Traveller519

I liked this episode as it showed Richard thinking for himself, remaining true to his convictions...and it not representing a complete lack of logic and reasoning on his part. He sat in that chair, and admitted as much that he's not one of these megalomaniacs in the Valley who will sacrifice everything else in order to see his product succeed. He wants it to succeed, but the luck isn't there. The call backs to the condor, big head's Hooli legacy, the phone that makes you run at first sight, were all great too. A good late season episode to start wrapping up plot points.

I loved this as a summary of all the things that have happened in the season. All the call backs through this kind of format worked really well. You got the sense that the committee knew if they started pulling at threads the whole was going to turn into such an unbelievable quagmire, they were once again happy to take a scapegoat and be done with it.

Here's a link to Splitsider's annual ranking of cast contributions. http://splitsider.com/2015/05/breaking-down-each-cast-members-contribution-to-snl-season-40/ I thought they had charts breaking out starring and supporting roles last year, but maybe that was someone else. At any rate, it's more balanced than last year, which is good for the ensemble. Beck and Kyle are the two featured players that are getting more screen time than some of the repitory players, so I won't be surprised to see them promoted next year. I'm surprised Jay and Aidy are so low for different reasons. Thinking back to it, yeah, Jay didn't contribute as much, but as recently as 2 years ago it felt like he was in numerous sketches, but I guess a lot of that was one off impressions in larget sketches. Aidy, I feel like shows up a lot, including leading a lot of sketches some weeks. I think Mike O'brien is well served in his current Brooks/Smigel/Taccone niche. And I still would really like to see more sketch work out of the Update guys, especially Michael.

There were some allusions to it, mostly between the Bill Ericsson meeting and coming aboard and the Convention episodes. The 2 people she interviewed before James, Maddox and Chung, had previously be running against her. I seem to recall both finished behind her in the first debate (though Chung may have finished ahead of her in the first primary). Maddox looks to be completely lost, and basically done with politics come the convention, and Chung-mania appears to be waning. The cheers seemed less than enthused by his self-referential hero shtick again. Since spilling water all over his plug, Pierce has locked himself out of his own hotel room, and appointed himself ambassador of Dallas. Meanwhile Bill admitted he was getting of the Thornhill express for everyone's benefit. Plus as ganesh sasys, as she progressed in her presidency the party (probably backed by Furlong and Doyle) likely motivated the other candidates out in order to support the sitting president.

I just remembered I laughed way harder at the Spelling Bee bit than I should have last night. Especially the Thug Life bit.

Felt exactly the same way. The AV Club review summed it up when well they said that if they had decided to introduce why they needed to kill the Families First Bill last week (in what was probably the best episode of the season, by my count, so maybe hacking it up wasn't the best notion) they could have really gone running here. I wasn't clear on why we needed to kill this bill, and the stakes never felt that huge, so as to justify the whipping they went through.

I did enjoy seeing an exposed and frantic Guilfoyle in this episode. Throughout the series he's been the one who's steady on the course, and always with his sarcastic retorts. He's one of the best characters on the show, for playing against Richard's hectic-ness and neurosis, and Dinesh's own uncertainties. When he spurng into action he didn't have an answer, didn't have a level-head, he was just as exposed as everyone. It was great to see that even he can be rattled.

For three seconds Gary was the most powerful person in the world. Haha, great throw away.

He strikes right at the heart of the issue by addressing the sponsors, and the money that goes to FIFA, but then his call to action for them, is to insult the brands on the most superficial of levels? It made me realize that it's the one aspect of the show that detracts ever so much. His one-liners on the brands are good for a throwaway laugh, but undermine some of the credibility that he seeks to establish. It's probably just flicking a nerve on me as opposed to any real issue, but it remains my criticism. Where the Daily Show has made its - very obviously - tongue-in-cheek references, John is taking these more deliberate pot-shots, which just seem cheap to me.

The jokes are making me laugh. But the overall plot of this season (one step forward one week, 9/10ths of a step back the next) are grinding me. Not so much the tediousness, but the predictability.

It's a bill to provide assistance to Single Mothers though, right. Or at least that's what it was in it's first iteration. This episode seemed to indicate it was being lost in the amendments. At least that's what her friends were indicating.It seems universal daycare focused in principle, though. Though I do agree with you about the name. Family-named bills seem to be typically tied to conservative values.

Not that I necessarily want it to happen, but we haven't had a sports host in a while, and Russell Wilson seems tailor made to this kind of thing.

This isn't a rumor or anything... more of a wish. Seemed like the right place. I would very much like for someone to write a movie for Mary-Lynn Rajskub, Lennon Parham, Susan Yeagley, and Alison Becker. The levels of cute could not be contained, and there would be some excellent riffing. Return to your business.

