Tony Dalton in Better Call Saul season 6Photo: Greg Lewis/AMC
[Editor’s note: This interview contains spoilers from last night’s episode of Better Call Saul,“Point And Shoot.” Please watch the episode before reading on.]
We’ve been waiting since May for Better Call Saulto resume its sixth season—although it feels like much longer than that—especially after the shocking Howard Hamlin (Patrick Fabian) cliffhanger. What better, or rather darker, way for Lalo Salamanca (Tony Dalton) to walk back into Jimmy (Bob Odenkirk) and Kim’s (Rhea Seehorn) lives than by blowing it all up, right? After the midseason premiere, titled “Point And Shoot,” we now know that the six-week break was well worth it. As Lalo involves Jimmy and Kim in his vendetta against Gustavo Fring (Giancarlo Esposito), all hell breaks loose—and not in Lalo’s favor.
With just five episodes remaining of the beloved Breaking Bad spin-off, Saul showrunner Peter Gould talks to The A.V. Club about Lalo and his terrific portrayer Tony Dalton, how the events of this episode are going to impact this run-up to the series finale, and how TV legend Carol Burnett ended up filming her upcoming Better Call Saul guest appearance.
The A.V. Club: “Plan and Execution” ended with the shocker of Howard’s brutal, unexpected death, and Kim and Jimmy living out that horror show with Lalo’s appearance. How did you come to the decision that the midseason premiere would conclude this chapter of Lalo vs. Gus?
G/O Media may get a commission
Peter Gould: Just to state maybe the obvious, when we broke these episodes so long ago, we had no idea that there was going to be a break in the middle. We just thought episode seven was a good ending for an episode. We didn’t know we were going to make people wait six weeks to see the other part.
A big part of our thinking had to be, what is Lalo’s plan? This is one of the things that is such a struggle because we have a lot of characters on the show who are very smart. I mean, nobody’s smarter than Gus Fring. Except Lalo seems to be giving him a run for his money, somewhat through intellect and also through sheer tenacity and willingness to let bodies fall where they may. But we wanted desperately to find a way to have these two guys go face to face, which of course meant, and Lalo feels the same way, taking Mike out of the equation, at least for long enough for Lalo to get a look at the super lab. When Gus shows up, it’s a bonus as far as Lalo’s concerned. Boy, things are really falling in Lalo’s favor, or so it seems, for a bit, there.
AVC: It must have been tough letting go of that fantastic villain, one of the all-time greats in the Better Call Saul/Breaking Bad universe, played brilliantly by Tony Dalton.
PG: Oh, yeah. I mean, look, we love [him]. Lalo is just a great character. And Tony, Lalo wouldn’t be a great character if Tony hadn’t played him. A lot of his swagger and Errol Flynn-like ability comes from Tony. He’s really like a cross between a cartel killer and a ’40s movie star. It was a very sad thing to say goodbye to Tony and say goodbye to Lalo. But we have to play by the rules that we’ve set out. And we know that Gus Fring is alive and well and doing business a few years later when we meet him on Breaking Bad. None of us saw how that could be possible if Lalo is still out there, with designs on getting revenge on Gus. And also, we had that line in Breaking Bad where Gus tells Hector that he’s the last surviving Salamanca. You have to dance with the one that brung you. But having said that, boy, what a run for Tony Dalton as Lalo. Everybody who works on the show would love to work with Tony again.
AVC: Lalo was obviously raised, or was very close to, Tio Salamanca. But he seems like the smartest of the Salamancas. We all agree on that, right?
PG: He is the smartest, yeah. He seems a little bit more in control of himself than Tuco. And of course, there is that picture. I don’t know if you caught it, but there’s a photograph in the previous episode, in Hector’s room, where it is Hector and the twins and Tuco as children. So I think Lalo must have had some other influences, because everybody else, either the twins who were ice-cold killers and almost wordless and Tuco, who I don’t think can keep it buckled down enough to move through polite society. But then there’s Lalo, who can travel to Europe and blend in. That’s a very special skill where the Salamancas are concerned.
Peter Gould behind-the-scenes of Better Call SaulPhoto: Michele K. Short/AMC
AVC: Let’s get to Jimmy and Kim. When he’s trying to convince her to leave the apartment, he’s trying to save her life. And there’s a moment where he’s looking into her eyes, and it feels like he’s not just relieved that she’s agreed to go, but is he almost assuming that this is goodbye?
