41x09 Tina Fey and Amy Poehler with Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band

7.75/10. It's nice to have Tina and Amy back on the SNL stage again. They definitely dominated the proceedings this evening, but that's to be expected with returning cast members. They were both raring to go, the episode did well because of it, though the best material was definitely frontloaded.

The highlights of the evening were largely political. The opening sketch about the Republican debate had basically the best take on the Republican field the show's managed so far. Positing Trump and Jeb as a bully and the nerd he picks on is an inspired choice, and everything from Ted Cruz's little monologue about people hating him to Chris Christie's intense Jersey guy routine, much more of this clicked with the writers and actors finding characters than in previous episodes. I still don't quite get Jay Pharoh's Ben Carson, but people seem to like it.

By the same token, the sketch with the two Hillarys was some of the sharpest political writing the show's had recently. McKinnon's Hilary is such a well-established role for her at this point, that juxtaposing her with Poehler's formerly prominent Hillary worked great to let these two superb comic performers bounce off of each other. I was never as enamored with Tina Fey's Sarah Palin impression as the rest of the world, but she held her own here too.

And the other major highlight was the "Meet Your Second Wife" sketch. It's such a brilliant idea for the sketch, and beyond the great way that the sketch just built and built in terms of comedy, there were so many great little character moments, like Aidy Bryant accepting the show prize of a kayak and the twist with Kenan's future wife not being born yet. Similarly, the Time Life Collection of the Douglas Variety Show was a mixed bag, but the character dynamics between the two hosts of the "informercial" plus Maya Rudolph's performance made it work.

The lowlights were the Kenan Acting Coach sketch, that was silly without being much fun at the end of the day, and the Bronx Beat sketch, which was never a favorite of mine. When I saw the logo, I immediately thought, "well this is going to be a beating", and it was. Not sure who was clamoring for Amy and Maya to do this generally annoying, aimless sketch again, but Tina's all-over-the-place accent didn't help the sketch land.

As for the big middle, the monologue with Tina and Amy doing dueling X-mas songs was funnier in concept than execution; the Hoverboard ad was fine but pretty easy humor, and the Bad Blood parody was fine in principle but didn't really go anywhere and felt like viral video bait.

Weekend Update continues to have found its groove. While this wasn't one of the show's stronger outings, Jost & Che have clearly found their voice and so even the less-inspired Update segments are pleasant enough. McKinnon as Deenie, "Somebody's Mom" was kind of weak, but overall the material worked well enough.

And Bruce Spingsteen, who I like well enough but don't really follow, had good performances all the way through, with a surprise appearance from Paul McCartney (who didn't seem to know the words) at the very end of the show. Only a couple of duds, and a lot of fun material made this a solid way to close out SNL's 2015.