And Your Host…
In deference to this season’s most persistent guest star ringer, Grumpy Old Man rant incoming in 3…2…
“Back in my day, the host/musical guest honor used to mean something! Sure, sometimes Kris Kristofferson showed up so drunk that the cast would have to make last-second plans to divvy up his parts in case they couldn’t sober him up in time for air, but that’s how it was and we liked it!”
But seriously, this is getting silly.
Look, Charli XCX is a serviceable presence in sketches tonight. She was eager, game, and didn’t go off cue card. But that’s about all that can be said for the British singer. On the host/musical guest scale, she was no Queen Latifah, Donald Glover, or Timberlake, certainly, although she wasn’t Deion Sanders, Halsey, or Jack Harlow inexplicable. (Or Justin Bieber awful.)
At least fellow pop diva Ariana Grande had some screen presence (and a few genuinely good impressions). Charli XCX was just there in the way a musical guest popping into a sketch usually is. Except, you know, for the entire episode.
Underwhelming to the extent that I can only speculate as to the reasons for her host/musical role here, XCX (which is the abbreviation I’ve settled on) just had no snap. SNL chasing “the youth?” SNL disproportionately riding Bowen Yang’s Charli XCX impression from the season opener? (XCX gushing over it on Howard Stern probably didn’t hurt.)
Not that she was given anything to do. Three separate recurring sketches? And indifferent side roles in a few others. This episode was looking pretty dire regardless of host, and having a non-actor, non-comedian host only added more weight to the unpromising voyage.
The Best and the Rest
The Best: In a desert of a show, might as well give it up to old school professionalism. The Digital Short “Here I Go,” let the Lonely Island remind us just how much we miss them. A musical ode to busybody white suburbanites who can’t wait to drop a dime for every passing minor lawn infraction, the song, performed by Andy Samberg and XCX is a little ordinary as far as Lonely Island conceits go. But it’s still as catchy as it is absurdly specific about this particular social ill. “Karen-ing” is the target here, that increasingly caught-on-film habit of privileged whites asserting their right to police public behavior, especially of those who “don’t look like they belong.”
So Samberg’s gleefully auto-tuned neighborhood snitch crooning, “And I know you’re not supposed to do this any more/But does it help to know that who I snitched on was white” encapsulates the whole “I’m not racist, but did anyone see that Black guy walking down the street?” Nextdoor vibe with signature aplomb.
Samberg and XCX team up as a happily wed couple itching to anonymously snitch on everyone from old ladies smelling their roses to people who park 2 cm too close to their driveway to pooping dogs. (Cue pug in handcuffs.) All while their neighbors hate them (but don’t intervene) and they admit to using their busybody life-ruining in place of sex. Not prime Lonely Island, but the class of this meager rundown, certainly.
The Worst: If the Wicked impression parade (see below) was tiring, the fashionista Thanksgiving was trying. I get that the world of preening models and influencers isn’t for me, but if you can’t make your impressions of Mark Jacobs, Naomi Campbell, Julia Fox, Law Roach, and other people I had to be reminded exist funny in themselves, then people not plugged into the world you’re imitating can only gawk and stare silently.
The only amusing touch was Ashley Padilla and Jane Wickline stuffed into one oversized blazer as the Olsen twins, diffidently bringing a cigarette casserole and a more ordinary hot dish (“I don’t think I got what this was going to be”) before being swallowed up by their too-trendy outerwear. The sketch culminates in a Thanksgiving table, dish-kicking catwalk, whose vibe of gracelessness (everyone seems unsure how to navigate the space) sums up the whole enterprise.
The Rest: The commercial acting class points out one of SNL writers’ most persistent crutches. Marcello Hernandez is fine (using that word a lot in this review) as the sort of scarf-wearing, self-impressed acting world blowhard who uses his two IMDb credits (Fear Factor, MILF Manor) to bludgeon any defiance out of his aspiring students. In a bit of flamboyant demonstration acting, Marcello channels a bit of Martin Short, which isn’t bad (although you don’t want to make a habit of it.)