PG: Oh, yeah. Jimmy feels whoever stays behind in the apartment is going to die. How can you trust Lalo Salamanca? Even if Jimmy or Kim can accomplish this task he’s given him to start with, then it eventually falls to Kim, when they come back, what’s really going to happen? Jimmy knows he’s sacrificing himself at that moment. And interestingly enough, you’re seeing Jimmy trying to work an angle even with Lalo in the apartment. At first, you think it’s obvious, but then you realize he’s trying to trade his life for Kim’s, and he wants her to be safe. He’s willing to face the music with Lalo. Of course, when he’s left alone with Lalo, he has figured out that Jimmy’s connection to Nacho means that he could have been part of some enemy action. He’s right to be thinking that way. And in fact, if Lalo didn’t have more that he wanted to know from Jimmy, I think Jimmy would be lying dead on the floor right next to Howard Hamlin.
AVC: Going forward to the final episodes, Kim had this very important piece of information about Lalo still being alive, but she didn’t trust Jimmy enough to share it with him. How is Jimmy going to be able to deal with that?
PG: Well, that’s a great question, and it seems like he’s bound to find out soon. There’s definitely more to come. How does he find out? What is his response? What’s Kim’s response when he finds out that she knew that Lalo was alive? Yeah, there’s still a lot more story between these two.
AVC: The bigger issue is how are the two of them going to live with themselves and with each other, after their scheme to humiliate Howard went in this direction that they couldn’t have foreseen? It feels like the marriage now faces danger as big as Lalo’s gun.
PG: Boy, I love the way you put that. I agree with every word that you just said. Their romp of setting Howard up was sort of an aphrodisiac for both of them and also sort of a strange kind of hobby for two adults to have, but it worked for them in a certain way. That’s had terrible results. How are they going to live with what just happened? Although right now, we’re just thinking, how are they going to get through the next 24 hours? So we’ll have to see what impact this has on them.
Bob Odenkirk, Rhea Seehorn, Jonathan Banks in Better Call Saul season 6Photo: Greg Lewis/AMC
AVC: Mike has tried to help set them up to get through those next 24 hours, and it certainly seems like he’s feeling guilty about the body count because he realized that all these things had snowballed since he’d taken that watch off of Jimmy and Kim.
PG: That’s true. Mike has said in previous episodes, they’re stretched thin. The Fring organization, as powerful as it is, is not the Secret Service. There are only so many of these very trustworthy guys that Mike has. Lalo made a move that neither Gus nor Mike anticipated. It’s to Lalo’s credit. He wrong-footed both Gustavo Fring and Mike Ehrmantraut. Not a lot of people have ever done that. Of course, Gus also wrong-footed Mike by deciding on his own, without telling Mike, to go to the laundry. You can see that at the very end of the episode, these two guys retreat into their separate corners. Their relationship has changed a little bit. The truth is that these two guys are now bound together, the way they will be on Breaking Bad. I mean, Mike has made his choice. He’s thrown his lot in with Gus. Maybe Gus will tell Mike next time, maybe. I don’t know. He seemed to keep Mike in the dark an awful lot on Breaking Bad.
I just have to say that one thing I skipped over was just how incredible Bob and Rhea are in this episode. Seeing these two characters in this extreme, extreme situation, I don’t think I’ve ever seen either one of them do the things that they’ve done in this episode. Vince Gilligan directed it, and Gordon Smith wrote it. It’s a really special one. I can’t wait for the whole world to see the last series of episodes because this might be the best work we’ve ever done.
AVC: We know Carol Burnett is going to appear as a character named Marion. How did her guest appearance come about?
PG: The short answer is Vince met Carol, and then I met Carol. I got to meet her at the Peabodys where I heard someone tell me “Carol Burnett wants to meet you.” So, of course, my wife and I scurried over to her table. You can’t imagine what a spectacular person she is. It’s not just the work she’s done, but her warmth and generosity as a human being. She is a special, special person. We were excited that she knew who we were and that she liked the show. A character came up as we were working on these episodes, and the first thing we said was “Wouldn’t it be amazing if Carol Burnett would be willing to travel to Albuquerque and be on our show?” And I got to tell you, it was a dream come true. When you see what she’s doing, it’s so much more than a cameo. She creates a character that people are going to really love and be fascinated by.
