This week on TV was all about trust. Lorne Michaels trusted Anna Kendrick with the Iron Throne of hosting Saturday Night Live—built with the skulls from so many failed hosts of episodes past—and she proved a benevolent and wise ruler. The Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. trusted one another with their lives, only to find out the enemy had been among them all along. And we trusted completely that Wiz Khalifa wouldn't appear on TV without being, or at least talking about, getting high enough to forget his own lyrics. Thanks, Wiz. It's nice to know we have someone we can count on. And surely as the sun does rise, here is your weekly WIRED TV recap.
Jimmy Kimmel Live! — Sign Language Rap Battle With Wiz Khalifa
Sign language interpreters are everyday heroes, and they deserve to be honored! Jimmy Kimmel invited three nationally certified interpreters on his show to cut loose in the form of a silent rap battle—well, silent for them. Wiz Khalifa was also in attendance throwing down a "Black and Yellow" playing field. These women have so much attitude in their hands we want them on stage at every hip-hop show from now on. They are ballin' out on every level!
Hannibal — Hannibal Has A Dinner Guest
Mads Mikkelsen has made a career out of playing dark, charismatic and often horrible characters—drug dealers, womanizers, killers, barbarians and the like. He broke out in the 1996 film Pusher, the directorial debut of fellow Dane Nicolas Winding Refn. The two have worked together frequently since, with the actor never flinching at the director's notoriously violent on-screen predilections. Most recently he starred in Best Foreign Language Film nominee The Hunt, about a man in a quiet Danish town accused of evil deeds involving a young local girl. All this is to say that given his resume, it's no wonder Mikkelsen was enticed to play the deliciously chilling Hannibal Lecter. In this scene we find the good Doctor hosting a dinner party for two, made all the more intimate by what's on the menu. Good luck keeping your mouth from watering when he preps the roast.
Saturday Night Live — French Dance: Anna Kendrick
Anna Kendrick doesn't have any blockbuster projects on the horizon. Make no mistake: With six projects slated for release in 2014 she's plenty busy, but it's not like she's playing Gwen Stacy or Mystique in movies with major marketing campaigns. So the fact that Kendrick got the call over, say, Emma Stone or Jennifer Lawrence, means that Saturday Night Live just wanted a pinch hitter they knew could send one over the fence. As Stefon would say, this sketch has everything: choreographed dancing, a French maid, Captain Jean-Luc Piccard, marching Madelines (it's that thing where a single-file line of little girls wearing Madeline outfits are led through the frame by Mother Clavel). Kendrick is getting closer to beer-commercial-hot all the time!
Inside Amy Schumer — A Very Realistic Military Game
Inside Amy Schumer
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Sure, Amy Schumer has her own show on Comedy Central, but this star is just like us. She hangs out with her significant other. They play video games. And just like the rest of us gals, Amy deals with that awkward moment when your in-game avatar has to decide whether she's a team player or a narc who reports her superior officer for raping her. Wait. What?! America, we are now inside Amy Schumer.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. — The Clairvoyant Is Revealed
The Marvel universe is vibrating with activity. Shooting is underway for Avengers: Age of Ultron. The Guardians of the Galaxy will arrive at our doors, and surely in our hearts, this summer, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier just detonated the foundation of everything we thought we knew about our friends at S.H.I.E.L.D. You won't read any spoilers here, but suffice to say Agent Coulson and crew have a lot on their plates after what Cap just discovered in Washington, D.C. And it all makes the Clairvoyant's unmasking in Marvel's television mini-verse even crazier than it would have been otherwise! Who can we trust? Who can't we trust? What will become of us all if S.H.I.E.L.D is so deeply compromised? Guess we'll just have to keep sticking around for all those post credits sequences to find out!
Bonus Track: Saturday Night Live — Nickelodeon Show
In an SNL with so many great sketches to choose from, it's a shame this E! True Hollywood Story-esque segment didn't make the cut. (Honestly, they could've subbed this in for "Big John" and we would've been pretty stoked about it.) This bit goes behind the smiles of a kid-centric Nickelodeon program called Zap!, which looks more than a little like the actual PBS show Zoom from the 1970s. Watch as the cast's irrepressible positive energy—buttressed by a steady diet "straight up, bought off the street speed"—descends into a nightmare of paranoid hallucinations and violent outbursts. You know, in the kind of way that's really funny.
