Jean Smart Helps SNL Play Catch-Up In a Disappointing Season 50 Premiere

And Your Host…

Jean Smart is one of those late-career successes that feels like a feel-good story even though the acclaimed actress has been racking up Emmys for nearly 30 years. The three-times-running Hacks Best Actress brought her seen-it-all professionalism to what’s sort of a big deal, as far as TV milestones go—Saturday Night Live‘s 50th season premiere. In practice, Smart was game as hell—a quality I’d value highest for any first-time SNL host—even if she was given precious little to do.

The SNL monologue has long parodied its position as what hosting legend Tom Hanks once called “the weakest part of the show,” and the potentially energizing prospect of a half-century’s worth of show-opening monologue history emerges as—a Cole Porter song. It isn’t Smart’s fault—as interesting a get as the actress is for this big time premiere, it doesn’t seem like the writers knew what the hell to do with her for most of the show. She isn’t given any jokes in the monologue per se (the exception being her deadpan, “That’s can’t be right” when reminiscing about originally thinking the brand-new NBC series initials stood for “Saturday Night Laughs”), instead musing comfortably about New York—while singing about New York.

It was like Woody Allen’s version of a Saturday Night Live monologue rather than the hip, punk rock vision of the show promised from the in-show ad for the upcoming Jason Reitman movie. Not quite as maudlin as Milton Berle’s infamous “September Song,” but it did put the SNL nerd in me on high alert. The thing is, Lorne and the cast were appalled at such schmaltz as Berle’s appearing on their show (okay, Berle’s hacky racist jokes didn’t help). Meanwhile, kicking off Season 50 with self-cuddling, sentimental crooning is presented as mission statement.

The Best and the Rest

The Best: Sometimes I regret this format. Slapping “the best” on a list of sketches suggests that one is appreciably better than the rest, and sometimes that really doesn’t apply. What truly stood out on tonight’s Season 50 debut? The game show sketch with its mediocre impressions and already-fading, 15-minute cultural touchstones? The talk show sketch, with its mediocre celebrity impressions, including the one the sketch is built upon? The reality show sketch? The repurposed “smug host introduces funny old movie and TV clips” gag? Some weeks there just isn’t a “best.” I’d hoped Episode 1 wouldn’t illustrate that, but here we are.

The Worst: Likewise, no sketch was notable enough in its terribleness to incur anything but mild irritation. So let’s move on.

The Rest: In no particular order, the romance novelist sketch suffered from premise explanation syndrome, with Smart’s softcore-turned-math-textbook writer literally restating the already established premise at one point like she was in an old radio play. (And that is traditionally Mikey Day’s job, ma’am.) The gag is fine—the execs at Scholastic keep getting outraged as Smart’s word problems keep referencing throbbing loins and barely literate Italian studs, and Smart’s acting chops serve to goose things along. (The first directing/staging gaffe of the season sees smart presenting the smutty math book cover to the wrong camera, spoiling the joke. For the record, the book is called Algebra Cove.)

As is so often the case, Kenan Thompson is there to save us. As the one exec clearly into Smart’s new and (as it turns out) very effective approach to teaching math to horny teens, Kenan does his thing, remaining a silent, smiling presence at the edge of the sketch until it’s time to contribute some deft underplaying. Noting how Smart’s heroine in her connected world problems disappears at one point, Kenan’s “I miss Clarissa!,” emerges from inside this weirdo’s little inner world, and it makes the whole sketch come alive. Paired up with Smart on the book’s cover in full Fabio pose is fitting reward for helping Smart inject what life the piece has.

In Devon Walker’s first-ever appearance on Saturday Night Live, he played Corn Kid, the first cold open of Season 48, knowingly mocking the show’s propensity for wheeling out already played-out pop culture references for easy recognition laughs. In this Season 50 premiere, Walker (adopting Michael Strahan’s signature lisp as host of a celebrity $100,000 Pyramid) introduces, alongside celebrity guests Bad Bunny and laughingstock GOP gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson, the “hawk tuah” girl and that lady from the Amazon documentary monkey series that is not Tiger King.

