Sabrina Carpenter’s All-In But a Stumbling SNL Falters

And Your Host…

Singer and actress Sabrina Carpenter pulled the difficult double duty tonight and made both look relatively easy, even if the results didn’t bowl me over. It’s not that the tireless Carpenter wasn’t all-in. She appeared in every sketch and her two musical numbers were the sort of in-miniature theatrical spectacles whose impeccable production took the sting out of the necessary guide-tracking.

Certainly the writing wasn’t her best pal tonight, the third (of three) Season 51 episodes to disappoint in that area. Lots of unprofitable recurring sketches didn’t help, and where there was new stuff, it was unlikely to spawn its own franchises. (And, man, has SNL given up on the monologue as a viable comedic enterprise.)

Toss in a handful of pace-wrecking technical errors and the cheerfully game Carpenter was left to carry the load mainly through energy and charm. She had plenty of both, but the overall impression was of a missed opportunity. Honestly, she shone most in her musical numbers. As much as I prefer a live musical performance that feels, you know, live, I appreciated Carpenter’s meticulously set-designed and managed musical skitlets. And not just because you could practically hear the standards and practices people leaning into their monitors to monitor those underpants. (Carpenter informed unfamiliar viewers in her monologue of her “horndog” image, and did yeoman work in fulfilling her destiny, although in the most calculatedly “cute and naughty” fashion.)

The Best and the Rest

The Best: The answer to whether great acting can sell a fart joke… is Ashley Padilla. Now, the sketch in question—officemates almost literally scare the crap out of coworker with an impromptu birthday surprise—wasn’t just a series of fart jokes. Only mainly a series of fart jokes. And, hey, there’s nothing inherently wrong with a good ol’ fart gag—farts are probably one of the first things our cave-dwelling ancestors really got a kick out of.

It’s just that, unless you’re Mel Brooks (and decidedly not January Jones), fart jokes are kind of lazy. And on the surface, Padilla’s office worker blasting out a truly varied and impressive series of sound effect farts upon being surprised in the conference room isn’t anything special. But I’m going to keep saying it until public consciousness catches up with me—Ashely Padilla is one hell of a great comedic actress. Credit goes as well to the decision makers who allowed Padilla’s explosive reaction to—pardon me—breathe, as her worker took a few perfectly measured beats to gather herself, tenderly feeling out her sides before uttering a deeply felt, “Jesus Christ.”

That the sketch went on to explore just how this latest overreaction only hints at Padilla’s workplace weirdness is another showcase for Padilla to make her case for immediate promotion. Honestly, she’s got a Kristen Wiig-esque gift for filling out a character in a blink—except I think Padilla might be better. (It’s odd to claim her farting headcase here is a little master class in subtlety, but I stand by it.) On an episode marked by needless exposition dumps, Padilla’s weirdness is allowed to reveal itself without explanation. We find out (along with her) that she’s actually not anyone’s boss and makes just $9 bucks an hour, leading to another great Padilla moment when she responds to Ben Marshall telling her she wasn’t demoted but “just learned what your job was.” Again, the line, “Then I guess I just farted” isn’t on-paper sophisticated stuff, but in Padilla’s catty delivery, it sort of is.

The Worst: I will say that Carpenter, Chloe Fineman, Jane Wickline, and Veronika Slowikoska make extremely, unnervingly convincing pre-teen boys. As a quartet of slang-slinging podcast bro-babies, the quartet of actresses genuinely made me as irritated as if I were being forced to listen to four undeservedly confident little twits jabber on about snacks in lockstep imitation of their big bro podcast idols. So kudos for making me hate you.

That this turned into tonight’s mandatory James Austin Johnson Donald Trump sketch at least gets points for springing another toothless, pointless Trump bit on us partway through the show rather than crippling it right out of the gate. I love JAJ. I even like his Trump—in performance if not in the group-neutered writing. And there’s a vein of satire to be mined in the way conservatives cultivate impressionable young white men (and pre-men) by co-opting these sorts of ubiquitous hangout podcasts. (SNL‘s already done that, slightly better than this.)

But, yikes.

As with tonight’s Update, this feels like SNL collectively and calculatedly checking off their “dumb Trump stuff I gotta do” list in the most superficial and irresponsible manner possible. As I’ve said and will again, Saturday Night Live doesn’t have to do politics. Nobody’s forcing them, and while throwing in the towel on Trump even as that sundowning old cretin’s forced death march of democracy literally picks off your fellow practitioners of late-night comedy one by one would be… a choice, it’s one that’s open to Lorne Michaels and his show.