But new students Andrew Dismukes and Chloe Fineman get stuck on Mikey Day duty. Meaning they’re the ones tasked with pointing out that the overacting antics of Hernandez and Charli XCX (as his prize pupil) are just so darned ridiculous, and can’t anyone else see this? Yes, we can. We can all see that the ridiculous thing that’s happening is ridiculous. You pointing out that it is, in fact, ridiculous sucks all of the air out of our lungs (which, to be fair, haven’t been getting a workout in the laugh-til-you-wheeze department.)
Sketches are traditionally built around an absurdity. Breaking the social contract is a sketch writing staring line. It’s where you take the inciting absurdity that makes or breaks you. Play with it, tease it out, challenge the audience to keep up. But slamming on the brakes to reassure everyone that that absurd thing is absurd and you don’t like it is deadening, dull, and defeating. Not all sketches have to stay grounded in the world they started from, and even if you’re going to yank back on the normality cord, at least leave room for your straight-person performers to do something (anything) but look confused while they restate the premise we’ve already internalized.
The one aspect that made me laugh was Marcello and XCX’s commitment to pitching their readings of well-know commercial catchphrases as high and as crazily as possible. So “What’s in you wallet?!” puts the emphasis on the last word in something like horror, and “Have it your way!” becomes the end of a nasty argument about dinner. Both take the absurd premise and heighten it—before poor Andrew and Chloe have to essentially scold them back to earth.
Weekend Update Update
The SNL audience got a workout in their “Oh no you didn’t” muscles tonight. Jost and Che had a lot to work with in Trump’s raft of farcically dangerous cabinet nominees and they did, to their credit, go there. Taking on the fact that Matt Gaetz resigned his Florida congressional gig just as the House Ethics Committee was scheduled to release its findings on that whole “raped an underage girl” thing, Jost joked about his nomination for Attorney General, “And Gaetz said the same thing he does when he sees a teenage girl, ‘I’ll do it!.’”
Jost kept on, noting that Gaetz [shows photo] “was created when Frankenstein raped Dracula,” eliciting more gasps, before closing with a joke that Trump’s original AG pick was found dead in his jail cell. [Show Jeffrey Epstein pic.] All cutting, all targeted, and only slightly undercut by how pleased with himself Jost clearly was.
Che wasn’t shy either, noting of “government efficiency” czar Elon Musk’s plan to ask people to work long hours for free in his new cut-the-peasants’-benefits spree, “But you can’t be surprised that the white African guy’s fist idea is slavery.” Even Che’s wonted “aww ladies, I’m only playing—or am I?” joke about scientists speculating on the eventual extinction of the Y chromosome actually took a bit from the right target, with Che noting, “So ladies, hang in there. You’ll get your little president.” (He also got the sought-after response with his reference to Trump’s coming “immigrant catapult.”)
That’s a complicated joke that airs out a whole lot of contradictory comic angles. Coupled with the duo smacking some admittedly right-down-the-pipe softballs in Trump’s clown car of white supremacists, rapists, animal-murderers, and vapid, blow-dried TV personalities (not mutually exclusive categories) and this was easily the strongest Update of the young season. Knowing Jost and Che, I fully expect them to retreat to self-impressed laziness once things move past the “Can you f**king believe Trump nominated that jackass?” stage, but this was closer to the grit I’d like to see. \
Speaking of absurd non-issues that Trump conservatives pretend to care about, Peanut the squirrel. You know, the illegally kept wild animal pet who was removed (and, sure euthanized) by animal welfare, even though his owner flaunted the law by putting the unfortunate little guy in cowboy hats online and such.
Now nobody loves squirrels more than I do, even if they eat all my birdseed and my backyard birds go hungry, the greedy bastards. And the issue of public health versus how cool it would be to have a little wild animal as your Instagram dress-up buddy wars in my heart and mind. But MAGA minions seized upon little Peanut’s demise to back up some truly idiotic, anti-government hysteria that played right into Trump’s “just let Big Daddy take care of everything and screw the Constitution” anti-government massaging. You know, like they do.