LateNighter readers might as well hear this from me for the first time: SNL game show sketches are freaking lazy. It’s a ready-made template where the rules can be read out for the attention-deficient, quick-hit celebrity impressions not good enough for an entire sketch speed on by, and the meta-ending of a commercial break is built right in. Of course there are good game show sketches, but there are a literal infinite number of potential sketch types, and this pale, 100-times rewarmed Celebrity Jeopardy wannabe is lukewarm nothing on a plate.

SNL puppetry is a cheap but effective gag that usually works for me. And, hey, we got to see Jean Smart (as the blowsy lady who’s really into her pet chimps) gets to breastfeed a monkey puppet, so that’s something. Chloe Fineman feeds Smart questions as one Haliey Welch, whose viral fame as proud sex advice giver and resulting merch-hawker has already, pardon, petered out. Marcello Hernandez’s Bad Bunny is energetic but unremarkable (see his Desi Arnaz coming up), while Kenan at least is Kenan, turning the embattled Robinson’s well-deserved ignominy into a series of self-incriminating answers. “Guess I got my own stuff goin’ on,” he finally confesses. Then, in keeping with the “Him? Really?” of it all, the sketch concludes with new guy Emil Wakim as that nonchalant Olympics sharpshooter? Remember that guy? From over the summer? Oh, Corn Kid, where have you gone?

The first commercial parody of the season took a shot at those temporarily ubiquitous Halloween costume stores that snap up abandoned commercial real estate around this time of year. SNL ad parodies are so meticulously and lovingly shot that the verisimilitude becomes part of the joke, with here the chain’s stock of legally-distinct-so-you-can’t-sue-us costumes including an Oompa-Loompa “Candy Slave” and a blonde singer who in no way resembles Taylor Swift. Plus Mikey Day as one of the pervy seasonal hires who has to pass off one underage customer for legal reasons. The set-up before the premise reveal is what’s most striking, with newbie Jane Wickline essaying a homeless teen in an abandoned parking lot whose fortunes are wordlessly changed once the Halloweenies roar in to revitalize her town with cheap wigs that give you rashes and “single-use smoke machines”—if only until November 1.

Stealing from Reese De’What, Bowen Yang introduces the original I Love Lucy casting—an embittered, chain-smoking theater vet played by Jean Smart with a penchant for greeting hubby Desi’s over-the-top line readings with thrown drinks, dramatic monologues, and the occasional gay slur. Cinema Classics casts a bigger, funnier shadow, but it’s not a bad little takedown of a 70-year-old sitcom. (That’ll show ’em.) Smart hams it up with sour aplomb, Marcello Hernandez goes big, and actual impressionists Chloe Fineman and James Austin Johnson bring more to Fred and Ethel than strictly necessary, with Yang’s host chiming in to take potshots at the misguided enterprise. (He notes that Lucille Ball’s eventual casting made sense, considering the show’s name and that she was married to the male lead and all.)

Talk shows hosted by inappropriately clueless celebrities is an SNL comedy side street, and Bowen Yang takes advantage of how everybody was saying “brat” for about a week this summer to introduce his Charlie XCX impression. On Update, Jost joked about all the crazy (or in Trump’s case, insanely racist and fascism-courting) sh*t the show had missed out on in its summer hiatus, assuring us that, “I have a feeling there’s going to be more.” And there has been, but that doesn’t prevent “brat” from still being a go-to punchline well past its expiration date here. Yang puts on an accent along with his slinky dress, but that’s where the impression ends, and apart from her introduction as “Aussie dingo-twink Troye Sivan,” Sarah Sherman doesn’t get to do much.