But to pass this thing off as your “mission accomplished” political material of the week is to do woefully less than the minimum. JAJ’s Trump whizzes past the Santos pardon, the week’s addled babble about “solving eight wars” and speculating about getting into heaven, once more siding with Putin’s Russia over the American ally it’s invading, him being (allegedly) about to be revealed as a globe-hopping pedophile, and the massive No Kings marches literally going on on the day of the show, all in about ten pointless seconds. And then the sketch ends. Job done, everybody. At least Trump probably won’t try to have FCC hatchet minion Brendan Carr send Johnson off to a black site. For now.

The Rest: As much as I’m all about Ashley Padilla these days, I’ll give it up to Veronika Slowikoska, who had a very strong outing. The appliance store sketch seemed destined to be a piece of “did you ever notice?” observational hackwork, at least until the runner about washers making a pleasing little chime sound turned into an ambitiously bananas two-hander where Slowikoska more than held her own alongside Carpenter. Their heads revealed atop a deluxe washer and dryer with full-on song-and dance capabilities, the duo belted out several lightly absurd would-be appliance jingles, the sort of elaborate escalation of a slight and silly premise that I usually go for. Here, there was a halting pace (direction problems all around tonight) and it never quite clicked, even if a few of the fringe details made me chuckle. (“We ate two of your shirts, yum!,” the heads happily conclude one song.) Even the thankless roles of the couple buying the new machines got odder than expected, with husband Andrew Dismukes telling Kenan’s salesman, “I tend to eat a lot of spaghetti on my bicycle” to explain his laundry needs.

Bowen asserted star’s privilege to miss tonight’s live show (it was for a pretty cool reason), but his signature role as cast member paired up with cool female musical guest lived on in the middle schooler music video pre-tape. Like a lot of sketches tonight, this one struggled to find its gear. As Bowen and Carpenter’s pre-teens primped their way toward the big school dance, their lyrics built toward a big comic reveal that never quite came. That middle schoolers are prone to awkwardly grind in imitation of their grown-up pop idols (Sabrina Carpenter, say) isn’t much of a twist, and the execution of the actual interactions is more low key cute/disturbing than laugh-out-loud. Ben Marshall’s confused and ashamedly erect dancer blurting “I don’t know you and I’m scared” as he runs away is the sort of thing Big Mouth is for. I did admire Kenan’s turn as the weary principal, especially his line complaining about wishing he were away in his ideal cottage instead of “supervising preteen frottage,” though. To the writer of that line, I salute you.

Several problems undermined the female empowerment seminar sketch. One: Carpenter’s mic dropped out several lines in, the sort of technical glitch that throws everything off. (A second flub in which a thrown dummy misses the prop window it was meant to smash was saved by old pro Kenan’s quick thinking, his unapologetic heave-ho to the errant dummy eliciting more laughs than the scene proper.) Second: There is no need for a full 20 seconds of set-up to a simple premise. Sarah Sherman and Chloe Fineman labored through the needless exposition and, again, the sketch was hobbled right from the jump.

Once the sketch, about Carpenter’s peppy motivational speaker/dancer taking a brain-scrambling plummet out of a waiting window, got rolling, it never built up much momentum. I’d blame points one and two but honestly I think it’s just that Carpenter didn’t find a groove, delivering her increasingly concussion-addled lines without necessary clarity or focus to truly land. Spouting gibberish is a special comic skill that perhaps Carpenter just doesn’t have in her impressive toolbox, although I liked the joke that one of her seemingly random jumble of words fits perfectly her pre-planned motivational acronyms. (Even if Sherman is tasked with explaining the joke for us.)

The other pre-tape apes the Blumhouse trailer house style, as marrieds carpenter and Ben Marshall realize to their increasing horror that their cozy, lazy weekend is doomed by their forgotten, long-ago invitation for some annoying relatives to stay for the long weekend. SNL does this sort of parody ad so well by this point that I may be spoiled, but this was just okay. I liked the accumulating details bedeviling the couple in advance of their unwanted visitors (she won’t shut up about marathons, he’s a “watch this TikTok” guy, they’re both anti-vaxxers), but the social awkwardness meets horror movie premise doesn’t gel all the way.

