SNL Plays All the Hits in Nate Bargatze’s 8H Return

And Your Host…

If you were taken aback by how quickly stand-up comedian Nate Bargatze was asked back to host SNL, then you haven’t read up on just how much of a streaming sensation a particular sketch from his October 28th hosting gig last year has been. Yes, we got a sequel to “Washington’s Dream.” But Bargatze more than justified the quick turnaround of his booking by showing how his self-effacing persona could be subtly tweaked to enliven a variety of sketches.

Sheepish, fish-out-of-water roles are a perfect fit for the soft-spoken Tennesseean comic, his monologue gliding by on a cushion of gentle self-roasting before Bargatze adapted that knowing bashfulness to a series of offbeat sketches. Sure, the sketch where his unsuspecting tourist finds himself on stage taking part in a Spanish-language variety/game show is peak “Southern white guy wondering what all these excitable foreigners are doing” energy, but even there, the rightness of the fit between host and sketch adds extra laughs.

But in sketches like the one where he and Michael Longfellow expertly maneuver an awkwardly tempting situation at a water park to their desired ends, Bargatze adjusts his signature offhandedness to rewardingly darker hues. While still not the most confident live performer (although presumably aided by some cue card adjustments), Bargatze again proved himself the sort of offbeat SNL hosting choice whose uniqueness can inspire the show to think outside its traditional comfort zone.

The Best and the Rest

The Best: I’m a sucker for a delayed and patient premise, so I’m bucking the inevitable George Washington redux praise and going with the water park. Bargatze’s gentle, drawling delivery and unassuming persona are made for situations where he’s the baffled victim. But here, as one of a pair of EMT’s attending to an 80-year-old heart attack victim who succumbed at the top of a very high water slide, he and Michael Longfellow cannily draw out the fact that their one impulse is to just shove that poor dead guy down the slide and see what size splash he makes.

Bargatze and Michael Longfellow both deal in deadpan, and while Longfellow’s brand thereof is generally snarkier, here it’s Bargatze taking the lead, his EMT’s veneer of solemn sensibility expertly masking the deepening reality that he just really wants to watch that old guy fly. (If for no other reason than he and Longfellow won’t have to carry him down hundreds of steps filled with impatient would-be sliders.) As noted, there’s plenty of put-upon Bargatze to go around this episode, but the comic also broadens the potential of his gentlemanly demeanor to incorporate some strange depths.

In the face of attendant Jane Wickline’s increasing horror at the prospect of the watching a deceased senior ragdoll out of the slide’s dog butt exit (coworker Devon Walker really wants to see how things go), Bargatze and Longfellow’s gambits get more even-keeled the more brazen they become. “It seems like he really wanted to go down it,” Bargatze shrugs while suggesting the push would be a respectful final wish, while Longfellow muses about how the arduous haul down those steps might affect all the kids in line. (A vote sees the kids unanimously in favor of “Wheee!!”) As genteel as Bargatze is, here’s to him using his powers for a little evil.

The Worst: Like Nate Bargatze’s comedy generally, this episode didn’t offer up much to get angry about and provided more shades of funny than you’d first expect.

The Rest: The ghost of “Lisa From Temecula” looms over the restaurant sketch, where Heidi Gardner takes her place in the long and storied Saturday Night Live tradition of people doing over-the-top gross stuff in the hope of big belly laughs. And it sort of works, as Gardner, initially the dutifully supportive plus-one in her husband’s family’s wrenching dinnertime discussion of their father’s worsening dementia, discovers that the “mile high burger” she ordered is subject of the eatery’s legendary “eat this monstrous heap of food in 10 minutes” contest.

I’m not sure the sketch’s internal logic checks out—Gardner’s original horror at being made a culinary spectacle at such an inopportune moment first sees her going to town on the massive meat-mound because of the contest’s prize of a trip to Hawaii before it’s revealed she routinely scarfs down family-sized foods to cheer up husband Nate Bargatze. Still, though, there’s a Saturday Night Live merit badge for taking a messy food sketch for the team, and Heidi vaults right to the head of the line with her truly committed attack on that increasingly disgusting pile of what sure looks like actual ground beef and special sauce.