Anyway, this bit had literally nothing to do with that, as the desk appearance by Peanut’s grieving widow Hazel (you get it), just gave Sarah Sherman a chance to tickle Colin Jost’s junk with her bushy tail and do a shockingly adept squirrel impression. (Seriously, I do love you squirrels, but make up your damn mind in the middle of the road so I don’t sympathetically smash my car into a telephone pole.) Sherman is never funnier than when she’s tormenting Colin Jost, and here she’s having a blast, even if she’s funnier channeling frightened squirrels trying to wreck my car. C’mon guys, just go or don’t go.
Are we doing Tiger King again? I guess the pandemic-era Netflix figure (real name Joseph Maldonado-Passage) is newsworthy, as the convicted murder-for-hire big cat enthusiast is lobbying Donald Trump hard for a pardon. (Hey, he’s on the tee-vee, which means the King could be next in line for Secretary of the Interior.) Yang, mullet in resplendent tow, glories in playing up the rough-hewn tiger keeper’s inexplicable success with dudes (“Everybody knows that Joe Exotic attracts big cats and poor guys who want to be gay for the first time”), but gets his biggest laughs thanks to an enormous offscreen tiger who’s paw keeps reaching in to savage him. (“Shoot it, Che! Shoot it with your pencil!”)
And as for Joe Exotic’s future, who knows? After all, as Yang points out, this is Donald Trump’s America now, and what is that America but “an illegal zoo run by a methed-out polycule?”
Recurring Sketch Report
As templates go, the “Cast impressions audition for X” sketches are a telling test of any cast’s talents. The sketch itself is nothing—quick-hit celebrity impressions doing their supposed catchphrases that disappear before anyone can really register how inconsequential they are as comedy. So the quality of the impersonations are pretty much all these things have.
This cast is not great at impressions. Chloe Fineman is the only cast member who truly made her bones as an impressionist (James Austin Johnson’s Trump notwithstanding), and while she’s occasionally spot-on, she’s often spread very thin. (The fact that she got overshadowed at dueling Jennifer Coolidges by Ariana Grande had to smart.)
Here, the impressions ranged from indifferent to nonexistent. Fineman did triple duty without making much of an impression (sorry), while Bowen ranted as Fran Lebowitz again, and Marcello let the Sebastian Maniscalco prosthetics do his ranting. Same for Sarah Sherman’s Bernie Sanders, while Devon Walker’s Shannon Sharpe was fine, even if the incongruousness pointed up how there was no reason for this thing to exist.
(Bowen reprising his Charli XCX while Charl herself impersonated Troye Sivan was likely supposed to be a barn-burner. My barn remains standing.)
There’s no connection between the celebrities being performed and Wicked (oh, these were auditions for Wicked) except that NBC sold a lot of airtime for the upcoming musical movie. Since Dana Carvey was once more in the house to do his Biden thing, he was also wheeled in to do his so-so Al Pacino (8H ghosts of Bill Hader’s Pacino are impossible to exorcise). Like a lot—a lot—of the recurring sketches tonight, this felt like a case of the writers being out of ideas and plugging holes in the rundown more than anything else.
The post-monologue sketch was pure heat-seeking repeater stuff, with a baby shower quickly revealed as an attempt to coast on Domingo’s waves. The first outing went viral to the extent that Marcello Hernandez has had to beg stand-up audiences to cool it so he can do his sets, so having another female pop star in the house made this one pretty much inevitable.
And since we’re all reusing jokes, at this juncture I’ll bring up the Arrested Development scene where David Cross lectures Portia de Rossi about couples fooling themselves into thinking that their open marriage idea would work, despite it never having worked for anyone ever. “But it might work for us,” is Saturday Night Live‘s philosophy when it comes to catching lightning in a second bottle.
The first sketch’s premise—a man discovers his partner’s infidelity and unhappiness through her friends’ over-sharing musical number—was amusing the first time mostly in the gradual reveal. The joke is ancient stuff, and the winking novelty of a host/musical guest pretending she can’t carry a tune is more committed than hilarious, but Marcello’s entry as the unashamedly sexual Domingo brought some energy. Brought back for a second time, the joke is already played out, the beats of the musical reveal are anticipated, and then the sketch ends. No surprises while sweatily stretching for old laughs—pretty much the worst of SNL‘s recurring sketch impulses.
