Jack Black Rocks an Energized Saturday Night Live

And Your Host…

Jack Black. JB. Jables.

While the man’s inimitable comic energy makes Black a natural Saturday Night Live host, it’s only right that this is merely his fifth time. For one, human brains can only take in so much live Jack Black—parceling him out over 24 years is truly the only safe dosage. For another, Black’s manic propensity to hurtle himself like a self-ignited comedy cannonball is a lot to ask of a now 56-year-old hauling a majestic salt-and-pepper beard and gloriously ample tummy around the stages. (As a 57-year-old with salt-and-pepper beard and a not-inconsiderable gut myself, I can say that.)

From the long-ago days when a crisply creepy Black channeled the incel right-wing in the ever more timely Bob Roberts to his emergence as one half of greatest band in the world Tenacious D (kidding/not kidding), to his unlikely but inevitable run as roly-poly blockbuster leading man, Black is at once the thing and the parody. As prodigiously talented as he is irresistibly lovable enough to weather the occasional iffy, PR-driven betrayal of a life partner, Black is largely immune to puny human criticism.

But I’ll give it a shot.

Black’s fifth outing was maybe a little more subdued than in the past. That is, if you can look past the host stripping bare his resplendent tum-tum in cutoff Spartan armor; him crooning a faux-country anthem to forgetfulness; him summoning witchy dancers to back up his monologue duet with “brother from another color” Jack White; him harmonizing with much of the male cast to Kansas; him (maybe) whisper-shouting a garbled F-bomb while he and Kenan Thompson maintain composure in the face of Ashley Padilla’s dogged break-bait; him and Marcello Hernández donning karategi and flailing with abandon; and him keeping it together when a guesting Melissa McCarthy forces his lotion-slathered hands onto her boobs.

It was a busy night for Jables, is what I’m saying. And if it was a times hobbled by a sluggish pace and direction, it wasn’t crippling, as Jack Black was still Jack freaking Black.

The Best and the Rest

The Best: The post-monologue sketch has been a shaky slot this season. Not so tonight, as Ashely Padilla dared Black, Thompson, Sarah Sherman, and Mikey Day to pull a Debbie Downer. They resisted. I didn’t, as the sketch trafficked in the sort of patience SNL usually can’t wait around for.

It’s a corporate break room, where four coworkers’ chit-chat is interrupted by Padilla’s Kathy. Eating her home-brought microwave nachos from a corner table, Kathy is every blandly pleasant office drone’s nightmare, demanding inclusion and attention with a stubbornness that will brook no boundaries. “Obnoxious person is obnoxious” as a template can go very wrong, giving unwarranted free rein to performers whose own performing pushiness quickly gets grating.

Here, we get Season 51 all-star Padilla, mining the old stereotype for a doggedly insistent new character type. Her Kathy isn’t overly broad (her extended reasoning as to why she crumbles birth control into her refried beans is less ostentatious than elaborately grumpy), instead relying on social niceties to succumb to her simple, implacable desire to be part of the conversation.

“We talkin’ tech?,” Kathy demands after someone brings up the latest office Windows update. And again. And again, Black’s fed up colleague furiously whisper-demanding that nobody—nobody—respond. The sketch is allowed to breathe, blessedly, as Padilla stone-facedly and patiently waits for someone to crack. When the same refrain plays out to even more drawn-out effect, the two-shot of Black and Kenan heroically maintaining in the foreground tests their resolve, and ours. “We talkin’ TV?,” rings out 15 times—with considerable air around each—until the nifty final swerve, with Black’s stony fury at one point urging his frozen coworkers to hold hands in hopeful solidarity.

Putting a weirdo premise-driven 10-to-one type sketch right up front is to be saluted. And, thanks to Padilla, Black, and Thompson’s discipline, I salute.

The Worst: It’s hard to hate on a Jack Black-led sketch, and honestly there weren’t any true bummers tonight to speak of. (We’ll get to the Black-less cold open below, but even that wasn’t, as Charles Barkley might say, “turrible.”) So I’ll stick the karate dojo sketch in here, although it made me chuckle with Black and Hernández’s accent-happy physical silliness, and a few weird touches around the edges.