Jack Kehler on stage at Lebowski Fest in Los Angeles in 2015Photo: Victor Decolongon (Getty Images)
Jack Kehler, perhaps best known as the landlord of “The Dude” in The Big Lebowski, has died. Per The Hollywood Reporter, representatives from Kehler’s talent agency, SMS Talent, confirmed his death due to complications from leukemia. Kehler died on Saturday in Los Angeles. He was 75.
Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1946, Kehler was among the most prolific character actors in Hollywood, with more than 170 screen credits to his name. Like many in his field, Kehler began his career while waiting tables in New York. He decided to become an actor at 24 and eventually found his way to the prestigious Actors Studio in 1982, one year before his first screen appearance in 1983’s Strange Invaders.
Kehler quickly became a regular on TV, appearing on such groundbreaking shows as Hill Street Blues, St. Elsewhere, and opposite Carol Burnett, Dabney Coleman, Teri Garr, and Charles Grodin on the miniseries Fresno. In the early 90s, he appeared in Kathryn Bigelow’s surfing-robbers blockbuster Point Break. Throughout the early 90s, Kehler found his way into several of the era’s most beloved shows, including Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Northern Exposure, Wings, and ER.
His movie career began to take off after his 1995 appearance in Waterworld, after which he landed roles in Lethal Weapon 4 and David Lynch’s Lost Highway. But it was as The Dude’s Landlord in Joel and Ethan Coen’s cult classic The Big Lebowski that he delivered his signature role. As the sheepish landlord with dreams of leading a modern dance show entitled “Dance Moderne,” he earned the sympathy and respect of The Dude and audiences, turning a few lines into a memorable and hilarious turn that grows funnier and more poignant with every viewing.
In the 2000s, Kehler continued a career as a prolific character actor, with roles in Men In Black II, Mad Men, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, Love, Victor, and The Man In The High Castle.
Kehler is survived by his wife, Shawna Casey; son, Eddie; daughter-in-law, Mari-Anne; and grandson, Liam.
“To me, one man’s over-the-top is another man’s engaged performance.”
“I’m not an actor, I’m a [very, very intense movie] star!!”
Willem Dafoe jokes several times in his monologue about people thinking he’d make a great Joker. He’s not wrong, although here I’ll just say—enough with the Jokers. We’ve had enough Jokers. Heath Ledger was the best, Mark Hamill is a strong second, Jared Leto remains in last place, forever. That bafflingly misbegotten and overrated Joaquin Phoenix thing was not a Joker movie, I don’t care what anyone says.
Ahem. Still, Dafoe’s Joker-obsessed fans have a point. As Dafoe himself noted, he’s not an unexpressive actor. As I’d add, Willem Dafoe has a crazy devil face whose alternately bulging and slitted ice-blue eyes, tombstone teeth, and deeply etched lines are the craziest toolbox a major star has had to work with since probably forever. Dafoe pretended to be hurt by the idea that he’s only thought of on the street as the physical embodiment of outsized, gleefully performative evil, but, hey, it’s worked for the guy so far.
Leading up to Dafoe’s hosting gig tonight, I cast my mind back over Dafoe’s roles to imagine what a sketch comedy Willem Dafoe might be like. His comedies are few and stranded amidst a vast sea of unsettling kooks, killers, and the occasional supervillain. He deadpans exquisitely for Wes Anderson, was game (and, yes, unsettling) in his two Simpsons guest roles, and I’m never going to watch American Dreamz, so there’s not a lot to go on.
As it played out, Dafoe was game for Saturday Night Live, too, his up-for-anything enthusiasm the best thing about what were a handful of genuinely indifferent sketches. And if Dafoe isn’t going to springboard into a late-career comic swerve out of the gig, here’s to watching him lighten up and have fun. That said, Willem Dafoe is not really built for comedy, with his performances a combination of stilted and exaggerated that was—I’ll say it—kind of unsettling.
