TVSquad

(S34E09) I had my doubts about Tim McGraw, since musicians hosting kind of freak me out and country music is inherently scary to me. Thankfully, the redneck humor was pretty limited, Tim McGraw only sang once, and his over-the-top enthusiasm was marvelous. A lot of the sketches felt underdeveloped, but McGraw jumped head first into every character and sketch, which made even the worst jokes a little more bearable. Check out some video highlights after the jump, plus a web exclusive sketch!

"Clear Rite": Oh, man, they could have done so much more with this sketch. I mean, instead of going the chickening out with the fake commercial route, placing the weird retainers in some bizarre social context would have been hilarious. Have I mentioned how sad I am about Kristen Wiig's nose job? Remind me to deliver a solid face-punch to whatever idiot placed the kernel of doubt in her mind, making Wiig think that her nose was ever a problem.



"Turkey Day": Obligatory Thanksgiving Day sketch? Cute idea, terrible writing. They could have pushed this so much further. I guess what I'm asking for is more senseless violence against delicious, human-sized turkeys. I liked that Fred Armisen was wearing his glasses, though.



"Dwayne and Bond": I feared they would resort to giving McGraw a character like this. And they did it. I guess it's just a personal preference, but these types of characters annoy me more than they do amuse. Again, I'll give credit to McGraw for his enthusiasm, which made things a little better.



"Weekend Update": New girl Michaela Watkins made herself known in this episode, but we still haven't seen anything from Abby Elliott apart from one or two brief, virtually silent appearances in other sketches. It was good to see Watkins's Arianna Huffington, which was almost spot-on. She definitely could have pumped up that weird Huffington adorable-ness. Darell Hammond stopped by to do Bill Clinton next. When are they going to let this man go home already?





"Dateline": Bill Hader is hilarious, but this didn't feel like enough material for an entire sketch.



"Blizzard Man": Ludacris did host/musical guest double-duty way back in 2006, and in that episode, we first met Blizzard Man. It didn't surprise me that he returned, because the basic formula is open enough to make things interesting every time. Ludacris and T-Pain did so beautifully in this sketch, they totally should have hosted this episode together. I cracked up every time T-Pain's lines trailed off into mumbles of frustration. Some of the Blizzard Man's lines were pretty good, including "I throw a silver dollar and a lady gets hurt!" Injury humor! Yes!



Web Exclusive (Rahm Emmanuel): I wonder if they bumped this because of the danger of slipping in a curse word? Or maybe it was a time issue? I thought it was pretty funny.



John Malkovich is hosting next time (December 6)?! What?! My brain just exploded. He's hosted twice before, but the last time was in 1993. It'll be interesting to see how he works with this group.