As with “Lisa,” part of the cheap but undeniable fun is watching which of the assembled cast will prove unable to hold it together in the face of, here, Gardner stuffing her face. (At one point, the Hawaii-tempted Bargatze starts soaking the bun in his water glass “Joey Chestnut style” to help the slop slide down faster.) Here it’s Bowen who at one point simply shoots a look into the camera in helplessness, with most everyone else clearly marveling at Gardner’s gameness and/or chuckling that it’s her and not them.

In the end, there’s another fun twist (Gardner had eaten an entire lasagna that morning to make Bargatze smile), and even sort of an ending (Dad’s picture is on the wall of fame for completing the mile high challenge in the past). But it’s all about Heidi Gardner’s willingness—nay, apparent defiant eagerness—to join the SNL pantheon of people willing to geleefully trace the connection bewteen our funny bone and our gag reflex. Brava.

The golf tournament filmed piece played around some more with the host’s persona en route to another bad taste series of gags. Bargatze’s golfer keeps accidentally killing the course’s unsuspecting wildlife, first exploding a swooping bird Randy Johnson-style, then hooking a shot and downing an eagle’s nest, mistakenly shattering one of the fallen (as it turns out endangered bald eagle) eggs with his next shot, and then hurling his club in frustration. (Cue quickly created graphic eulogizing beloved fairway water hazard snapping turtle Fairway Fred.)

Meanwhile, Bargatze’s baffled golfer is questioned by Fish and Wildlife, watches as veterans turn their backs on him over the eagle thing, sees Nike demand all their logos be censored on his clothing, and finally succeeds in sinking his ball, only to impale a chipmunk with the flag. Killing animals for laughs is always a risky proposition—get that tone wrong and you are on for some serious disapproving silence, at best. Here, the joke’s on Bargatze’s golfer, with even his understandable confusion and shame at what he’s done admitting more and more irritation that everyone’s looking at him like a monster. Not a hole in one, but [insert appropriate pretty good golf term here.]

“Sabado Gigante” is a vehicle for the Nate Bargatze persona proper, as his vacationing English-speaker is yanked up onstage during the titular Spanish-language variety show in order for Bargatze to look flummoxed. Marcello Hernandez is turning into a pretty confident presence on SNL, and once more he brings a little un-subtitled Spanish to the show as his exuberant host peppers Bargatze with rapid fire questions he can in no way answer.

The gag is helped along by the bizarre aspects of the show that greet the baffled Bargatze at every turn, from an ominous, Whammy-style hooded figure called “El Chacal” who keeps popping out at him, a puppet orange scolding him for not guessing correctly, and James Austin Johnson is wheeled out as—I think—some nature of enormous flan. With Marcello riding herd over the wackiness, the sketch plays out less like “look at those weirdo foreigners” than as a slightly exaggerated version of an actual regional game show of the type you occasionally find on YouTube. (And at least the weird foreign game show sketch in 2024 doesn’t feature Mike Meyers in yellowface.)

After Bargatze accidentally answers one question correctly (but not before being confronted by a hissing child made up to look just like him), he’s presented with his prize of five dogs he now has to take care of, which is the right kind of loony ending. Still and all, there’s a unique pleasure in seeing a baffled Nate Bargatze, after being ushered onstage by another of the show’s inexplicable outrageous characters, ask, “Why was that guy dressed as Dracula?”

Weekend Update Update

It’s tough to give someone credit for self-awareness when they then go right back to doing the same things they traditionally get criticized for. Reporting on Elon Musk appearing at Donald Trump’s Saturday rally, Colin Jost joked that this may be the last time people get to see the would-be fascist kleptocrats together “until they host our Christmas show.”

On one hand, that’s a good, self-lacerating zinger about the fact that SNL chased ratings by platforming two truly loathsome non-comedians who’d already proven their willingness to use mainstream attention to further ignoble ends. (And here, I’ll link to a couple of reviews from a former life.) On the other, neither Jost nor Che really do much more with this troubling team-up, counting on one snarky bit of “did I do that?” confessional comedy to count for substance.

