And Your Host…
“And I’m doing what I always do on my birthday, which is stand in Midtown in a tight-ass latex dress looking for attention.”
Dakota Johnson returned for her third hosting gig, for reasons that can only be speculated upon. Look, I think Johnson can be an effectively funny actor if the project in question plays to her strengths. (Mainly a cool, ironic deadpan, although early on she did some fine light sitcom work in the all-but-forgotten and still charming Ben and Kate.) But, woof, is live sketch comedy not Johnson’s thing.
In her previous appearances (and again tonight), the Verity star is best in pre-tapes, where her icy detachment can cook. In live sketches, Johnson’s infamous monotone delivery brings nothing to the table, and her hesitant, cue card-searching line readings tonight suggest she wasn’t exactly dying to come back and host again. In her monologue, Johnson joked about the last time she was on the show, promoting all-time flop Madame Web, another project for which the talented star was so ill-suited her participation felt like some sort of put-on. (Johnson’s pal Taylor Swift comes out to wish the host a happy birthday, and their demeanors are so interchangeable that I fully expect Lorne is on the phone to Taylor’s people to pull a host-musical guest double duty later in the season.) In one sketch tonight, Johnson essays an Elizabeth Banks impression, which only serves to point up the essential difference between the two performers. (Banks’ brittle remove has chaos behind the eyes.)
The Best and the Rest
The Best: I’m expecting big things from Jeremy Culhane this year. The featured player’s got a twinkle in him, and a penchant for weirdness, all while maintaining a good little boy’s sneaky ordinariness. I dig him. And the hospital gossip sketch almost works, as nurses Sarah Sherman, Ashley Padilla and Johnson’s bull session is interrupted by coworker Eric from legal, whose catty contributions to the rumor mill all revolve around his own, disastrously depressing circumstances. It’s a decent idea for Culhane to build a strange character, and the pile-up of eye-opening details (his AI girlfriend killed himself after his lesbian wife left him and he cried so hard he threw up in a bag) arrive with Culhane’s signature beady energy. Kenan pops in as a flamboyant nurse to help (his horrified but sympathetic, “Oh my honey baby, no, why?” is prime Kenan), edging this one marginally above the episode’s mediocre median. (That it’s the best sketch on the show is like when Paul Hollywood crowns a disappointing Bake-Off technical winner’s creation as “at least edible.”)
The Worst: I didn’t outright hate anything tonight, which may be a function of Johnson’s consistent diffidence. Give me a subpar host with some juice to their badness. Anyway, I’ll indifferently toss “Throne of the Dragonborn” into this slot, for Johnson being her most Johnson-like as the Game of Thrones-style incestuous queen who likes it when her dragon watches. I’m a sucker for some good SNL puppet comedy (“The Falconer”‘s Donald still cracks me up every time), but his huge, steam-belching dragon head is just okay. (The neck is too obviously fabric—c’mon, Emmy-winning prop department.) As for the sketch itself Ben Marshall, as the queen’s guard and intended lover, makes for an underwhelming lead, his understandable reticence at having the dragon observe his forbidden tryst relying on knowing contrast with Johnson’s flowery (if monotonously delivered) come-ons. A lot of work went into this one, but, unlike the seemingly jealous dragon, it never ignites. (Kenan does once more pop by as the queen’s coy eunuch, but even he can do only so much.)
The Rest: At least the Press Your Luck sketch offers up one explanation for why multi-hyphenate Elizabeth Banks is there (accepted the gig while wine drunk). And Ashley Padilla gives it her all to create a Wiig-esque caricature, here a foolhardy contestant who keeps, well, pressing her luck after improbably big cash wins. Padilla’s a star but the writing has done little for her so far this season. An outsized part like this one can curdle into tiresomeness without enough comic justification, and Padilla just manages to stay engaging as her player maintains her manic positivity even as the dreaded whammies steal her millions of bucks. Kenan, bless him, tries to back her up as a fellow contestant who urges her to quit while she’s way ahead (“Listen to me, you big dummy!”), but Johnson, in her first sketch of the night, is a dead space in the pivotal game show host spot. Also, since it’s a new season and all, I’ll renew my annual pitch that the writers should put a moratorium on game show and talk show sketches for a half-year or so. Let those particular tanks refill and see what else comes to mind in the meantime. Just a thought.
