dick In A Box guy want their own movies.

Musical Guest: Ke$ha (1). I imagined this was going to be bad because she was terrible on Idol and can’t sing without auto-tune. When I first heard Tik-Tok, I thought it was the one of the worst songs ever recorded — like, it’s Fergalicious bad. First off; why would a 19-year-old girl wake up in the morning feeling like an African-American billionaire of questionable talent? And why would the same 19-year-old girl be out in a club kicking aside guys unless they look like a 60-year-old scarecrow? What’s that? Her mother writes lyrics for her? Got it. Then I heard Blah Blah Blah and that was even worse.

Best Skit: Shake Weight DVD. SNL points out what every guy thinks while watching this commercial.

Honorable Mention: Hip Hop Kids 2. Ryan Phillippe takes Timberlake’s slot in Hip Hop Kids. Samberg plays the straight man trying to convince his friends that it’s not the best idea to mess with bears.

Line of the Week: “Trying to avoid the stork? Use this little vagina cork. Today’s sponge… 80% effective.” From another ESPN Classic — Women’s Weightlifting.

Character of the Week: Father Swimcoach Scoutmaster. If for no other reason that when he came out, it made me laugh really hard.

Worst Skit: Teen Talk 2. I don’t know, I didn’t really get this sketch the first time and the second one really didn’t improve on it. Maybe if they did away with the “host can’t hear you” gimmick and just gave them like inappropriate, oblivious father advice? It seems like this idea should be good.

Should Have Been Funnier: Outrageous Clown Posse. This is one of those times where the source material is so full of unintentional comedy that there is nothing SNL could have done that would have been funnier to non-Juggalos then the original. Seriously, Shaggy 2 Dope deadpanning “F*cking magnets… how do they work?” like it’s a deep question is quite possibly the funniest thing I’ve seen this year. I also have to thank Overthinking It for letting me know that the hysterical Underground Festival sketch was actually a parody of an infomercial for Gathering Of The Juggalos 2009. I should have noticed when Sudekis said “what up, ninjas?” Speaking of Sudekis, I’m sad to report the passing of DJ Supersoak, who died during that sketch.

Digital Short: The Other Man. The Digital Shorts are getting increasingly out there. Samberg’s character plagues Phillippe’s life.

Weekend Update

• James Carville (Hader): Talking about President Obama’s comment that the Tea Party members should be thanking him and, later, about Tea Partiers and their signs. “I know I look like a Cajun Gollum and I scare babies.”
• Secondhand News With Angelo Crispino (Moynihan): Making fun of the guy in the office who’s never quite gets the news right. Meh.
• Father Swimcoach Scoutmaster (Forte): Ever parent’s worst nightmare. Poor Will Forte always has to play child molesters.
• “A 3 year old girl walked along a tightrope above six tigers at a local zoo and the only way that story ended well is if the girl fell in and the tigers raised her instead of her terrible parents.”

Final Thoughts: Pretty average show top-to-bottom. Phillippe was OK but I’m sad there wasn’t at least one MacGruber sketch to promote the movie.