The joke of square media figures being dropped into a celebrity-led chat format means Chloe Fineman gets to bring out her Kaitlan Collins impression (you know you’ve been waiting), while Smart dolls up as 80’s nightclub figure Susanne Bartsch, evoking shrugs. Ego Nwodim has some fun as Congressperson and insult comic Jasmine Crockett who attempts to one-up her “bleach-blonde, bad-built, butch body” burn on lunatic MAGA colleague Marjorie Taylor Greene with zingers targeting J.D. Vance (“smokey-eyed sofa-sexual, can’t order donuts but has donut body”), and under-investigation sex creep Matt Gaetz (“punchable pig puffy pervert faced card always declines.”) I’m not looking forward to this seemingly inevitable recurring bit, though.

Weekend Update Update

Since we’re all getting to know each other here at LateNighter as reviewer and reader, I’ll just get this Weekend Update Cliff’s Notes disclaimer out of the way. Colin Jost and Michael Che are funny guys, each with their own distinctive styles. Che is the wise-ass who revels in making the audience alternately gasp and groan, either through smartly original takes or from playing to his schtick as cheeky asshole who likes to push buttons. Jost is the wise-ass who plays up his white privilege for either carefully branded self-deprecation or ironic button-pushing where he says things only a privileged white a-hole would say. They are great zinger-slingers who’ve developed a lived-in but still prickly chemistry that works for them. They are also glib, smirky, and ultimately not nearly as edgy as they think they are.

Update under Jost and Che is very much akin to Saturday Night Live under sometime head writers Jost and Che. (Season 50 retains head writers Kent Sublette, Alison Gates, and Streeter Seidel, with Jost and Che retaining their Weekend Update writing domain.) It’s not so much that the jokes aimed at political figures are bad, it’s that neither host appears as invested in crafting smart material as making themselves look clever on TV. There’s a lot going on in Jost’s joke about A.I.-translations of Hitler’s speeches emerging as Trump’s foghorn bigotry about Haitian immigrants, but the anchor’s “aren’t I adorable” delivery is the real star of the show.

And Che loves to bait audiences by imitating the boorish misogyny and racism of “I’m just saying what everybody’s thinking” jackass comics while coming off as sort of a jackass himself. Tonight we got jokes about Asian drivers and how women loooove to talk, amirite?, Che’s too-cool-to-care-if-you’re-offended delivery letting him play both sides of the net, comedically. Che’s a funny guy who can’t let criticism go without doubling down on the things he’s criticized about. It’s a persona, I guess.

The Update desk piece is a tried-and-true way for a performer to shine. Bowen Yang owns the position, never more splashily than when he gets to raid the costume department. Here, he’s Moo Deng, the adorably slimy baby hippo whose incessant badgering by zoo-goers allows Yang to channel Moo Deng as put-upon diva, something he’s also always happy to do. Yang is attuned to the queasy relationship between attention-courting celebrities and the fans they attract, his Moo Deng bemoaning the “parasocial relationship” that sees people whipping crustaceans into her pen when all she wants to do is gnaw toothlessly on her keepers bare knees and wallow. She’s the cattiest hippo in the world, and Yang, as ever, revels in the characterization, even if his biggest laugh has less to do with all of that than in a huge physical bit. Calling out, “Hose!,” Yang’s hippo baby dutifully gets a powerful jet of off-screen hose water, while Moo Deng thirstily makes desperate yummy sounds and the nearby Jost gets collateral comedy splash. Sometimes a big splash of silliness is what this Update needs.

Since New York’s Mayor Eric Adams was just outed as an (alleged) serial bribe-taker, Devon Walker got his first spotlight Update role as an official main cast member. Donning a bald wig and the mayor’s signature swagger even in the face of proof that he freely trades all manner of official favors for free airline upgrades, Walker is fine in the part. He’s not a natural impressionist or anything, but he’s an engaging performer who’s shone enough flashes during his time in the featured player coal mines to warrant the Season 50 call-up.