The gathered students all are given better rationales for their participation than mere exposition. James Austin Johnson happily reveals that his usually successful fighting strategy of biting and scratching is all skill, no technique. Kenan’s “got a mouth” on him. Chloe Fineman wants to use her gun less.

And when the two instructors make their surprise appearance (the jump-laugh was a recurring theme tonight), it’s all goofy voices and high-energy flailing. Even then, there was enough oddity to lift up the effortful tumbling, as the guys’ teaching involves a lot of shockingly effective misdirection, like turning your attacker’s energy into a version of “Amazing Grace,” or the “king of the world” scene from Titanic. (Black and Hernández’s signature move is to slap arms away while saying “stop it” in rapid succession, concluding with the finish-him order, “Go to your house.”)

A little sweaty, but performers’ goodwill wins the day. Now go to your house.

The Rest: Despite a winning mix of an oddball idea and Black’s infectious rock godhood, the “Carry On Wayward Son” sketch was undermined by a slack pace and direction. It was still good fun, as the disastrously awkward guy-talk of a handful of husbands forced into a playdate by their wives lifts off once Black’s hubby absently mumble-sings the titular song’s opening lyrics.

JAJ, Tommy Brennan, Thompson, and Andrew Dismukes’ stultifying guy-silence (“Today, I… bleh,” one aborts) gathers around Black in mounting harmony, the dudes’ enthusiasm for mid-’70s pop bombast seeing them in succession whip out rhythmic gymnastic ribbons and under-khakis spandex. Again, there was something just a tick slow about what should have been a real Black-out showstopper, but it was still pretty irresistible.

The self-serious country wisdom ballad got a workout in “Words to Live By,” in which bearded country crooners JAJ, Black, and Dismukes’ verses imparting the lessons learned from dying dads and mountaintop gurus sputter out in absent-minded anticlimax.

It’s sort of a sister song to the Tenacious D classic “Tribute,” in that the singers assure listeners that the thing they heard was super-impressive, you guys. (The trio finally does remember what the Men in Black memory-wiper thingy was called, but that’s all.) There’s a funny riff where Dismukes’ verse turns into an attack on his young son’s attempt to impart some wise words of his own (“You maybe only know the names of, like, 30 weird Pokémon guys”), and if “Words to Live By” is no “Tribute,” well, nothing on this planet could be.

A 300 sketch in 2026 would have to justify itself a lot better than this one, which was basically Black planting his triumphant breadbasket in the center of the screen and challenging us to laugh. With his cutoff breastplate revealing Black’s front, there was a whiff of Chippendales in the premise, although Black’s lackluster Spartan soldier lacks much in the way of vulnerability. As with everything he does comedically, Jack Black struts his bountiful basketball belly with pride.

As the 301st soldier left behind in the historic defense (a foul-mouthed child is number 300), Black’s warrior cops to all his failings with unashamed forthrightness, even as he’s performatively pissed that he doesn’t get to die with his comrades. There’s one really good joke when Dismukes’ general lists all of the reasons why Black’s being sidelined, the callback to an earlier sundial gag underlining just how good his decision making is.

‘Weekend Update’ Update

I’ve always said that I’d be fine if SNL decided to just give politics a miss some weeks. So I guess I can’t complain that this episode mostly did just that. Oh wait, I forgot I’m me.

To get to the biggest, blowsiest bit-bait of the week first, Sarah Sherman donned an unfortunately accurate pair of balloon boobs to portray Bryon Noem, the husband (for now) of jettisoned ICE overseer Kristi. The spectacle of a conservative family’s stretched-out dirty laundry offering up a can’t-miss belly laugh saw Sherman’s Bryon daring everyone from Jost and Che to Wally the cue card guy to the dog Kristi Noem murdered to go ahead and kink-shame him for dressing up in huge fake breasts and clingy bike shorts to engage in surreptitious online “bimbo play.” Like the break room sketch, there’s a patience to the insistent gag that worked for me, even if nobody really wanted to get into the real meat of the matter.

