Well, I’m sure people tuned in to Saturday Night Live this week to see if host Lindsay Lohan could keep it together … and she did. She flubbed a few lines (even when reading them from cue cards), but there were no Debbie Downer-style meltdowns (unfortunately). In fact, it was a pretty lackluster episode with only a few good laughs here and there, but at least Lindz was a good sport about it all. Here’s a rundown of the sketches, and we’ll have the clips up as soon as they’re available. And don’t forget to vote for your favorite sketches below. So what did you think of Lindsay’s hosting gig this time around?
Cold Open: Fox Report – Another Romney sketch. Yes, we know Romney is rich and out of touch. But the identical, “Village of the Damned” sons and Shep Smith’s mother were hilarious.
Monologue: Lindsay Lohan — I think it’s pretty cool that Lohan can make fun of herself as cast members drug tested her. Keenan has been stoned since Good Burger! Support also came from Jimmy Fallon, and John Hamm was on standby to host … just in case.
The Real Housewives of Disney — OMG! They totally nailed the Bravo Real Housewives promos, complete with the echo-y announcer guy. Wiig’s drunken mess Cinderella was a hoot.
2012 Psychic Awards — Okay, this was pretty funny with psychics who already know who won, and the In Memoriam tribute for psychics who die next year (while they’re still in the audience), but it all went darkly off the rails by the end.
Scared Straight — We’ve seen this before but it’s always fun to see who will crack and what Keenan will say. Poor Lindsay kept tripping over her lines, but again, she was game to laugh at herself. And whatever Sudeikis did at the end was enough to break up everyone, and that made it all better.
Musical Guest: Jack White — I only know Jack from his Bond theme with Alicia Keys, so the first song was totally not what I expected but it wasn’t bad. The second song was more of what I expected … loud and not my cup of tea.
Weekend Update — James Carville stops by to comment on Rush Limbaugh’s recent comments and the Republican candidates, and Snooki returned to discuss her pregnancy.
Delinquent Girl Teen Gang — Not a great sketch about delinquent girls who want to dance in the street, but Fred Armisen as the unlucky Babette was humorous.
SNL Digital Short — What started out as a music video about a couple with giant hair ended as something else. Bizarre.
Morning Zoo — An excellent example of why I hate morning radio. Killam and Moynihan were loud, Lohan was pretty good as Illiterate Lisa, and I did like Bayer’s totally out of place news lady. Otherwise, it just gave me a headache.
Chantix commercial — Repeat of a past taped commercial.
Housesitter — An unhinged woman has a friend house sit for her but there’s a slight problem with mysterious phone calls. I won’t spoil the punchline, but I can relate being on the receiving end of similar calls.
Verizon commercial — Another ad repeat?!?!
Rude Buddha –Samberg had some good lines as Buddha dissing his disciples, but the ending was abruptly perfect.
Weird Guy By a Fire — A funny little throwaway filler bit riffing on those late night CD infomercials. Seemed like they should have played before and after another sketch though.
Clacked by Chuck Duncan 
on Mar 04, 2012 @ 01:37 EST5EDT
You were way too nice about “Scared Straight.” It was a train wreck. If Lindsey just stumbled a few lines, it wouldn’t have been too bad. But … that middle section was horrible. She was looking right at the cue cards and read that whole section. And, still had problems with her lines.
The end crack up made up for it a bit. I love when they lose it. Unprofessional, but hilarious!
*POST AUTHOR*
Lindsay was bad in that one, but the Keenan stuff always makes me laugh. I’m just sorry the guys didn’t lose it sooner. I was really hoping for something similar to the infamous Debbie Downer sketch.
Funny, I was too busy laughing to even notice Lohan reading the cards.
Imagine how embarrased the cast must be when a guest messes up the lines as bad as she did in Scared Straight! The ones she didn’t mess up she delivered very flat. It was so bad I texted a friend to see if he noticed, which he had. I think the rest of the cast just lost it due to relief that the sketch was over! She was such a cute kid/young woman and I can’t believe how much work she’s had done already….watch out Joan Rivers! But I did appreciate that she poked fun at herself and the Housewives skit was hilarious!
The whole episode just was bland. Lohan put no effort really in any of the sketches, Scared Straight was just the point where it was the most obvious. I don’t think the writers were expecting her to even show up since it didn’t seem like they even had a full amount of material ready. Maybe they should have just brought in Hamm after the Scared Straight sketch.
Yeah I thought she stunk too. There were a couple lines she pulled off ok and you could tell that if she had truly cared, she would have been ok. But she didn’t.
This was a case where the episode was good despite the host. The writers were spot on, especially for Scared Straight (“You won’t be meeting Forrest Gump at a bus stop – you’ll have four dudes hump ’til your butt pops!” had me in tears). Real Housewives of Disney was very humorous.
Lohan, though, was a mess. She’s clearly had plastic surgery done – why? She’s young and used to be very attractive. Did all the cocaine mess up her face a la Stu Ungar? She’s not promoting anything, so why have her on as host? They would’ve done better with Jimmy Fallon or Jon Hamm, both of whom were on hand. There’s nothing wrong with returning to the same hosts over and over on SNL – remember Steve Martin? The point is, can they perform, and is the material fresh? This time the material was good, but the host couldn’t get the job done.