Broken record aside, there’s a whole lot more to joke about the guy than his stances on partying, rat combat, and getting bumped up to business class so he doesn’t have dry mouth from coach biscotti. (Just for fun: Adams is a stop-and-frisk policing conservative who’s prioritized massive police overtime to chase down—and occasionally shoot—$3 subway fare-jumpers while cutting public libraries and education. And that’s not even mentioning the ludicrously expensive, utterly useless police-bot.) But Walker is amusing as he repeatedly attempts to rope in Michael Che as his best running buddy and, referring to his favorite bribery-hub, defining “Turkish delight” as “a briefcase with $100,000 dollars in it.”

Recurring Sketch Report

Saturday Night Live lives on repeats. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, even if I can count on one hand the recurring sketches I personally never got tired of. Herb Welch, Stefon, Debette Goldry, Drunk Uncle, Get in the Cage, The Devil (Sudeikis version), What Up With That?, Father Guido Sarducci, maybe two more. Still, the ratio of Doug and Wendy Whiners to the sort of repeaters that don’t make you want to roll your eyes so far back in your head until you have an eye-aneurysm is lopsided at best. None tonight. Fingers crossed, Season 50.

Political Comedy Report

A source told me before the show that they’d heard about some big surprises planned for this historic season premiere. (Here I confess that I’m some guy in Maine—my “source” is a person who actually has sources.) And while I conjured hopeful dreams of something truly bold, format-breaking, or Beyoncé, what we got was the same old, same old.

Look, I’m genuinely thrilled that Maya Rudolph has signed on for the long term (hopefully four-years-plus) Kamala Harris gig. Like Tina Fey before her, the casting might have initially stemmed from resemblance, but—no offense to Fey, who freely admits she’s no Maya Rudolph—Maya is an all-time SNL legend whose rightness for the part of the Democratic Vice President and presidential nominee is such that it feels like the universe chose Harris just so we could have Maya back in Studio 8H for the long haul.

But, wow, does Lorne Michaels have no confidence in his cast. I recognize that there are other factors at play here—big, splashy celebrity cameos are going to bring more morning-after views than watching, say, Mikey Day in a Tim Walz wig. But that sort of in-house topical casting used to be, of necessity or not, the norm. Now it’s rare when a major political impression isn’t doled out to one of Lorne’s St. Bart’s pals.

Jim Gaffigan as Walz? Makes sense enough. The stand-up has the bluff Midwestern thing down and his squeaky-clean image plays into the show’s apparent choice to play up the Minnesota Governor’s goofy dad energy rather than any substantive depiction of his intriguingly progressive policies. But that’s par for Lorne’s well-manicured course at this stage in SNL‘s life cycle, the show’s overblown but not inconsiderable political brashness having mellowed into a stew of so-so impressions and superficial headline-mining.

And then we get Dana Carvey, apparently becoming the 10th person to ever impersonate Joe Biden on SNL. (Jason Sudeikis was the best of the lot, for what it’s worth.) You know what you’re gonna get with a Dana Carvey impression—catchphrases, again and again. His Biden isn’t any more technically adept than his George Bush Sr., and you can feel Carvey’s hope that his Biden’s repeated “And guess what? I’m serious. No joke,” chorus is going to be his next “Na ga da.” There’s nothing that makes Dana Carvey happier than people laughing it up at him repeating a killer-to-him mannerism for seemingly an eternity. (His Paul McCartney jabbers on with self-indulgent digressions until I find myself wanting to throw things.)

As far as the cold open’s political takes go, it’s clear that for Saturday Night Live 50, it’s business as usual. Yank a few things from the trending lists and that counts as satire, no matter that that makes SNL‘s political comedy as glib and disposable as it’s likely intended to be, honestly. As noted above, I view Saturday Night Live‘s political street cred as largely a self-mythologizing entity. Born as it was during Watergate, spitting at obviously and grotesquely corrupt political figures was just part of the show’s DNA. Sadly, all that raw, sometimes unfocused snottiness was gradually determined to be a young person’s game, with the show’s philosophy promoting both-sides-ism less as a skeptical worldview about the corrupting nature of politics and more as a strategy to court notoriety without actually pissing anybody off.