James Austin Johnson had to do a Trump cold open, so only really got one sketch tonight. (If you don’t count playing a guy in a coma in the 10-to-one spot.) And I know that the sleepover sketch was intended as a showpiece for Johnson as the TikTok influencer a trio of young girls worship online. But there was JAJ as the hosting dad, doing fine, subtle work as a guy whose sunny, snack-delivering demeanor gives way immediately to dead-eyed despair. I put JAJ in the same league as Andy Daly when it comes to playing outwardly pleasant men incompletely concealing inner demons—nobody but Daly could segue so hilariously from greeting his daughter and her friends with dad joke nicknames to smilingly announcing, “Gonna go drink in the pool for a while, stand in the deep end and have myself a think.” The sketch feels the need to have the girls comment on how the light goes out of Daly’s eyes the instant he stops talking, but, well, JAJ does flick off those lights with expert precision. Oh, and Dakota Johnson’s influencer is insane, her makeup tutorials including references to shock therapy and mirror masks to “hide your face from Flock cameras when you bite a cop,” which serves both as a reference to the malign effects of unsupervised internet use by minors and how Johnson is not really meant for live sketch work. (Actually, she’s more assured here playing a dangerous weirdo than elsewhere on the show, which, take from that what you will.)
Of the two pre-tapes tonight, I’ll take the commercial for “mean scary girlfriend” by a nose. The premise—guys tired of their obliging partners’ noncommittal politeness can engage Johnson’s disdainful but decisive girlfriend instead—gives the host something she can sink her talents into, finally. As the professional (sex worker? robot?) replacement, Johnson assures her succession of boyfriends that, yes, they look like “a pedophile on vacation” in that shirt, and that that haircut does make him look like “a campus recruiter for Turning Point USA.” And the tiny glimpse of praise she does occasionally offer, Tommy Brennan’s grateful mate states, “feels like god himself is shining his light on you.” (Comes complete with dog that hates you and “fiercely protective cokehead best friend” for added sexual insecurity and confusion.)
The other pre-tape sees Johnson once more feeling more comfortable onscreen, this time responding to her wine-sipping women friends’ complaints about men and their guns by whipping out her own, lady-inspired piece. (Designed by men, naturally.) If men’s guns are an extension of their penises, then, well, you get it, even if SNL comically pixilates whatever the pink nose of Johnson’s vagina gun actually looks like. That Johnson’s friends all immediately turn on her (“Sheryl, I have never liked you,” Padilla’s hostess states matter-of-factly) is funnier that Johnson’s shooting lesson (the trigger is hard to find), but it’s a well-mounted little number.
“Weekend Update” Update
Trying to figure out behind-the-scenes decision-making based on things like, say, the length of “Weekend Update” might not be an exact science. But I’m going to go ahead and speculate that, as this week went on, the quality of the writing and the possibilities offered by the host shifted the balance quite a bit. This was easily the longest “Update” in quite a while (SNL By the Numbers, back me up here), with Jost and Che contentedly running long and the three desk pieces stretching out with the sort of mugging you generally do when nobody’s too fussed about getting to the good stuff in the show’s second half.
We’re in an illegal war and murdering fishermen without due process, the GOP is openly plotting to steal an election (possibly through force), all non-white people are open targets for roaming gangs of masked thugs with presidential approval, gas prices and groceries have the working poor looking up guillotine schematics online, and white Christian nationalists are shredding the Constitution. And Colin Jost and Michael Che are very clever. The tension between those two forces tend to make this long-standing iteration of “Weekend Update” what it is—a glib, accomplished jaunt through news neither anchor shows much investment in.