They walk the line with the party affiliation, but my guess is that she comes down more on the democrat side - Families First certainly seems like a democratic leaning bill - During the primary debate last season, Doyle made some remark about worrying that he'd "endorsed a Nazi" during Selina's "Repel" riffing - She was a former Maryland Senator (Maryland's had 2 Democrat senators since the late 80s) - Her opponent in the presidential debate is Texas Senator Bill O'Brien. (Texas has had 2 Republican senators since the early 90s) I kind of hope they never address the party, though. And just refer to everyone as either from "The Party" or "The Other Party." It let's them send up politics without devolving into party characteristics.

It is funny to see how Mike was probably the one closest to jumping early in the season, has now proven to be one of Selina's most reliable team members. He is good at what he does. I do worry about the other shoe dropping with the likes of Mike and Ben though. Ben's stress has been well documented, and Mike is showing his cracks.

Yes, while it was nice to see them finally having the upper hand, I just can't believe that they're going to start cruising. As hincandenza says, they just don't seem comfortable letting the guys move beyond this early start-up phase. I don't expect or want smooth sailing, but it was nice to see the guys deal with the issue in a quick manner this week. Hopefully going forward they can address obstacles in a one episode arc, as opposed to 2. The Gavin plotline is starting to run out of steam, though. We don't need to know what's going on at Hooli every week to know that they're still an opposing force. But I do like that there's more than just one bad guy out there.

So I'm not missing Dan and Amy in the White House. The Kent, Ben, and Bill trio is killing it for me, and Richard.... Just pure joy.

I'm just going to go ahead and assume that meeting at The Rosewood was a Friday morning, and Russ had been there since the previous night.

I would have enjoyed watching a Beth and Gloria's cousin spin-off where they project a nice outward appearance but are ruthless about getting what they want. They had some of the more interesting scenes from this episode. Gloria's "do you really think I'd just leave $150K of Heroin lying around the house" made me laugh.

This was the first episode where Jared truly made my skin crawl with his awkwardness and ineptitude, but I suppose that was more from an inability to read people than not being smart.

Selina seems to me to have been a very shrewd Big Picture politician. They've shown her as handling the middle east talks very successfully, and in the past she has spearheaded initiatives that seem good, only to have to deal with the ineffectual legislative process. Her personality served her well as a Northeastern politician, but she can't quite reconcile how to approach the rest of America, even though she thinks she does. Ironically, she's probably what you'd want a politician to be, a champion of good legislation and foreign policy that couldn't give two shits about stroking egos or pandering to the public or other politicians. The problem with modern politics is that is what drives successful candidates. I think Tom and her would be ideal running mates for that reason if they both understood their own strengths/weaknesses/ and roles.

The Uproxx article earlier this week, seemed to indicate that Lorne wasn't overly fond of Kyle's own style of weird humor. Hence his sketches getting cut. I personally really like Kyle's ability to mix things up with his sketches, and hope he's not going anywhere. Plus, as I've referenced a number of times, he's a chameleon in sketches. He stands out more this season now that Milheiser is no longer on the cast, but last year i was frequently trying to figure out which was which. My prediction is that Beck, Kyle, and Colin get promoted. Che, Davidson, Jones ans Zamata remain as featured.

Amy plays so well off Jake, but the problem is she becomes a bit one note off most of the other cast. I like the idea of playing up her and Charles because you've already got the other reliable go-to matchings of Holt and Diaz, and Gina and Terry. Charles can hold down his own a little bit better with the others, but if they're committed to this Jake and Amy thing, the could be some fun Charles and Amy work for competing and using one another. Also, is Amy the only one we haven't seen family from...or have we seen her brothers? If we do get to meet her parents I hope they go against type and have them as dippy hippies which lead her down her own path of structure.

I agree, some of the great work done here with the Plot is that it's not laid out in expository detail, it's there, you just have to pick up on it. I loved how the various characters of the motley crew took charge in the height of the situation when it was required, but were an overall council on their decisions during the "stop and think moments"

I have no reservation that Andre Braugher needs to win the best supporting actor Emmy this year. Holt just brings so much to show that would likely be aimless without him, and Braugher embodies him so well. The Mole would still be my choice for his submission. The monologue in the bar coupled with the scenes with him and Jake at his home showed what range he brings to a character that's more than just the Robot he's caricatured to be. Sprikle in the Wunch related pettiness, playing off his awkwardness with Rosa and Marcus, and his farewell to the precinct, and "Hot Damn!" it was a fine season.