Reality may have a liberal bias, as they say. (Like how, for example, Trump, Musk, and their MAGA minions immediately flooded Musk’s Twitter with lies about hurricane relief efforts while the actual government was trying to help people.) And so do I, as some commenters pointed out last week as if that were any sort of deep, dark secret. (Deal with it, fellas.) And there’s an endless amount of truly mock-able sh*t in both Trump and Musk’s resumés to work with. (Another “for example” being how Musk’s open use of deliberate misinformation intended to aid Trump on the social media site he bought smacks of actual, actionable media manipulation, as opposed to that time Republicans hauled Mark Zuckerberg and former Twitter owner Jack Dorsey in front of Congress to explain themselves for suspected, nebulous bias.)

Jost and Che gonna Jost and Che. Their jokes are as reliably amusing as they are chosen for momentary impact rather than lasting satire. It’s their brand—never get too invested lest you seem to give a sh*t and blow your coolness. Political stuff gets rushed so funny news targets can get the attention. With three shows until the most pivotal election in the lifetime of anybody watching Saturday Night Live, bucking tradition might be in order, but it’s unlikely. That’s just not what they do.

Jost took a swipe at his own “ha ha, I’m so white” persona usually handed over to Che or Sarah Sherman, as he ended a story about Trump scrolling social media during his January 6 storm-the-Capitol party with a photoshopped picture and the complaint that it’s so disrespectful “to those of us who are there fighting for him.” And Che went for—and got—his audience gasps when he concluded a joke about Diddy getting a new judge in his sex crimes trial by noting, “one that Diddy hopes is cool with rapes.” As ever, not bad jokes, although I get the sense that the guys talk more afterward about their seemingly improvised asides about who got more applause breaks than they ruminate on whether their topical material was ambitious enough.

The Update desk piece is the place where most featured players take their first shot, so here’s to Jane Wickline for bringing out her keyboard and scoring a pretty solid four minutes tonight. Her nifty little song about cluelessly ignoring all the signs that the party’s over is strikingly long for a first Update piece, with Jost even nodding toward that fact, eliciting Wickline’s defiant, “I intend to keep singing” midway through.

Coming to SNL through TikTok as she has, this sort of musical bit is the sort of thing presumably held back from Wickline’s feed, and it’s a bold bit of flag-planting. The length aside, the piece requires the audience to sit still and wait for Wickline to deploy the jokes, a demand that some new cast members find themselves unable to make. Confidence is a huge determining factor in SNL success, and there’s an even higher degree of difficulty when your first move is a front-and-center musical number accompanying yourself and expecting the audience to come along with you on your song’s offbeat ride. Impressive.

Recurring Sketch Report

“Washington’s Dream” became a surprise viral hit of such magnitude that it’t not a stretch to think that it’s why unassuming stand-up Nate Bargatze got his second hosting call so quickly. Don’t get me wrong—”Washington’s Dream” is a great little sketch, riding the host’s offbeat deadpan charms alongside a writers room slip of an idea about weights and measures. As far as breakout sketches go, this is the sort I can get behind. A weird little idea that ordinarily would get slotted into the 10-to-one plot that catches a wave.

So a “Washington’s Dream 2” was an inevitability. And, like all inevitable repeaters, the bloom was off the comedy rose a bit, although Bargatze’s delivery of the first President’s offhand obsessions is such a weird little conceit that it still sort of works. This time, G-Wash, seen crossing the Delaware with his same trusty gaggle of beleaguered and increasingly confused soldiers, trades his stirring vision for a uniquely American, needlessly complicated and contradictory system of measurements for one centered on our linguistic relationship with food and animals. Like before, it’s the sort of theoretically hacky Seinfeld stuff (“What’s the deal with hot dogs, amirite?”) spun out into an inexplicable historical event, with Bargatze bringing a glassy-eyed, almost sleepy passion to his obsession.