Onscreen, there’s precious little Dafoe hasn’t done, or won’t do, a fearlessness that carried over tonight into spanking himself with a riding crop, doing a couple of weird dances, and a whole lot of boner and blowjob jokes. The writing tonight was almost uniformly corny in its broadness, which can’t be laid at Dafoe’s feet. Still, there was a fair amount of host-protecting going on (most of his monologue was Aidy Bryant and Mikey Day doing Wisconsin accents), with Dafoe wheeling out for a short ensemble piece or plunked down as framing device. The whole show tonight had a sprung rhythm, with lots of dead spots in the pacing and clunky direction and blocking. (Punkie Johnson crosses right in front of camera on one exit.) That’d be a lot for even a comic powerhouse of a host to overcome, and Dafoe was left stranded much of the night, not that he seemed anything but delighted to be there.
Best/Worst Sketch Of The Night
The Best: Woof. And, no, I’m not putting the dog show sketch here. That’s just the sound I made when casting over my notes and trying to think of a sketch that didn’t make me feel blank and sort of logy. The music video sketch, “Now I’m Up” gets the top spot tonight, simply by being the most professional and polished, if not the funniest such pre-tape the show’s ever done. Also, Chris Redd is always outstanding in these musical numbers, here bringing a truly fine voice to what was an otherwise standard musical list of the sort of thoughts that keep you up at night. He and Kenan made an unremarkable piece of observational comedy into a serious bop—I would listen to this anytime, honestly. Dafoe was used well, too, his late-night commercial pitchman intruding into the bleary-eyed mix for a nifty song and dance riff. Honestly, if those intrusive insomniac thoughts that keep you awake and edgy had a spokesperson, it’d be Willem Dafoe, telling you that you have to die someday.
The Worst: While no sketches tonight were outright dire, so many of the live pieces jerked along to the same busted comic rhythm. Speaking of jerking, the returning joke about a news report gone wrong thanks to some accidentally ribald chyrons was all about the blowjobs, as anchor Bowen Yang calling self-help guru Dafoe’s book Blowing Yourself (instead of Knowing Yourself) sees things play out in exhausting, one-joke hackiness. There are lots of lines like, “That’s a lot to swallow,” and “Hopefully I don’t suck here,” if that’s your bag, is what I’m saying. It’s like a Carol Burnett Show sketch if Harvey Korman were allowed to make self-fellatio jokes. (Just as an aside, for no reason: Willem Dafoe is exceptionally limber.)
The Rest: The Badminster Dog Show continues to suggest that, if a show is flagging during rehearsals, a pack of adorable doggies are kept behind some emergency glass. I love dogs. Dogs are cute. And dogs can be freaking hilarious. That said, this one seems to have been turned over to guaranteed audience “awwww”s to make up for the fact that nobody wrote much of anything after coming up with the whole “Badminster” instead of “Westminster” title gag.
I laughed at Aidy being Aidy, her co-host (along with Dafoe) noting that the contest’s crappy dogs are “just like us—some of them bite kids.” And Redd was great as the owner of the eventual winner, a little critter whose enormous penis necessitates vet visits every time it gets aroused. “I hate saying that, and I say it a lot,” Redd states upon explaining the elaborate penile de-escalation procedure. But even though I joined in on the “awww” train when the supposed meanest dog in the pageant turned out to be a cuddlebug, tenderly licking Kate McKinnon’s judge and Andre Dismukes’ owner while everybody tried to keep a straight face, I felt manipulated and dirty. But I ”awwww”-ed all the same. Dafoe’s into-it but stiff presence didn’t help, I have to say, as a list of one dog’s increasingly absurd list of fears (pineapples, the Netflix startup sound) got trampled by Dafoe’s comically tone-deaf delivery. Cute pooches, though.