Weekend Update Update

I keep hammering away that Jost and Che are more about amusing themselves than actually applying themselves to their fake news roles on SNL. And boy was that in evidence tonight.

The prevailing attitude toward another packed-with-eminently-mockable-horrors news cycle tonight was to use the actual issues as setups for self-referential gags. It’s not the worst idea, I guess—the Jost and Che Update has always been about Jost and Che as much as the dumb old news. So Jost brings up Donald Trump pardoning another Republican criminal just to smirk at a photoshop of “changed man” George Santos’ buff (and Black) prison body. Che can allude to the shocking (but not that shocking) leak of vilely racist and degrading texts from the rising Young Republican brain trust only to swerve into another round of Jost-baiting, complete with Colin pretending to get all mad and stuff.

It’s cute. Sure, news about Trump siccing the corrupted Justice Department on his literal enemies list signals another crumbling pillar of American democracy, but at least Colin gets to do a slow burn about his therapist condemning Jost’s own such list. And Che can allude to Trump siccing his compromised Defense Department (sorry, War Department, ’cause we’re all ‘Murica and manly now) illegally assassinating foreign nationals off Venezuela only to josh about you running out of coke this Thanksgiving. (Trump claims the bombed boats are drug runners without proof and in defiance of international law.) Like I said, cute. And if a viewer accidentally gleans something relevant amongst all the chummy banter, then job done?

New kid Tommy Brennan got his first Update desk piece as himself, a time-honored tradition of self-referential stand-up to let the audience belatedly get to know him a little. The jokes about his midwestern childhood as one of eight kids wasn’t ground-breaking or gut-busting, but the guy’s got more admittedly low-wattage charisma than he’s been given the chance to show thus far. Not as snarky (or compelling) as the departed Michael Longfellow (who only really thrived on Update), Brennan commented on his boyish blandness by noting how he looks like a football star from before integration and/or a picture in a WWI locket, which at least takes the “which new white dude is this?” bull by the horns.

Recurring Sketch Report

Recurring sketches aren’t in themselves a bad thing. As much as going back to the well gets a bad rap in SNL history, it both serves a purpose (plugging holes in the 90 minute live show a week grind) and has produced some of the more indelible moments in the show’s history. All that said, going back to three different, pretty shallow wells in your third show of the season does not inspire the most confidence.

Okay, I give up—I don’t get Domingo. Not just the guy, the sketch. For one thing, the intentionally bad bridesmaid singing goes on long enough that, regardless of the joke that the actual musical guest pretends not to be able to carry a tune, it just gets unpleasant. After that, there’s truly nowhere to go from the original joke of husband Andrew Dismukes getting obviously and thoroughly cuckolded by Marcello Hernandez’s cheerfully Randy Domingo and wife Chloe Fineman. A template sketch can go on indefinitely and successfully if the premise and the performances are irresistible. This simply is neither. Dismukes’ relentlessly nonplussed hubby exclaims to end this unpromising cold open, “Kelsey, I’m serious, this is strike six!,” and if this isn’t actually the sixth Domingo, it feels like it. 

I’m a bit more disposed to like the home shopping sketches, coming as they do from SNL‘s history of deliberately obvious, leering inappropriateness. (Horatio Sanz’s Update cartoonist and Kyle Mooney’s similarly penis-themed baker come to mind.) Mikey Day can play this sort of vaguely Christian-Southern host in his sleep, and Ashley Padilla fills in nicely as his new sidekick, here walking unexpectedly once more into a visiting inventor’s camera-unfriendly new product.

When I saw that unfurled pink neck pillow splayed out on the desk, I got there pretty quickly (it’s a puffy pink vagina, complete with vibrating nub at the top), Sabrina Carpenter’s chipper entrepreneur demonstrating all its many features (optional fur wraparound sheath, naturally), while the hosts desperately call for their producer to blur everything, immediately. The jokes are all Mad Libs at this point (Day blurting about the pillows “two different labia—layers!,” creepy callers spotting all the unintended possibilities, etc), but Day makes the thing get the cheap laughs it’s going for. (“Ohh, why would you bring the pink one?,” he helpfully complains after Carpenter tells him it comes in 10 other colors.)