The “meat” being how Noem, in her enthusiastic participation in the Trump regime’s persecution of LGBTQ+ people of all kinds, has made a grimy GOP career out of demonizing cross-dressers, trans people, and those who don’t conform to rigid gender roles. And who now has to deal with the video call coming from inside then house. Che makes an aside about Noem being “so awful,” but that’s as deep into the predictable conservative hypocrisy as the bit goes.

Still, it’s a good bit, Sherman once more donning an over-the-top guise to bait everybody. That there’s more to work with here than her usual animal getups would be more interesting if the show did more with it. But there are some very funny parts. Sherman holds each defiant challenge to the audience long enough to get her laughs, and although her Byron’s defensive posturing about “Mamdani’s New York” and its supposedly liberal crowd edges up to a wider point about every MAGA accusation being a closeted confession, it’s left in the subtext.

Jost and Che do their thing, slipping some extra-sharp daggers amidst the signature smirky self-regard. The best lines will be in the strays, but even if I suspect these guys are more about getting a reaction than they are in cobbling together a coherent fake news satire, they can still be very effective. As ever, the moment calls for better, braver comedy, but Jost and Che are adept at at least pretending to care.

Recurring Sketch Report

The Five-Timers Club conceit is a cute, one-off gag that simply won’t die. Indeed, this exercise in self-celebrating adorableness is now older than most of the current cast, with each new fifth-time host’s monologue turned over to the requisite acknowledgement (at least) or elaborately legend-packed cameo-fest.

I don’t mind them—it’s not like SNL is putting much effort into monologues these days, so at least this gives the neglected bit some focus. Jables, here decked out in loose-fitting flame-wear and old-guy glasses, has his coterie of five-timers (Tina Fey, Jonah Hill, Melissa McCarthy shotgunning a beer, good ol’ Candice Bergen), a five-time musical guest (Jack White thankfully clonks Domingo in the head with a skillet), and the unrealized conceit that the once venerated Five-Timers lounge has become a cobweb-strewn wreck in need of some Jack Black-style rock restoration.

Drawing his mic from the bowing Fey’s hand like Excalibur saw Black do just that, even if the resulting song was a bit less of a comedy-rock dynamo than Black has conditioned us to expect. His promised “power of rock” felt a little blunted, although I did dig White playing a suitably dirt-encrusted guitar solo as Black, in his signature bombastic style, saluted the “nightmare blunt rotation” there to welcome him into the club.

Political Comedy Report

I mean, I guess? The Cold Open saw James Austin Johnson playing… not Donald Trump. Here, he’s March Madness commentator Ernie Johnson, whose bow-tied post-game analysis is interrupted by fellow talking head Charles Barkley’s latest on-air political statements. (Last week, the former NBA star brought down the MAGA controversy by [checks notes] daring to say that immigrants aren’t evil.)

Is the sketch mocking Barkley’s apparently unscripted appeal for decency during a sports broadcast? Not really. While Kenan’s Barkley is a long-standing lampoon of the iconic player-broadcaster’s lack of filter, there’s a murky point of view about just what is being made fun of here. It’s not like SNL is mocking recurring host Barkley’s televised appeal for humanity as much as doing a so-so satire of the collision of jocks and well-meaning speechifying.

The peripheral jokes get more pointed, with Brendan Carr’s politicized FCC ordering the show to allow fired Attorney General and Trump-abetting accomplice Pam Bondi (Padilla) to respond to Barkley calling her a “freckle-chested dragon lady.” Padilla likely has lost the intermittent Bondi gig (and is probably fine with that), here breaking down in tears at the widely seen photos of her DOJ picture in a trash can (“like it was the Epstein Files!”) and trying to brag about having “shattered the glass exit door” by being the first female AG to get canned.