The other pre-tape, a commercial parody of those ubiquitously targeted Frank Thomas testosterone-booster ads, was as full of boner jokes as the news report sketch, but at least they were better, weirder boner jokes. With Kenan’s Big Hurt, Kyle Mooney’s Doug Flutie, and Dafoe (as himself) all coming out to cheerfully embarrass middle-aged Mikey Day for supposedly not being able to “get hard” anymore, the gag is that the three celebrity spokespeople are both really into the product, and unashamedly enthusiastic about the fact that they once couldn’t get hard, but now can get very hard, indeed. Making these dad-focused commercials’ subtext text, the sketch playfully skewers the euphemistic pitch behind all these suspiciously unregulated man-potions, stripping Day’s manly insecurities down to the bone. (You get it.) And there are enough weirdo touches to give the initial joke some legs, as its eventually revealed that the product in question is less a pill than some sort of whirring, hiccuping motorized gizmo that sees all three enthusiasts doubled over in artificially induced pain-pleasure. Dafoe, triggered into exquisite torture by the innocent attentions of Day’s wife, Melissa Villaseñor, is used to his best advantage, pounding his chest and screaming in startlingly intense orgasmic delight. (And no, nobody’s making a “Dafoe face” joke.)
The Please Don’t Destroy guys miss with this one, a one-joke premise (Martin Herlihy has a 10-year-old best bud) that escalates in noisy chaos more than cleverness. I like these guys, even if the show’s naked pitch to make them the next viral superstars keeps pointing out that The Lonely Island only made this specific type of absurdist backstage stuff look easy.
In the SNL oral history, many tales are told about Lorne Michaels’ expensive insistence on realistic and often elaborate sets in comedy. “Gilda will know,” he’s quoted as stating in response to an NBC exec asking why a wardrobe sweater had to be real cashmere. So I don’t get bent out of shape watching the show invest so much time, energy, and money in creating, say, a quartet of meticulously movie-accurate costumes for the minor characters in the Beauty And The Beast sketch. I’m a little more irritated that SNL keeps thinking that we’re all as convinced a lavishly mounted Disney setting propping up a middling premise is comedy gold.
Here, Pete Davidson’s Beast (no complaints about his costuming, since he’s a main character, and those lower-jaw fangs are ingeniously crafted) whips out his magic mirror to show Chloe Fineman’s Belle just what her elderly father is getting up to in her (kidnapped) absence. Dafoe’s gameness is on display as his home alone papa gets down to some dirty, if indifferently realized and staged, behavior. (Here’s where that riding crop figures in.) With Kenan (Cogsworth), Mikey Day (Lumiere), Punkie Johnson (Mrs. Potts), and Kyle (Chip) all getting into the voyeuristic fun to varying degrees, the sketch is awfully thin. Partly that’s down to Dafoe, who, I’m just calling it, isn’t a naturally funny presence. While his lonely old man lamenting how much he misses all the things his late wife used to do to his ass exhibits an admirable degree of commitment on Dafoe’s part, the guy just doesn’t really speak the comic language. Mostly, though, it’s that these Disney-fied sketches all seem to have the same joke. (Stuff isn’t as rosy and innocent as these animated kids films would have you believe.) And while we all have our own rosy memories of these movies, it’s really time to move on from seeing them as go-to sketch fodder.
Weekend Update Update
Is it a good sign when Peyton Manning gives the best comedy performance of your sketch comedy show? No, no it is not, even if, yeah, the former NFL QB (and former SNL host who did slightly better than most athletes) was genuinely pretty great as he revealed that his newly discovered love for binge-watching Emily In Paris trumped watching any of last weekend’s mail-biting football highlights. It’s the specificity of Manning’s ably rat-a-tat catalogue of the Netflix series that makes the joke, as Manning can barely be coaxed into talking NFL highlights (“All the touchdowns were in the end zone”) amidst his in-depth analysis of what makes Emily’s adventures in love and work so darned thrilling. His reading of “a fresh take on feminism—finally!,” was easily the best delivery of the night. (Even if, you know, that’s sort of questionable, coming from him.) Throw in a surprise beret reveal shot, and you have one of the most unexpected highlights of this season. I know, I’m as baffled as you are.
Jost and Che were, once more, fine. With tonight’s co-hosting gig, apparently they are now the longest-tenured Update hosts ever, and as long as SNL wants Weekend Update to stay a cheeky, largely disposable showcase for personality rather than biting fake news, then they should have a few more years to really put their records out of reach.
Aidy Bryant and Bowen Yang had some fun as a pair of effortfully outré trend predictors. There’s not much to the bit than watching Aidy and Bowen almost crack up as they go unaccountably harsh on their fashion and lifestyle pet peeves. For guys who use posters as decor, Aidy’s hissing, “Pulp Fiction poster—grow up and be a damn painting!” made me laugh in her and Yang’s tag-team hostility. Aidy is so outstanding at what she does that she’s in danger of being taken for granted sometimes. Here, there’s a level of knowing absurdity yoked to ultimate, wild-eyed sincerity of purpose that’s just irresistible.