Jost and Che’s weekly trip through actual, largely appalling events is so self-impressed and lacking in conviction that it’s a relief when they get to the back half and can goof on silly stuff. Both are fine joke-tellers, with Jost expertly ending a news item about Hitler supposedly having his niece executed with a deadpan, “Okay, that’s strike two.” Che scores with a photo-aided pull-up jumper, referring to LeBron James making his debut “as a 76-year-old.” It’s not even that their political material is bad, it’s just obvious Jost is much more comfortable joking about a rapidly sundowning Trump’s inexplicable one-liner about Hispanics surviving falls from high places (“People prefer their racism to make sense”), than engaging satirically with this administration’s actual bigoted policies harming actual people.
It’s becoming clear that the veterans in this cast are looking to put an already faltering show on their shoulders whenever possible. As he did last week, Mikey Day threw some loose, punchy energy to a sketch, here donning the pointy ears and “adventure tunic” of The Legend of Zelda‘s Link as he argues for video game relevance against Marcello Meyers’ Grand Theft Auto VI bad boy. Like his seemingly improvised mugging alongside Jalen Brunson in some airport massage chairs in the premiere, Day here milks the defensive Link’s Hyrule-strong comebacks in a clear attempt to goose the show into some sort of life. He might have been scripted to appeal to Che for backup, but Day’s repeated cries of “Cheeeeeeeee!!!” feel like a guy refusing to succumb to the torpor encroaching on the show around him. His Link adopts a great, blankly affronted look as Hernandez’s rocket launcher-toting gangster blusters and poses, and Day equally vamps for some welcome live buzz when his precious fairy in a bottle item breaks midway through.
Sarah Sherman is the other vet dedicating herself to not letting the silence win. Pitching dating prospects to Che as the boisterously accented matchmaker Debbie Mush, Sherman has a tough “jorb,” especially since Che peremptorily dismisses her two main categories of women—felons and the recently deceased. In a break from tormenting Colin, Sherman bounces worse and worse choices on then blustery Che, including J.K. Rowling, a dead lady, and Mrs. Potato Head. There’s nothing much to the bit except Sherman’s dedicated, rapid-fire silliness, but in a show being dragged down around her, it’s refreshing.
Kam Patterson and Che did a moderately amusing two-hander where the two bond over being fed premises by “two white writers in suits,” in this case a piece where Patterson enthuses about the upcoming Glee reboot. There’s a tension in the air when Patterson, whose juvenile homophobia is a matter of record, pretends to care about the fate of two gay Glee characters, but the bit thankfully cuts him off before that comes into play. Che likewise interrupts the young comic as he tries to come up with some air-friendly but representative stories from his own experience, Patterson once more pitching his persona as a promiscuous little scamp. (“Can you say ‘fellatio’ on television?”) The joke about Che and Patterson acknowledging having to do “every idea the white writers pitch to you” is a potentially fruitful one, though.
Recurring Sketch Report
None but the Trump. It’s early.
Political Comedy Report
The faux Fox News outrage will come for Mikey Day this week, as the cold open saw his Mitch McConnell wordlessly wheeled out to do his part to hype up GOP voters for next month’s midterms. SNL can counter that in every meager public appearance since his clearly devastating medical event over the summer, the octogenarian former Senate Majority Leader has been literally puppeted by handlers to vote for Donald Trump’s monstrous agenda. (Which, to be fair, the even-when-cogent McConnell would likely have supported.)
These mandatory openers are clearly energized when the writers smell blood in the water. The upcoming, Trump-torpedoed elections are indeed looking like a massacre for Republicans (unless/in spite of the GOP just declaring martial law, which, don’t laugh) allowing this week’s open to kick around sweaty Republican figures like Marcello Hernandez’s Marco Rubio (delivering Spanish-language warnings he knows his white colleagues won’t get) and Jeremy Culhane’s J.D. Vance (vainly attempting to assert his relevance). Jost’s Pete Hegseth makes his now-expected crowd-pleasing bombastic appearance, shotgunning what he assures people is “Spider-Man’s new non-alcoholic bitch beer” before repeating (most of) the idiocy he spewed all over a recent, eerily silent military audience. Then it’s Day’s McConnell, smiling rictus immobile under darting eyes, a cheap-shot impression that gets a pass because, yeah, screw that guy.