That’s what makes it work, honestly, as a more straightforwardly intense juxtaposition would pummel the fragile premise into the Delaware mud. Here, Bargatze’s signature owl-eyed oddity makes Washington’s insistence that the Revolutionary War is all about the right to spell “donut” (“doughnut” if you’re fancy) two different ways and the essential correctness that a hamburger is made of beef (which is what we call cow meat) gently lifts the sketch into a delightfully loopy altitude. There’s no little jolt of surprise as the now expected premise reveals itself (putting this anticipated repeater right up top feels like the show hanging a “Mission Accomplished” banner at the 15-minute mark), but there are a few fun little wrinkles.

Kenan’s soldier still doggedly asks whether all Washington’s high-minded rhetoric about freedom means freedom for him and other Black people as well, seeing Bargatze’s Washington letting out just the merest uncomfortable stammer sound before steaming ahead. And James Austin Johnson’s inquisitive soldier being matter-of-factly order to hurl himself off of the boat for daring ask the Father of Our Country questions is handled with the same low-key vibe. “A real American would never want to know what’s in a hot dog,” Washington confides to his puzzled men.

It’s a common complaint (especially from me) that Saturday Night Live has increasingly slighted its present cast in favor of the big name cameo. And the bigger the name Lorne’s gets in house, the more temptation/obligation there is to allow said big name to creep into the show beyond their original splashy impression. Which is all a windy way to say we had the return of the Lonely Island, with the words “An SNL Digital Short” finding Andy Samberg and Akiva Schaffer singing an ode to sushi fed to you through a bathroom glory hole.

And here it’s time to talk about Please Don’t Destroy. The initial enthusiasm for this other three-man writing team making low-cost backstage videos waned after it appeared that  Ben Marshall, John Higgins, and Martin Herlihy started to run low on ideas beyond their “SNL punching bags” schtick. At first, their shorts zinged with loopy inventiveness, but the cracks started to show when their rare outings outside of their sometimes pigeon infested office fizzled and their retreat back to familiar ground felt, well, familiar. PDD hasn’t featured in the first two episodes of Season 50, and seeing Samberg and Schaffer spin another deeply silly, genuinely weird and funny banger with apparent ease doesn’t bode especially well for “The Lonelier Island.”

As for “Sushi Glory Hole,” the key is utter confidence. The Lonely Island’s catalog is jammed with songs whose premise is equally juvenile, gross, or nonsensical but that swing on both fronts because of impeccable musicianship delivered with a straight-faced swagger belying the underlying nonsense. Samberg became a huge star by mining that juxtaposition between brashness and buffoonishness, aided immeasurably by his lifelong writing partners. (No word as to Jorma Taccone’s absence in front of the camera tonight, although the piece probably does work best as a two-hander.)

And then there’s the gross-out factor, another Lonely Island element that works better than it should because of how knowingly it’s shoved down our throats like so much bathroom sashimi. Alongside such nimbly stupid lyrics as “But you wanna be discreet/Cant be eating omakase in the middle of the street,” the sight of cast members Devon Walker, Chloe Fineman, Mikey Day and more all greedily opening up so some unseen hand can shove lovingly prepared raw fish into their mouths is gross, sure. But in the vibe of the song’s Shark Tank-style pitch to a trio of horrified investors, the spectacle emerges like what it is—the feverish brainstorm of a couple of high-grade weirdos with a dream.

When reality threatens that dream, it also intrudes into the guys’ pitch, their scripted and repeated “Hear us out!” chorus obviously anticipating that the world may not be ready for an immediate all-night, on-demand anonymous bathroom sushi delivery concern competing with the inevitable dicks on offer in the next stall. (Their pitch does incorporate the warning that, yeah, there are gonna be some dicks in the vicinity, so going in for their service while drunk is not a wise idea.) I gripe about this cast (of an unweildy 17 performers) getting the afterthought treatment more often than not these days. And, you know, I am correct. But all my crankiness crumbles in the face of something this impeccably strange and funny from a group of writer-performers who so effortless slip right back into the Saturday Night Live groove.

Political Comedy Report

Well, at least it was shorter. But kid Saturday Night Live‘s latest iteration of the ringer-studded, watery political cold open. Taking on this week’s Vice Presidential debate between Tim Walz (ringer Jim Gaffigan) and J.D. Vance (actual cast member Bowen Yang), the sketch mainly stuck to the SNL satirical template of plucking a few sound bites and insisting that that’s the same as writing jokes.