“What do you call that act?” “The Widettes!”—Recurring Sketch Report
The wacky news blooper sketch can go gather dust as a concept. Way, way back in the filing cabinet graveyard.
While the tenant’s association meeting sketch wasn’t exactly a recurring bit, the change of setting (from school committee, town meeting, etc) roll call nature of these pieces as a template sure is. Here, it’s Alex Moffatt and Chloe Fineman riding herd on the assorted weirdos and cranks taking the mic, allowing us to see who, of this overstuffed and underused cast, is actually in the building this week.
As a conceit, these sorts of sketches serve the purpose of letting nearly everybody get some airtime, while usually zipping by without making much of an impact. Here, the high notes are muted by brevity, and the fact that most don’t really bring an especially well-realized characterization to the party. Kate kills, naturally, as her diminutive final speaker pokes her head barely over the podium to, once more, suggest raising the allowable cat limit from three to seventy-five. Kate McKinnon can land a character with a look, a pause, and a shuffle of prepared notes. Redd does fine, too, as the building’s doorman, smilingly but beseechingly trying to nip in the bud the fact that the building’s mostly white tenants think his name is “Jamarcus.” (It’s Robert.)
Aristotle Athari scores big, too, his Google translate-dependent tenant securing his phone’s help to ask, “I need to milk faucet so make destruction.” (Apparently, he’s planning to tear down a wall. Again.) Athari has slyly asserted himself as someone who can make a small role pop memorably, as has James Austin Johnson, whose barely contained rage about Verizon emerges in a strangled, funny voice. Dafoe is funny enough, channeling his own past living rough in NYC to portray the self-proclaimed “pain in the ass” who bought the top three floors of the building in 1971 for eleven dollars. His “What the hell happened to this city?” reminiscences about hellhole 70s New York include the joys of Iggy Pop puking into your face at CBGB’s, something Dafoe makes especially vivid by suggesting that that is precisely what happened to him at one point. Heidi Gardner, too, excels in these ensemble parades, here inhabiting her irately clueless (about her son’s jackoff habits) mom explode with impeccable Karen energy. These sketches are much of a muchness, but they have their uses, I suppose.
“It was my understanding there would be no math”—Political comedy report
Just stop. Sorry, that’s not helpful. Just stop it. Dammit. Deep breath…
Okay, so what happens when SNL decides to combine its traditionally unfocused and watery political cold open with its penchant for name-checking what those darned kids are up to these days? You get this—thing—where James Austin Johnson’s Joe Biden brings in a youth consultant to counter Russian misinformation tactics with (another deep breath) memes and TikTok videos. I saw the warning signs with that TikTok-centered sketch earlier this season, the mini-movie app’s virality proving a shiny allure for SNL to prove just how old and creaky its sensibilities can look when it tries to get down with the youth of today.
And here, as with the Biden Spider-Man cold open, Johnson’s still canny and well-observed Biden is saddled with a non-premise and asked to react. The “Biden, ain’t he old?” jokes are proving as tiresome a writers’ crutch as Alec Baldwin’s Trumpy fish-face already, and we’re only a year in. Here, confronted with the bewildering array of Russian meme warfare on display, Johnson’s Biden is called on to blurt “Malarkey!,” and otherwise look benignly puzzled at all this newfangled disinformation and GIFs and whatnot, and it’s all too irrelevant to be truly annoying. A draggy exercise in doing the least possible with seven minutes of valuable and potentially fruitful network airtime is an ill-advised way to kick off your 90-minute comedy show.
I Am Hip To The Musics Of Today
In contrast to my gripes about those Disney costumes, I say, give Katy Perry all the giant mushrooms she wants. Any initial conception of SNL’s musical element being co-equal with the comedy/variety portion of the show went out even before it began, really, so I’m here for any time the show allows a performer to go full performance art. Is Katy Perry in a vacuum-sealed dress, flanked by identically kitted-out mushroom dancers art? Well, it’s certainly more interesting than the usual rushed and perfunctory musical slots, and Perry’s perfectly pleasant pop meshes just fine with a swirling, Alice In Wonderland backdrop of psychedelic imagery and “Eat Me” fans. Honestly, I have to admit that sometimes I check out a little during the musical guests, but I didn’t do that tonight.