Even worse is the baking competition . I laughed like a monkey at the reveal the first time around, when host Don Cheadle’s Cookie Monster cake came to horrifying life just to vomit blue goop and croak, “Kill me.” It was a gonzo laugh that none of the come-backer sketches has been able to replicate, because how could they?
As noted (or opined, at length), a successful recurring sketch has to be damned amazing in performance to overcome the fact that it shot off all its originality fireworks in the first go-’round. Bill Hader is Bill Hader, so I say let Stefon stifle laughs in his sleeve and Herb Welch smack people with his microphone all night. (And since Andy seems content to stick around, I’m all for another “Get in the Cage.”)
But a recurring sketch trying to replicate a laugh whose only strength was in its surprise is dead air. Even in the original sketch, the non-Cookie Monster jokes were just okay. One contestant is just bad at cakes, another is good but boring, and Kyle Mooney is a perv. But nothing will equal Cheadle’s abashed contestant having no idea why he desperately wrote “Sean” on his abomination of a cake—it’s all just the cherry on top of the hilarious confectionary disaster.
These are all about the prop work now, especially since Charli XCX doesn’t bring much to her contestant, an indifferent Brit dully unveiling her pregnant turkey cake, complete with graphic bush and emerging stuffing baby. I guess it’s a switch-up that her turkey cake isn’t so much inept as inappropriate, but that doesn’t make it funny. Look, writing a 90-minute sketch show three weeks out of every month is a monumental undertaking. (Oh, we’re off until December 7.) But watching an episode that falls back on old ideas so consistently as this one is to joylessly experience second hand writers’ fatigue.
Political Comedy Report
As the second Trump administration goes on, it’s going to get more and more uncanny to watch Saturday Night Live operate as usual. [Incoming real-world political rant arriving in 3…2…]
Donald Trump ran on an explicit threat to dismantle American democracy in favor of the same sort of top-down cultish mismanagement that’s seen him file for more bankruptcies than he’s had divorces. (That’s two of the latter and counting, as Melania is pointedly not moving into the White House this time, something his so-called family values GOP voters would be shrieking about if he were a Democrat.) Jettisoning anyone exhibiting even a snatch of backbone and assembling the most slavishly unqualified cabal of ass-kissers, sex criminals, and kooks outside of The Apprentice, Trump wants to remake the country into a flag-festooned clone of Putin’s kleptocratic Russia. Apparently an oligarch-run free-for-all of privileged lawlessness and peasant labor to plunder under the guise of white supremacist vengeance is what a majority of white voters are into.
Anyway, none of that is really on Saturday Night Live‘s comic radar. The cold open tonight took up the impossible-to-resist spectacle of the Trump-Biden White House power-transfer fireside chat this week—and resisted any insight, ambition, or satirical courage. James Austin Johnson’s Trump and Dana Carvey’s Biden lobbed chummy asides as if their actual meeting weren’t both a tensely surreal mockery of business as usual and a telling indictment of Democrats (and indeed most Americans’) willingness to ignore the looming threat of democracy-ending fascism.
Donald Trump not only refused to host one of these “we’re all the same” pal-arounds when Biden won in 2020, he tried to overthrow the f**king government in a fit of autocratic pique. President Biden rightly spent the 2024 campaign outlining the very real dangers posed to the fabric of American democracy by Trump’s fascist demagoguery, only to make nice for the sake of propriety, a Democratic Party habit that’s one of the main reason why we’re in this mess in the first place.
And yet, this is Saturday Night Live playing business-as-usual itself, steadfastly refusing (or unable) to turn real world farce into comedic farce. There are little jabs at Trump’s ongoing contempt for democracy (JAJ’s Trump hints at staying longer than four years), while Carvey’s Biden rouses himself from terminal catchphrase syndrome long enough to pitch that Trump’s spate of completely insane cabinet picks is him testing congressional Republicans to see just how sycophantically they will sign off on the truly evil sh*t he’s got planned. (Very, is the prediction—very, very sycophantically.)
