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Krysta NOW On SNL

As I said in my last two reviews of Sarah Michelle Gellar’s hosting duties, I was a fan of the Buffy The Vampire movie, but due to my childhood hatred of hour-long TV, I never really got into the show, even though it totally seemed up my alley. That said, I was aware enough of the show as a pop culture reference that I always felt that I was far more familiar with Gellar’s career than I actually was.

In fact, it wasn’t until I watched her weekly as part of my 52 Views And Reviews Of The Movie Southland Tales challenge that I really became familiar with any of her work. Yes, I always mention this challenge whenever a star from the movie drops by to host but this time there is actually more behind the reason I bring it up.

Based on Sarah Michelle Gellar’s performance, it led me to wonder if she was already in discussions to play the part of her character Krysta NOW because I saw many similar characteristics that just weren’t there during her last two visits. At times it felt like she was using this episode as a way to test out different ways to flesh the character out.

It might also help that by the time this episode aired, there was enough distance from the events of 9/11 that the show was getting more silly in how they made fun of the aftermath. The show was now back to making fun of our incompetent political leaders as well as the power grab that took place when our lawmakers kept capitalizing off of our fears and started to implement things like The Patriot Act while giving more power to the NSA.

Since these were the same themes covered in the movie Southland Tales in the same tone, it made it even harder to not see Sarah Michelle Gellar as Krysta NOW. I think that aspect made this episode even more fun for me to watch because I can’t really tell if I would have enjoyed this viewing as much minus the Southland Tales connection.

Either way, I was entertained so with that I will move on, and in order to do so, it’s now time to share what I saw, as I give you…

The Wicker Breakdown:

This week's show started with A Message From The President Of The United States where Chris Parnell took over the George W. Bush impersonation in order to warn Saddam Hussein of his intentions to track him down no matter where he hides with Darrell Hammond as Dick Cheney by his side chiming in from time to time with added threats to Saddam and encouragements to our dim-witted President. Of course, since this was the opening sketch, it eventually led to the announcement of, “Live from New York…”
Sarah Michelle Gellar then officially opened the show with a monolog about her recent marriage to Freddy Prinze Jr. and the release of her new music album. She then went on to play a tune only to be interrupted by Chris Kattan, Rachel Dratch, and Amy Poehler as a family of vampires in the audience who interrupted our host when they stood to leave after getting offended by a Buffy The Vampire Slayer inspired joke that Gellar casually made while introducing the song that she never got to sing.
This was followed by a fake ad for Swiffer Sleepers which was a line of children’s pajamas made with a specially-designed dust-cloth material that cleaned up while the kids would play around on the ground.
Sarah Michelle Gellar, Fred Armisen, and Amy Poehler then played a group of cops called The Be Safe Gang who dropped by a Junior High School to give kids horrible advice while they shared the dangers of drugs and alcohol, premarital sex and STD, and how the kids could use their bodies to protect themselves from violent crimes. The information being shared was so terrible that the kids would have been much better off if they were left to figure things out on their own.
Musical Dentist had Chris Kattan as a dentist who kept getting swept away by a collection of romantic songs that would get him fantasizing about his hygienist, Sarah Michelle Gellar, while in the middle of a major dental procedure on Chris Parnell. After a quick make-out session that led to a dead Parnell, we learned that Chris Kattan was actually not a dentist but a doctor and this whole dentist thing was just a fantasy that he was having about Sarah Michelle Gellar as his nurse during surgery which also led to the death of Chris Parnell. Finally, the Inception of a sketch concluded with Chris Kattan as a cashier and all of this was in his head as he read a rag mag featuring Gellar as herself.
We then got a fake ad for Trans American Airlines that played off of the fear of terrorism with the promise that, “Unlike other airlines, Trans America guarantees there will be racial profiling,” in order to keep the airs safe and sound.
This was followed by a parody of the Corona ad campaign at the time where Jimmy Fallon played a drunk guy on a Caribbean beach where he accidentally threw his beer bottle instead of his cell phone when a work call caused it to buzz.
We then went to the Middle East to witness a Saddam Hussein Briefing where Darrell Hammond played The Butcher Of Baghdad in order to outline his new strategy to hide from America with his cabinet that included the introduction of Chris Kattan and Horatio Sanz as two of his body doubles who were pretty much just there to be executed instead of him. The main joke set in when Horatio Sanz entered the scene and Saddam was offended because he felt this was a way for his cabinet to make fun of him for being fat, which then led to a parody of the, “What am I a clown,” scene from the movie Goodfellas.
This was followed by the second installment of the parody Corona ad from earlier in the night, where once again, Jimmy Fallon played the same drunk and once again he threw his bottle of beer instead of his phone when another work call came in. Only this time he tried talking into the bottle before he threw it, thinking that he actually did grab the phone this go around.
Faith Hill then took to the stage to perform Cry.
Once again, Jimmy Fallon and Tina Fey gave us the news. This week, Seth Meyers introduced his impersonation of Steve, the annoying Dell kid in order to discuss teen depression while acting like a high energy, enthusiastic douche and share his super dark inner thoughts that contradicted his ever-present smile. Maya Rudolph and Sarah Michelle Gellar also stopped by as Ripple and DeLorean, better known as the Ramada sisters, who were the unglamorous version of the jet-setting Hilton sisters.
This was followed by a parody of MTV’s Making The Video where Sarah Michelle Gellar played Christina Aguilera for a behind-the-scenes look at the making of her new Dirrty music video, where dirty meant dirty in every single way that the way the word dirty can be defined both literally and figuratively.
Sarah Michelle Gellar then plays a spokeswoman in order to promote the DVD release of Arli$$ as a way to avoid any likelihood of embarrassing pants-wetting since there are zero laughs for women in this show. Right after the sketch, Tracy Morgan stopped our host on the way to her dressing room tried to engage her and musical guest, Faith Hill in a catfight in order to fulfill his fantasy. The two woman tried to rat Tracy out to Lorne Michaels only to have him help out with Tracy’s efforts as well.
Faith Hill then returned to the stage to perform I'm Free.
I Love My Man was a sketch that had Maya Rudolph as a sexy woman who knows just how her man, Tracy Morgan, feels about her because she takes care of her body. This was more of a parody of the jazz aesthetic in general, over referencing a specific show.
This was followed by the third installment of the parody Corona ad that’s been running throughout the night where this time, Jimmy Fallon threw his beer bottle instead of his phone once again, only this time he hit and killed another beachgoer but he was too drunk to know.
Blame Saddam was a bit of a propaganda sketch that highlighted how Saddam Hussein might not have been responsible for 9/11, but Americans still didn’t mind using it as a reason to come after him just the same.
Sexual Harassment Seminar introduced a Chris Parnell character named Merv The Perv who disputed all of the information being provided while he hit on all of the women in attendance.
Finally, Sarah Michelle Gellar closed the show by thanking the audience and saying her goodnights.

As I said up above, I can’t fully tell if this was a so-so episode or if it was actually good but either way these three sketches that contained my three favorite moments made it entertaining enough to watch. First, I loved The Be Safe Gang because the terrible advice given by these authority figures to “little kids” kept getting me to laugh. Next, I really liked Musical Dentist, because I liked the Shyamalanian Twist that this sketch was a dream within a dream within a dream, which is a surreal style of storytelling that I like even though most people think it’s a cheat. Finally, I was a fan of the fake ad for Trans American Airlines because I found it funny that their big promise was to actually increase racial profiling as if it were a positive thing when really it was not.