Most/Least Valuable Not Ready For Prime Time Player
I keep stumping for you, Melissa, and god knows you deserve more than the two nothing roles you got tonight. But fluffing lines in both ain’t helping, even as I acknowledge that the stress of only getting a line or so every two episodes only ups the pressure.
I’ve been helpfully informed by you kind commenters and Twitter types that Cecily’s absence can be attributed to her tagging out to star off-Broadway. Break legs, Strong.
Aidy gets the top slot tonight, and, no, it’s not damning with faint praise. The episode wasn’t anything special, but Aidy Bryant is.
Too abrupt and yet too drawn-out is a comic mix that’s tough to pull off, so, kudos, I guess? Here, though, the office sketch was all setup, a feint toward a whole new direction, and then a clumsily truncated payoff. Dafoe’s office temp is reentering the workforce, has bought a whole lot of pizzas for the law firm’s all-nighter, and then disastrously joins in on the lawyers’ bored finger-tapping and glass-pinging impromptu musical screw-around by hurling an office chair out a 15th-story window. “I thought it would bounce off the window and make a cool sound!,” Dafoe’s abashed Jeremiah exclaims. I like a sketch not beholden to a pat formula, but this really could have used a stronger center than Dafoe, as hard as he tries to imbue the sketch with a live-wire energy. Blame that expressive face, I guess, but watching an actor not known for comedy furiously mugging to sell a joke is more squirmy than funny. (He really does nail Hedi Gardner with that stapler, though, with a solid, blind, over-the-shoulder hurl.) That does sort of describe Willem Dafoe’s traditional effect on me. So, well done?
Stray observations
Telltale pandemic detail: The decelerating whirring of fans or air purifiers each time Dafoe introduced Katy Perry.
Poor Ego Nwodim had two exposition-heavy, explaining-the-joke roles tonight. Yup, she got double Mikey Day-ed.
Fineman’s consultant, introducing herself to the President: “I’m Mikayla, spelled the worst way.” (I guessed on the worst way to spell Michaela.)
Aidy’s irate tenant wants to ban all teens from her building, since they “huff White Claws and do 69-ers” right outside her door.
Aidy’s dog show co-host banters, “Now, Judas, it says here that you and I are married!”
One of the dogs is said to be allergic to “anything that is or isn’t duck.”
We’re off for a while, but return strong with John Mulaney joining the Five Timers Club (alongside musical guest LCD Soundsystem) on February 26. See you then.
It’s a funny quirk of theater that Annie Live! was actually the least nervous I’ve ever felt sitting down to watch one of these live musicals. If there’s one group of people I trust to deliver consistency, it’s kids trained in musical theater. So even though this particular production opened with a bizarre Brechtian acknowledgement of the fourth wall by way of what felt like a Gap Kids ad, and then forced young star Celina Smith to go through the stress of a quick change on national television (talk about a “moment before”), nothing could throw this young cast off its game. Less than 10 minutes in, elementary schoolers were already doing butterfly flips across the stage while singing in perfect harmony. It’s hard to think of a better way to say “theater is back, baby!” than a pre-teen belting her face off while walking a live dog around the stage. The audience couldn’t stop themselves from applauding mid-song and neither could I.
In retrospect, I can’t believe we got A Christmas Story Live!and The Grinch Live!before someone thought to stage a production of Annie. Not only is it a beloved musical, it’s also a genuinely good show too. Charles Strouse and Martin Charnin’s score is full of bangers, not just in the show’s best-known numbers, but also in catchy songs like “I Think I’m Gonna Like It Here,” “Easy Street,” and “N.Y.C.” Between the popularity of the original cast album, the 1982 movie with Carol Burnett, the 1999 Wonderful World Of Disney version with Victor Garber and Kathy Bates, and the 2014 movie with Quvenzhané Wallis and Jamie Foxx, it’s a show that’s got buy-in from multiple generations. Plus it’s literally set at Christmas! Leaping lizards, what else could you want?