During Update, Colin Jost jokes about Trump’s overt threat to prosecute his critics (including, very specifically, those TV comedians who dare make fun of him) by showing off his fake Italian passport. As with last week’s post-election cold open, the joke about SNL writers and performers being legitimately afraid for their safety under the reign of their former host turned would-be despot would pack more of a punch if Jost’s customary smirk didn’t embody the show’s whole vibe that, when push comes to shove, they’re just playing, Mr. President.
And then there are the impressions. All the Matt Gaetz handicapping this week didn’t have Sarah Sherman in the running, but her turn under heavy makeup as the recently resigned so as not to be exposed as a pedophile Florida congressman is—fine. With a nominee (for Attorney General, because we live in hell) to bat around, even this meager appearance allows for some ready zingers. (If you can “zing” a douchey alleged sex trafficker of underage girls nominated to oversee the nation’s justice system by a legally-determined rapist.)
Alec Baldwin, continuing this season’s trend of roping in whichever of Lorne’s pals is kicking around the building, plays newly nominated Health and Human Services conspiracy nutcase Robert F. Kennedy Jr, because why not. Like Sherman’s Gaetz, there’s plenty of ammo to just mention and and move on. So Kennedy (recently flirting with Project 2025-friendly forced birth policy) noting, “women should be free to choose—to give her child polio” at least brings up the fact that the nation’s healthcare is likely in the hands of an anti-vax, anti-science former heroin addict and famous failson with a penchant for animal mutilation and a long history of literally murdering people with his tinfoil hat nonsense.
If Saturday Night Live‘s track record is any indication, this is about as good or pointed comedically as we can expect going forward. (You know, until even this watery mockery is too much and Trump indicts JAJ for treason or something.) Trump himself is such a ludicrous figure, with such a penchant for irresponsibly bananas actions, that it’s basically mockery just repeating back what he’s said verbatim. So that’s the bar SNL has decided is the only one worth trying to clear. “Look, we said the things Trump said, even if we did it with a Jost-style ‘just kidding!’ smirk,” isn’t going to cut it in the next four years. Or, you know, more.
Speaking of how this Idiocracy nightmare came to pass, the podcast sketch saw three bros (Andrew Dismukes, Marcello Hernandez, and Emil Wakim) marveling at how Donald Trump’s appearance on their show appeared to have helped him win the White House. And while the idea that young white dudes have been gullibly radicalized into woman-hating super fash-bros thanks to their favorite podcast idols is certainly the stuff of many, many sociological studies to come, the sketch itself is a barely exaggerated depiction of just how easy that pipeline might strike oil.
The central gag is that the trio’s pal Trump keeps interrupting with phone calls naming them to cabinet positions, which is an amusing enough summation of the fast-moving trainwreck that is Trump’s proposed cabinet. Even if that cabinet would never be filled by a trio of guys without millions of bucks and multiple sexual assault allegations to their credit. And I liked how ringleader Dismukes keeps downshifting to “serious” voice when promising that the three ding-dongs are about to blow the lid off that “who built the pyramids?” mystery. Anybody who’s ever listened to Joe Rogan dig super-deep into a conspiracy knows how hilarious that tone shift from meathead jock to science nerd is in practice.
Charli XCX’s role as the Banger Boyz’s producer sees her listing off sponsors that should be funnier considering the actual scammers and manly-man products podcasters like this attract. Male Chimp (instead of Mail Chimp) being just a guy with a male monkey that wants to get laid was the best of the bunch. (Oh, and The Onion just bought Alex Jones’ InfoWars thanks to the help of the Sandy Hook parents he harassed and defamed, which is more hilarious than this could ever hope to be.)
Not Ready For Prime Time Power Rankings
On a night like this, I get the sense that the stars know when to take a step back. Kenan popped up exactly once in the Thanksgiving fashion sketch. Smart move, Kenan.
Just figured out that Ashley Padilla is serving Kerry Kenney-Silver energy as a rule. Not a bad comparison to inspire.
Bowen was likely the winner in the screen time contest this week, so good on you, son. Several others (Dismukes, Chloe, Ego,Sarah, Ego, Heidi, Emil Wakim) got theirs too, even if none of them stood out thanks to the sketches being what they were.