Par for the course there, although at least the show could pluck more judiciously. Giving disproportionate time to Walz’s single debate whoopsie regarding some hazy details about a trip to China over Vance’s debate-long string of brazen lying is a choice, and a telling one. When you bring in Gaffigan to ape Walz’s Midwestern dad bluster, you’re going to play up what brought him in the door in the first place. And so Walz emerges as a glad-handing goof whose earnest but unpolished performance is given a bigger focus than Vance’s practiced, scrubbed-for-undecided voters stream of creepy untruths and evaded answers. Playing to your guaranteed easy laughs in important comedic situations like this isn’t just lazy, it’s irresponsible, verging on disqualifying.

As Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff, all-star alums Maya Rudolph and Andy Samberg are, despite my gripes, most welcome. Nobody but Maya would do as Harris, and Samberg is an inspired choice, making Emhoff’s contented second banana beam with amorously supportive cheese boards and wine. That the sketch portrays the couple as being aghast at Gaffigan’s bumbling approximation of Walz’s more than adequate debate performance is less about how the straightforward Walz did than about these sketches needs as constructed. It’s the sketch pulling the horse.

That Dana Carvey was also back into the fold to beat the lame duck that is Joe Biden for being—and wait if you’ve heard this before—an old guy, well, he’s hardly the first comic to settle on “old” as an impression. I got some heat for saying that justified SNL legend Carvey’s impressions too often lapse into the one catchphrase he thinks will stick with viewers, but that’s what he does, so sorry/not sorry. (Look back at his Mickey Rooney, George W. Bush, Paul McCartney, et all and tell me I’m wrong.)

There’s a fine, silly bit of business where ice cream-loving Biden absently smears his cone all over Maya’s kisser, causing the sort of shared giggle-fit that makes you forget all this talk of satirical principles and comic responsibility. And, sure, we all could use a little break from the god-awful seriousness underlying every late-night zinger. But downplay substance for silliness, half-decent impressions, and glib, heat-seeking quote-pulls and, again, SNL is making a choice to take the road of least resistance/broadest, blandest appeal.

Yang’s Vance does capture some of the GOP Veep pick’s terminally unsuccessful efforts to put actual humans at ease. “I understand both moderators tonight are mothers and… I like that,” emerges from Yang’s beady-eyed Vance in nearly as creepy a manner as the original. As news continues to come out about Vance’s ties to genuinely creepy people and organizations with some decidedly dystopian ideas about how women should be treated, more eyes will be on Bowen than on the average guy picked to play a Vice Presidential candidate, and Yang feels confident in the role. Which is nice, and which also makes you wonder what other cast members might have brought to the table if not for Lorne going to his buddies for sure-fire morning-after clicks.

As for the substance (so called) of the heavily scripted debate itself, Vance’s big self-burn in whining about the moderators pointing out that he was spinning a racist whopper about Ohio’s Haitian immigrants being “illegal” was dispensed with in Yang’s “Don’t fact-check this” asides. Meanwhile, Walz’s impassioned response to vance refusing to commit to certifying a Donald Trump election loss or admit that Trump lost the 2020 election is presented as Gaffigan’s one last “Hail Mary” attempt to stave off a disastrous debate—which his was not. Again, these are choices, and they don’t reflect well on Saturday Night Live being the relevant satirical enterprise it would like people to think it is.

Not Ready for Prime Time Power Rankings

Jane Wickline for the win. Apart from doing able work as the one sane presence in the water slide sketch (straight-person is a deceptively tough role for anybody), getting the first Update piece out of the three new featured players is a big head start. Not that this is a contest or anything, but with a cast of 17, some people are definitely going to lose. In contrast, I didn’t catch Ashley Padilla at all tonight, while I’m pretty sure that was Emil Wakim in the Dracula makeup. Hang in there, new kids.

At the big kids’ table it’s Heidi Gardner, as she launched herself into one of the most impressively gross sketches in a while with the gullet of a champion. Adding to the sheer chutzpah of her assault on that burger abomination, Gardner acted her ass off throughout the whole sloppy ordeal, her solicitous asides to her family-in-law managing to emerge through her overstuffed cheeks with genuine and hilarious sincerity. (Bonus points to Sarah Sherman for mostly maintaining while Gardner emphasized her latest point by smearing her gooey fingers all over—and into, Sherman’s face.)