Here, Harris (clearly more in line with SNL‘s liberal stances on most things, her not being a sundowning insurrectionist bigot and all) is, in Rudolph’s hands, a vehicle for the most obvious jokes. (By dictionary definition, I have to call them jokes, I suppose.) She dances, she has a loud laugh, she plays “Freedom” because Beyoncé said it was okay. Her husband (Andy Samberg, coming home to 8H as ringer number three) is a sort of dull goof supposedly struggling with his upcoming position as the first First Gentleman. The one nearly sophisticated angle is on Harris’ gun ownership, with Maya telling New York and California to tune out so she can pander to the more gun-happy states.

There was some speculation that James Austin Johnson’s Trump would likewise be handed over to some returning bigwig. (The thought of Alec Baldwin strutting back out in that actual wig made me lose sleep.) Thankfully, JAJ is back, although the show remains steadfast in giving the consummate impressionist less and less to say as the twice-impeached, legally adjudicated rapist and Russian asset. (Get used to those sorts of uncomfortably factual asides, LateNighter readers. This isn’t the New York Times.) As ever, simply transcribing some of Trump’s most ludicrous/racist/genuinely terrifying statements from one of his endless rallies—as lazy as the practice might be comedically—can’t help but serve as satire, or at least public service. Especially with Johnson gamely putting his own loony, minutely observed spin on them.

But that’s all there is left for him to do, really. Over the national nightmare that has been the Trump era of American politics, SNL has managed to find an original angle to play from time to time. But actual satire requires ambition and courage, and neither is truly Saturday Night Live‘s jam, as much as they ever were. Bowen Yang as J.D. Vance is fine—at least he’s in the cast—and had the one actually amusing touch. After a bulletproof glass-ensconced Trump reluctantly cedes the podium, Vance watches in also-ran alarm as the Secret Service wheels the protective barrier away. Sure, Yang’s Vance has to explain the joke, but it’s funny nonetheless.

Not Ready for Prime Time Power Rankings

This season premiere presages a rough road for this still-oversized cast. We lost three, gained three, leaving the current roster at an unwieldy 17. (Even with Che and Jost only monopolizing their Update sinecure.) Devon, Marcello and Michael Longfellow got bumped up, so congrats guys, but as the cold open showed, Lorne Michaels’ philosophy (especially in the lucrative sweeps period that is an election season) is “famous ringers get the juicy roles and everybody else fights for scraps.”

Not that this core cast has leapt up to make the case that they should take over the show. Kenan is Kenan—the TV lifer and longest-tenured SNL cast member is here for a reason. (His grinning appreciation for Smart’s romance author and her perv-y purple prose in one sketch proves once more how invaluable Kenan’s deadpan professionalism is to the show.) Bowen Yang is the closest this cast has to a scene-stealer, but no matter how many elaborate Update costumes he orders up, his initial promise as breakout star has settled into something of a rut. Heidi Gardner’s a great character actress, Chloe Fineman’s a great technical impressionist, Ego Nwodim’s an energetic workhorse, Mikey Day’s just a workhorse, and SNL still doesn’t know what to do with Sarah Sherman as a rule. (Strapping her into fake abs and having her pronounce the elongated Aussie “no” as former musical guest Troye Sivan is not the most rewarding use of Sherman’s provocative talents.)

James Austin Johnson is a brilliant impressionist and an even better comic actor, but his Phil Hartman-like versatility likewise marks him out as his own island. He’s got his Trump, an all-time great characterization increasingly neutered by the show’s mushy both-sides-ism and timidity. And JAJ slips into even his smallest sketch roles with a performing authority as arresting as it is out of place in pieces too often concerned with premise overload and snatching the low-hanging fruit and jetting. Meanwhile, eternally boyish Andrew Dismukes occasionally manages to get a sketch on TV worthy of standing alongside those of his idol, Will Forte.