And not to pick on Marcello Hernandez or anything, but The Movie Guy, too, is all played out, to the extent that it had any juice to begin with. Hernandez is an up and comer, for sure, but more often than not I find myself responding to his energy and likeableness more than him being especially hilarious. His garrulous movie usher (yes, I mistook him for a doorman last time, apologies) has two jokes. One: he has an accent. Two: he hasn’t actually watched any of the movies he’s supposedly on Update to talk about. And that’s it. With his rapid fire beaming and self-impressed mugging, Marcello here reminded me of no one so much as Roberto Benigni, whose schtick nobody ever grew exhausted by, right?

Political Comedy Report

Domingo or Trump? Trump or Domingo? But I kid a show I perhaps naively hoped might rise to the moment.

Not Ready for Prime Time Power Rankings

Ashley Padilla’s a star. I will brook no debate.

Season 51 is working harder than usual to incorporate the featured players, which is nice. Tommy Brennan got his Update spotlight. Jeremy Culhane keeps popping up in small Bobby Moynihan-type roles. Ben Marshall’s already got a leg up. Kam Patterson’s on the ground and running. Jane Wickline’s only been shut out of one third of the episodes so far. But tonight was all about Veronika Slowikoska, who’s making her bid for the Cecily Strong song and dance slot that Chloe Troast seemed poised to inherit. Alas, twas not to be, dear departed Chloe. We’ll always have our own kind of music.

As noted, I like the ensemble feel this season, even as I keep waiting for someone(s) to make a leap into show-carrying SNL powerhouse status. It doesn’t seem like we have had such a heavy hitter for a while now, and Saturday Night Live really needs a few of those.

10-To-One Report

There’s probably a story still to be told about the breakup of comedy troupe Please Don’t Destroy. With John Higgins leaving SNL, Ben Marshall getting the featured player solo call-up, and Martin Herlihy dropping back to the writer’s room, there’s an oral history out there somewhere. Regardless, while Ben is working the JV coal mines with moderate success early in the season, it looks like Martin is staking out his own turf as a branded, Dan Bulla-style showpiece segment player.

In his first outing tonight, it’s a good look, with a straight-laced Martin playing prankster on us through a fake prank involving a theater-ful of elaborately made-up Frankensteins. (Herlihy calls them Frankensteins for the joke, so back off, “actually, it’s Frankenstein’s monster” pedants.) The set up is stern and lecturing, with January 6 footage part of a montage illustrating Martin’s point about this cruel and crazy world we live in. Cue his plan to people an uptown movie palace with “tough-looking” actors to gauge (and judge) startled moviegoers’ reactions, with the all-Franks reveal being the first big laugh.

Escalation follows, with the tut-tutting Martin revealed as the butt of the joke as he attempts to label Jane Wickline a racist (complete with gotcha onscreen chyron), only to be taken aback by her explanation that, yes, she was understandably startled by rows and rows of Frankensteins at a movie not about Frankenstein. Expanding his social experiment to his sleeping girlfriend only doubles back on Herlihy with the revelation that not only is it not indicative of anything but self-preservation when a sleeping woman is confronted by 30 Frankensteins in her bedroom, but also that she and Martin had broken up long ago. Cornering the one moviegoer not freaked out by his monsters’ gallery (Kam Patterson) spins out into its own little world where the cheerful guy turns out to have never read or seen Frankenstein, even though he studied gothic literature and totally digs author Mary Shelley.

There’s a nice, tight, layered loony logic at play here, and if this is Herlihy’s backdoor way into the cast alongside pal Marshall, it’s a sneaky good one.

Stray Observations

Just to stave off accusations of ogling, I’ll point to a long-ago standards debate about just how much of then presidential scion Ron Reagan Jr’s bulge could be shown during his Risky Business underpants dance. In the end, multiple pairs of tighty-whities were deployed to protect the nation.

Speaking of standards, did Carpenter drop a couple of in-lyrics f-bombs in her second performance? (Mid-review update thanks to LateNighter‘s Jed: She sure did, even if the YouTube version bleeps them.)

I dug the interstitial showing Chloe in the makeup chair. Don’t remember SNL doing that before.

Everybody at the show was really into channeling their inner pre-teen traumas this week, huh?

SNL even fumbled the brief monologue, where the usually simple mic handoff spotted an irritated looking crew member waiting for the baton.

Jost, noting Trump’s $40 billion Argentinian bailout this week: “Because if history is any guide, a lot of Trump officials will end up fleeing to Argentina.”

Episode Grade: A Depressingly Standard Season 51 C-Plus.

We’re off until November 1 when Miles Teller returns alongside musical guest Brandi Carlile.