Naturally, James Austin Johnson’s Trump butts into the proceedings, despite his brain-fogging last-minute campaign push bringing down every candidate he stumps for. (Not giving GOP voters any credit for only turning on a legally proven rapist, alleged pedophile, ethnic-cleansing dictator-kisser once soaring gas prices affect them personally. Still, vote blue, you guys!) JAJ’s Trump remains amusing and moderately potent in spite of the writing behind him, the rock-solid impression riding hard over Trump’s tics and mannerisms while managing to let slip an on-target zing or two. If nothing else, putting a few reeking nuggets of actual Trump’s awfulness in JAJ’s able hands allows him to remind us of, as here, the time Trump grotesquely mocked disabled journalist Serge Kovaleski so shamefully that white America voted him into the presidency, twice. I’d like to see more JAJ in the show proper, and the Trump stuff sidelines him until the wig and prosthetics can be wrenched free, but he’s a master craftsman at what he does here, even if SNL can never quite take advantage of what they’ve got.
Not Ready for Prime Time Power Rankings
That’s two tough weeks for new kids Saidah Belo-Osagie and Grace Reiter, although Reiter holds a clear edge in the featured player footrace. Second-year JV cast Tommy Brennan wasn’t too far ahead.
I’d give Mikey Day the top spot tonight, for working the bellows on a deflating show harder than anyone else. Sarah Sherman and Ashley Padilla did the same, with Jeremy Culhane having a solid sketch for himself. Kenan does what Kenan does. Be thankful.
10-To-Oneland Report
There are nights where the show closes with a final piece weird enough to satisfy my rigid yet mysterious 10-to-one criteria without being especially successful. “Amazing Tales of Truth” sees Andrew Dismukes (who I suspect write this one) essaying a Rod Serling-style host who introduces a scene where Veronika Slowikoska’s adult daughter attempts to rouse her unconscious father from his coma bed with a heartfelt rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” (Johnson is there as the skeptical doctor, “there” also aptly describing her late-show energy level.) When the lengthy song concludes and the apocryphal cure doesn’t work, Dismukes reappears to state, “It did not. That’s not how comas work. This guy got hit by a bus,” while bemoaning the fact that his show didn’t get footage of that guy who floated for a little bit in Croatia. I’m fond of sketches where elaborate build-ups (Veronika shows off her impressive pipes once more) lead to deliberate anticlimaxes, and I’m all for letting Dismiukes continue to try and fill this SNL‘s desperate need for more out-there material. It was just okay, though—I’d blame the hour, but this episode was dragging from the opening monologue.
Stray Observations
- The promos this week made a point of saying that Turnstile are the first hardcore band to appear on SNL since Fear. In practice, apart from a few effortful noise breaks, the quintet came off about as edgy as Josie and the Pussycats.
- The apparently true fact that Elizabeth Banks, amidst her burgeoning directorial and busy acting career, has been hosting a revival of Press Your Luck since 2019(?) feels like a goof of some sort.
- It’s pretty telling that in both the cold open and “Update,” SNL chooses to self-censor macho dickhead Pete Hegseth’s use of a slur for trans people in one of his recent white nationalist culture war rants to the troops. If Hegseth’s bigotry is reprehensible (it is), Saturday Night Live‘s cowardice in omitting the fact that this administration is hurling hate speech like a remedial middle schooler is too.
- Sloppy show from a technical standpoint. You can practically feel Michaels stamping his feet when a stagehand is seen creeping behind Marcello and Mikey on “Update” and when the Press Your Luck board isn’t timed right for the jokes.
- “Cool beans. Well, I’m just gonna go lay down in the grass, see what it feels like, let the bugs do their thing.”
- I am here for SNL incorporating longtime band keyboardist legend Leon Pendarvis into the monologues. Here he unsuccessfully tries to woo Johnson after she confides that she’s just broken up with two different musicians.
- Swift brings Johnson a birthday cake for the goodnights. Aww.
- Next week: Lorne Michaels continues to double down on the guy he reluctantly fired for being a bigoted hack as Shane Gillis returns for his inexplicable third hosting gig. Rosalía is the musical guest.
- Episode Grade: C