Nobody’s asking for all Trump, all the time in these Cold Opens. (I imagine JAJ prefers a bald cap to all that neck-wattle Trump prosthetics.) And finding new ways to work each week’s GOP atrocities into the mix isn’t a bad thing. But this incongruous pairing never found its groove. (I did appreciate Culhane’s Bruce Pearl’s refusal to elaborate on his vague b-ball take with a smugly coy, “No…”)

Not Ready for Prime Time Power Rankings

The all-but-forgotten Kam Patterson got into the makeup chair for two roles tonight. Whether its a lack of presence or a habit of bad-mouthing Lorne Michaels’ “gay” show when he gets back in front of his more comfy crowd, Patterson is likely not long for the show. I’m fine with that—Lorne’s recent courting of the right-leaning bro-isphere is one of my least favorite trends, and Patterson, while energetic, hasn’t impressed when he’s been able to get some screen time.

Dropping by “Update,” his Severus Snape from that totally necessary TV reboot of that fantasy kids franchise by that creepy transphobe sidesteps any real mention of J.K. Rowling’s vocal bigotry (Jost makes a half-reference) in order to let Patterson do jokes about the series’ racial creepiness instead. Playing the newly Black Snape from said TV show, Patterson riffs on being immediately blamed for something being stolen, the term “dark arts,” and the like. (Rowling calling one of the few Black characters “Kingsley Shacklebolt” is almost as suspect as that whole “Cho Chang” situation.) From bigotry to mercenary IP bloat, there’s a lot to say about this new iteration, but this was just amiable and mostly harmless.

I’m enjoying Jeremy Culhane. Then guy has a sneaky way of making an impression in his own meager screen time, and I’m all for him making the jump. Plus, it’s got to be an honor to get on-air naked zerberts from returning memorable scene partner McCarthy.

Andrew Dismukes returned from his inexplicable limbo with a couple of musical standouts. Welcome back, weirdo.

Ashley Padilla and James Austin Johnson are the only cast members I trust to truly carry sketches at this point. That they do it through sheer force of their acting first is something different for SNL—and intriguing.

10-To-Oneland Report

A lot of band-riffing and back-to-back-to-back local political commercials had me thinking we were going to skip right to the goodnights, but the show managed to squeeze in a final sketch. In it, Black’s chipper Airbnb host keeps disappearing into the closet of his rented party house, while spring breakers act confused, an effortful setup that I grudgingly concede came to life when McCarthy popped in to bookend Black’s big show.

As the lesbian former sister-in-law of Black’s beaming landlord, McCarthy does her Melissa McCarthy thing, mining socially bananas eccentricity for big, broad laughs. She and Black, it turns out to the renters’ confused unease, are semi-successfully engaged in grief-allaying sex play, pepped up by playing hide and seek with Black’s tenants.

All this is to say that McCarthy takes over, smearing herself in Jergens to prevent egress and firmly placing the obviously taken-aback Black’s similarly slippery hand over her knockers. It’s knockabout silliness for two big, brassy stars to wrestle around in, and if it ain’t exactly art, the spectacle of McCarthy slathering a protesting Jeremy Culhane’s backside with lotion and doing butt-raspberries is the sort of thing you’d have to be a sourpuss to resist.

Stray Observations

• No word if Jack Black broke up with Michael Che over that “Trump goes to the theater” joke.
• But I kid, Jables. But not really. #TeamRageKage
• “In the spirit of Easter, let me just say: Jesus Christ.”—Colin Jost, after Trump’s social media rant about bombing Iran “back to the Stone Age, where they belong.”
• “President Trump reportedly fired Bondi over her handling of the Epstein Files. Because the only person Trump has ever trusted to handle the Epstein situation is a prison guard with the cameras off.”—Jost
• “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, seen here demoting a Black general…”—Michael Che, over a smiling picture of Hegseth
• “President Trump posted plans for his presidential library in Miami, which would be a massive golden skyscraper with a golden escalator and a golden statue of Trump. As predicted in the Book of Revelations.”—Che
• Che just can’t help himself from doing misogynist schtick about women’s sports. Which looks less and less like a put-on.
• Padilla running down all the numbers on Kathy’s phone (“I don’t think they have eight… Oh my God, they have eight”) was another sterling example of making us wait.
• Jack White rocks. This is not news.

EPISODE GRADE: A big, Black-and-White B.

Next week: Colman Domingo! Brazilian legend Anitta! See you there!