V = BC^2

(That's "Verizon = Bad Commercials Squared," by the way.)

Fun fact: Paul Giamatti has been nominated for an Oscar.

Cecily Strong: "What's up, Einstein?"
Einstein: "My network has gone kaput!"
Cecily: "Ah, you tried to save a buck on it?"
Einstein: "I got what I paid for! Not so smart!"

Previous ads in this series have featured Cecily bantering with other moderately famous people like Julian Edelman, but for some reason this is the second one in which Paul Giamatti is required to don costume hair and play someone else (in the previous case, that someone else was a fictional character, Ebenezer Scrooge, although this version of Einstein is essentially a fictional character in its own right).

Cecily: "Nah, you're still a genius, but there is a smarter way to save."

The entire concept of this ad is frankly bizarre. You take a famous real person who was so smart that his name turned into a synonym for genius, then create a scenario in which he has a bad cell phone connection because he got some cheap carrier, then feel the need to go out of your way to make sure you're not insulting him by pointing out that he's still a genius. Why did this have to be Einstein? Couldn't you just have put any commercial actor in a sweater, make him a "college professor" type, and run essentially the exact same ad but without the weird backtracking?

Cecily: "Switch to Verizon! For a limited time, get Welcome Unlimited for just $25 a line."
Einstein: "$25?"
Cecily: "And it's guaranteed for three years!"
Einstein: "Brilliant!"
Cecily: "Well, you would know."

So... it had to be Einstein so that Verizon could go "Yeah, our deal is so good that even EINSTEIN thinks it's brilliant! Oh... but in order to set up the joke we had to make him dumb enough to buy some really shitball service first so that he could be switching to ours. Well, let's just put 'You're still a genius' in the dialogue, that should solve that problem."

Einstein: "I'm switching!" [runs off]
Cecily: "I think the bike's probably faster..."

Well, is he smart or isn't he? I say this all the time but these ads must be seen by literally dozens of people before they make it to air. Nobody who looked at this clocked the weird, stilted nature of its setup or dialogue? No one thought it would be much cleaner to use some "generic smart guy" character? How much simpler is the ad if it runs more like this:

[tweedy professor type walking around a college campus holding up his cell phone]
Cecily: "What's up, professor?"
Professor: "Getting terrible service on my network!"
Cecily: "Ah, you tried to save a buck on it?"
Professor: "And I got what I paid for. Not so smart."
Cecily: "There's a smarter way to save - switch to Verizon! Etc."
Professor: "Brilliant! I'm switching today!" [runs off]
Cecily: "I think the bike's probably faster..."

I'm not saying this would be some amazing ad, but doesn't that seem a lot more reasonable without the "we can't decide if this real genius is a genius or not" horseshit? And I feel like the message comes across clearer when Cecily isn't opposite a famous actor hamming it up in a barely-trying German accent and fright wig. But then Verizon wouldn't get to smugly pretend that their deals are endorsed by a brilliant physicist who's been dead for almost 70 years. Can't wait for their "5G or not 5G" ad with "William Shakespeare" (Paul Giamatti crammed into a doublet).