Saturday Night Live: “Scarlett Johansson/Wiz Khalifa”

A recent late night comedy kerfuffle, brought on by Conan writer Andres du Bouchet’s exasperated string of mean tweets knocking the Jimmys’ brand of so-called “prom king comedy” (lip-sync contests and pranks with celebrities), has served as a useful wake-up call to comedy writers of all stripes. du Bouchet makes a fair point: what passes as funny these days is often as tread-worn, tired, and banal as CBS David Letterman…only thirty years younger.

Nowhere is this tension between staid and daring more apparent than with 40-year-old Saturday Night Live. And with fourth-time host Scarlett Johansson as guest host, we get an episode that serves as case-in-point. SNL is not at all sure which brand of comedy it wants to traffic in.

One news story has dominated the week: racial strife in Baltimore in the wake of the death of Freddie Gray. Aware of this, SNL dutifully took three shots at it. Two attempts failed, one connected. Michael Che and Colin Jost’s Weekend Update jokes were pointed, if not clever (for clever, see Cecily Strong’s White House Correspondent’s Dinner speech). The sketch “Orioles” was worse—less pointed, less clever. The dumb fumblings of a baseball broadcast team? That’s the best Baltimore satire SNL has for us? Sadly, it is only the pre-taped “Blazer,” a 80s cop-show send-up, that delivers any true bark or bite in regards to the Baltimore headlines. Taran Killam plays a tough, city cop who only beats up the black bad guys. Buried late in the show, “Blazer” pulls no (metaphorical) punches. It is hard-hitting, satirical, cleverly conceived, and very funny…despite the heavy subject matter.

So if both creative possibilities exist at Saturday Night Live, the safe and the risky, what’s the benefit of ever choosing the banal? If Weekend Update is so brazen with Kate McKinnon’s outlandish Ruth Bader Ginsberg, why does it tiptoe around Bruce Jenner? Of course we all know that Jenner’s transgender story is serious stuff…that it requires a sense of human compassion and understanding from us all. But this is SNL. What’s funny about the Jenner story isn’t that we aren’t allowed to make jokes about it, it’s that we must. It’s part of how we cope as humans, living in a world of surprises.

Scarlett Johansson does a serviceable if forgettable job as guest host, but this episode is most notable for Taran Killam and Aidy Bryant’s star turns. Both cast members were in more sketches than usual (Vanessa Bayer, too), and both were outstanding.

Killam’s sex-crazed, Atlanta talk show host Cory (“Right Side of the Bed”) is one of his funniest recurring characters, but his work in the aforementioned “Blazer,” “Black Widow Trailer” (as Thor), and the strange and wonderful “Dino Bones,” added up to what may be his strongest SNL episode ever. Early in his SNL career, Killam seemed kind of pointless to have around, a kind of whiter Jason Sudekis. This season, he really has started to emerge as a valuable asset.