Marcello had three juicy spots including Domingo.
Sherman got Gaetz, which—maybe wear some garlic around your neck, Sarah. Still, with this sh*tshow heading where it is, look for plenty of Sherman in that horrifying botox rig.
Dispatches From 10-To-Oneland
Here’s to SNL for at least getting ass play some play. The sketch about a group of young theatergoers all revealing how they’d very obviously just hooked up with the heavily grease-painted star of Shrek: The Musical takes full advantage of its 12:55 slot to show off green-smeared boobs, green-ringed mouths (even if the sketch pointedly claims they’re from “making out”), and finally, Bowen Yang’s fully motor-boated green butt.
These are the sort of big, broad, messy yucks SNL occasionally delights in, and while the parade of reveals is fine, the sketch truly earns its 10-to-one cred with the group’s werido interactions. Apart from funny names (Bowen’s appears to be “Gidget”), there are some out of nowhere touches to keep things lively. “You do if you want a table!,” Gidget barks at Ego Nwodim after she asks about their reservations at Domino’s. He aslo snaps “You just did!” after Ego claims she’d never seen the musical before, the irritated cattiness suggesting an entertainingly dysfunctional group dynamic.
I’m enjoying Emil Wakim’s acting, even if he’s rarely given much funny to say. Here he responds to Gidget berating him for not adding to the chat by exclaiming, “Three chatty ladies on Adderrall and a gay guy. Yeah, kind of hard to get a word in,” before Gidget snaps furiously, “Hey, I’m on Adderrall too!” Michael Longfellow’s ultimate appearance as the randy but laid-back Shrek also reaffirms my growing enjoyment of Longfellow on the show, his imperious choice of Wakim’s more reserved would-be conquest another lived-in bit of strange to cap off a mostly dull night.
Stray Observations
Unless they’ve colonized the SNL Digital Short banner, the Please Don’t Destroy guys got double-hosed tonight. After barely being involved all season, Ben, John, and Martin got announced during the opening credits—and then Andy Samberg swooped in to steal their spot. Ow.
At least the PDD guys got airtime in their new car insurance commercial opposite Dean Winters. Nice consolation prize, dummies.
Wait, the Please Don’t Destroy commercial is uploaded to the official SNL YouTube account? So product integration is now part of the actual rundown? I call bullsh*t.
Okay, so Please Don’t Destroy did have a planned piece that ended up getting cut for time. It’s a funny and pretty original repurposing of one of their best shorts. I guess Lorne reassured them that their commercial was good enough since Andy was there.
The fact that Kyle Mooney’s appearance in the monologue was greeted with delayed reaction followed by underwhelming recognition applause was only fitting. I like Kyle a lot, but his time on SNL was sort of like that—he’s off in his own comic world, ready to shrug good-naturedly at the audience’s inevitable confusion. SNL was a better, weirder place with Kyle Mooney in it, but his passing barely made a ripple.
Speaking of talented performers SNL didn’t use properly, Punkie Johnson was onstage for the goodnights, looking like she was having more fun than when she actually worked there.
I’m begging the show not to lean into the “Matt Gaetz as Quagmire” joke—but I know it’s going to.
Oh, happy birthday, Lorne. I’m still watching 50 years in, so thanks.
[On anti-vaxxer idiot RFK being put in charge of managing the next pandemic] “And I know he doesn’t have a lot of experience, but I say we give him a shot.”
colin jost
[On Mattel printing a porn site on the packaging for its Wicked-themed dolls] “It was actually a simple mistake. You see the box was supposed to read WickedMovie.com but instead they printed ChokeMeJeffGoldblum.xxx.”
colin jost
“From Shrek?” “Hey, how do you know it wasn’t Fiona post-ogre reveal? God, you guys are so bi-phobic!” “Are you bi?” “Ew, no.”
Episode Grade: A generous C-Minus.
We’re off until December 7, when well have a gladiator in the house in Paul Mescal, along with musical guest Shaboozey. Unknown at press time if they will be fighting each other to the death.