Best of all, NBC finally listened to the plea I’ve put in basically everyreview since these live musicals started: They filmed the show in front of a live audience and let the crowd actually laugh at the jokes, rather than just cheer like they were at a rock concert. I don’t know why it took eight full years for someone to think of treating theater like theater, but at least NBC made up for it by bringing in an audience knowledgeable enough to make sure Megan Hilty got her own entrance applause in addition to Tituss Burgess’ ecstatic reception after the duo arrived onstage together as Rooster and Lily St. Regis, respectively. That’s exactly how two Broadway legends should be treated.
Photo: Virginia Sherwood/NBC
G/O Media may get a commission
Annie Live! threw down the gauntlet early by squeezing in “Maybe,” “It’s The Hard Knock Life,” and “Tomorrow” all before the first commercial break. And the show kept up that momentum for its full three-hour runtime. Even the flaws— Harry Connick Jr.’s horrifyingly fleshy Daddy Warbucks bald cap, a few crew members popping up in shots here and there—just added to the fun of the whole thing. These live musicals should be a touch ridiculous, otherwise what would we tweet about? Annie Live! reminded us that girls can be orphans, billionaires can be good, and Nicole Scherzinger can fan kick while scatting. So while, sure, maybe Smith’s unexpectedly raw, naturalistic take on Annie doesn’t necessarily make sense in the same show where Taraji P. Henson is going full twitchy pantomime villain as Miss Hannigan, it doesn’t really matter when both performances are wonderful in a cast without a weak link.
Annie Live! also hugely benefited from director Lear deBessonet’s simple, pared back staging. While some of these live musicals have gone big with multiplesoundstages or concert-styleproductions, Annie Live! mostly unfolded like an actual stage show. Jason Sherwood’s elegantly simple set put the emphasis on the performers—especially the dancers, who stole the show in the big ensemble numbers. (You can feel how hungry these performers have been to put on a show after the pandemic put a kibosh on live theater for so long, and Sergio Trujillo’s choreography served them incredibly well.) And while Alex Rudzinski’s camera direction wasn’t always the best at complementing deBessonet’s stage pictures, that’s a fairly minor critique. On the plus side, other than a few late microphone moments, Annie Live! was basically the first of these live musicals to finally get the sound mixing right, which is a huge win in my book.
Photo: Virginia Sherwood/NBC
It also helps that Annie just feels like a nice thematic fit for our current moment. There’s something poignant about its lighthearted look at the power of optimism in the face of the Great Depression. (Hope you enjoyed that Herbert Hoover history lesson, kids!) Plus its celebration of found family is lovely too. Though this is definitely a fun-first show, I actually found myself surprisingly moved by Connick Jr.’s mournful reprise of “Maybe” when Daddy Warbucks thinks he’s going to have to say goodbye to little orphan Annie. And by the time Annie and Warbucks expressed their love for one another after she finds out her biological parents died years ago, I was full-on tearing up.
Annie Live! does what these live musicals should have been doing from the start: Pick strong source material, cast it well, and embrace the unique format of live theater, rather than try to turn it into something else. Perfectly paced and anchored by Smith’s star-making breakthrough performance, Annie Live! proved to be a lovely way to spend a Thursday night amidst the busy rush of the holiday season and the general scariness of the world right now. While so many of the previous live musicals have felt like fleeting ephemera I’ll never rewatch again, Annie Live! is one I might actually be tempted to revisit tomorrow.
Stray observations
Yes, I did clap for Annie’s big entrance in her iconic red dress, and I hope you did too.
Nicole Scherzinger walks an unparalleled line between giving an earnestly great musical theater performance and a ridiculous camp musical theater performance, and that is her power.
Some of the camera work was pretty scattershot tonight, but I did love that Steadicam shot down the steps in “I Think I’m Gonna Like It Here.”
I also loved the fantastically colorful period styles from costumer designer Emilio Sosa, although I’m a little baffled by the choice to bookend the show with kids in modern dress.
I truly can’t overemphasis what a difference it made to have a live audience laughing and responding to the show itself! It was especially sweet when the crowd broke into applause for Warbuck’s line, “I’m glad to see Broadway getting back on its feet in spite of the hard times.”
I’d take a New Deal for Christmas! Or a kind billionaire who wants to adopt me.