In the “paying your dues” category, the three new cast members, Ashley Padilla, Emil Wakim, and Jane Wickline got the sort of walk-ons that all but the most lucky and/or undeniably charismatic traditionally get. Groundling Padilla had the biggest debut, although she had to wait until the very last sketch to join in as a screeching Real Housewife slowly being enveloped in fajita smoke. Big, broad, brassy characterizations are SNL currency, however, so at least Padilla’s got a leg up on stand-up Wakim and internet famous Wickline. Hang it there, new kids. I’d say it gets better, but, you know, not for everybody. (Adios, Molly Kerney, Punkie Johnson, and Chloe Troast. Here’s to you joining the truly impressive roster of people who didn’t work out on SNL but found genuine success elsewhere.)

10-To-1 Report

In the category of “sketch templates Saturday Night Live needs to stop doing ten years ago,” reality TV might lag behind talk shows and game shows, but the genre’s sameness of tone and satirical possibilities make reality sketches the most predictable and dull of the bunch. (At least game shows give us an occasional “What’s Wrong With Tanya?“) Here it appears that the show was swinging for another breakout “Lisa from Temecula” restaurant breakout hit, with the sketch’s recipe of “front and center yelling” competing with “big physical comedy chaos,” but it doesn’t work.

Andrew Dismukes is the hapless waiter toting unwieldy, terrifyingly hot sizzling fajita trays dodging most of the female cast and Smart as they act out the booming, banal drama that’s the lifeblood of the Real Housewives franchise. The whole enterprise felt rushed and slapdash, with Dismukes’ dilemma providing no payoff (he keeps spilling the supposedly white-hot cast iron pans with no repercussions) and the unconcealed electronic smoke machines drawing attention to the “eh, good enough” nature of the season’s first last sketch.

The actresses all do their level best to make their reality harridans’ catchphrase (“Oh, so I’m not a businesswoman?”) land, and the energy level works to pump the wheezing sketch to life. But—and here’s my last “Get to know me!” complaint of this first LateNighter review—the 10-to-1 slot is meant for that one weird, writerly idea that Lorne thinks the show needs for “texture.” Basically, the bills are all paid, the product placement deals satisfied, and only the die-hard comedy nerds still awake and hanging in there, hoping for a little bold creative silliness. I suppose a reality show meets outrageous physical schtick conceit could have filled that role, but, like almost everything in this underwhelming premiere, the final slot was a bit of a bummer.

Stray Observations

That was none other than Jean Smart’s Hacks co-star (and daughter of original cast SNL royalty) Hannah Einbinder helping introduce Jelly Roll.

Jelly Roll himself is a big, beefy fella whose countrified hard-luck tales seem to tickle the right demographic. His rehab song is the sort of prosaically catchy uplift country hits are made on.

50 years on the air means SNL has to print up a new memorial card almost every week. This time the bell tolled for former NBC executive Tom McCarthy, who was, among other responsibilities, charged with keeping the show’s performers safe at work.

“Fun fact about Edna, after the show, she’d go on to name hundreds of people in the industry she suspected of being communists. And this was in 1992 so that wasn’t a thing any more.”

Bowen Yang

[On Melania Trump accusing Democrats of trying to inspire people to murder her husband] “Which is ridiculous. When Democrats want to take out a presidential candidate, they get the job done.” [Shows photo of Joe Biden]

colin jost

“Senator Raphael Warnock criticized Mark Robinson, calling him ‘white supremacy in blackface.’ Which is also the name of Colin’s special.”

michael che

“Donald Trump said this week that Americans will travel to Mars in his next term, probably to get an abortion.”

Colin Jost

“A new Netflix show about Eric and Lyle Menendez is being criticized for implying the brothers had an incestuous relationship. Said the brothers, ‘We’re just glad our parents aren’t around to see this.'”

michael che

Episode Grade: C-Minus.

Next week: Second-time host Nate Bargatze and musical guest Coldplay.