Bowen’s got his Vance, a less showy impression than the ringers give, but perhaps a trickier one to pull of as well as he does. Not much Ego or Kenan tonight, while everybody else made up for overall underuse with shots of them greedily eating raw fish through a hole in the wall.

10-To-1 Report

Sometimes a 10-to-1 sketch becomes a 12:27-to-1 sketch. Timings get thrown off by muffed lines, too-long musical numbers, extended audience reactions to obligatory celebrity cameos—you name it. Tonight saw this sketch about a losing football team’s halftime inspiration speech being hijacked by Bargatze’s money-strapped assistant coach get rushed out the door for the goodnights. It’s not a tragedy—once the premise became apparent (Bargatze’s coach can’t stop obsessing over the money he’s owed by the players’ families for the new uniforms), the sketch didn’t have too many places to go.

But there are enough little touches that make me wish this one were given a little more time to breathe. Andrew Dismukes (this SNL‘s babyfaced assassin of weird) plays the head coach, whose would-be rousing speech (accompanied by some evocative Friday Night Lights guitar noodling) keeps getting undermined by Bargatze’s Coach Walsch (“Wals-c-h—there’s a ‘c” in there”) interjecting about how to write out checks for those outstanding payments he’s owed. And Bargatze kept finding incrementally different shades to his underplaying, here finding the singleminded, stubborn, inappropriateness of a guy who just wants the damn 20 dollars he was promised, you guys.

I’m always tickled when an elaborately mounted sketch (here necessitating a full set of lockers and a dozen or so full football uniforms on Devon Walker, Michael Longfellow, Marcello Hernandez, and some extras) gets the bum rush on the show’s way out the door. Saturday Night Live is such a monied enterprise in its 50th season that you can only smile at the thought of Lorne hand-waving the costume budget for an eccentric little three-minute goodbye sketch. And if the show is going to toss around resources for a goofy little writers premise like this one, it’s preferable to another recurring bit, so I’m on board.

Stray Observations

Slightly off topic but history will never forgive us for not going to see Popstar: Never Stop Stopping in the the theater. A Lonely Island cinematic universe could have been ours, people.

Heidi Gardner and Mikey Day wore t-shirts emblazoned with Dana Carvey characters on them to the goodnights, so, hey, maybe this cast isn’t as put out by all the stunt casting as I am.

He didn’t get much to do tonight, but Kenan simply throwing up his hands after General Washington once more skates right over the slavery question is a slice of fried gold.

Tonight’s “We’ve been on a half-century and everyone’s dying” tribute card went to one-time Season 1 host, Kris Kristofferson, who died this week at 88. There’s a lot to say about the hard-living Kristofferson, from his songwriting genius, to the time he stood up to the world by comforting Sinead O’Connor after her own Saturday Night Live outlaw musical appearance. (I hear Kristofferson’s “Don’t let the bastards get you down” in my ear when things get rough online.) But it should be remembered with great respect that Kristofferson, appearing with then-wife Rita Coolidge as his musical guest, was perhaps the first SNL host who showed up completely hammered and had the cast and crew of the fledgeling comedy show wondering if they’d have to play his parts in fake beards. I can only echo sadly Kristofferson’s line from Alan Rudolph’s unjustly forgotten 1984 movie Songwriter, “You good-lookin’ son of a bitch, don’t you never die.”

“Community college is college when they’re like, ‘You’re probably staying in your community.'”

Nate Bargatze

[Dreaming about the dollar bill] “‘And what shall be on the back of it?’ ‘Everything, all of it.'”

George Washington (Nate Bargatze)

“‘And we will create our own foods and name them what we want. Like the hamburger.’ ‘Made of ham, sir?’ ‘If it only were that simple.'”

George Washington (Nate Bargatze)

“Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to North Carolina to survey damage from the hurricane, which is the second time this year she swooped in after a huge disaster. [Shows picture of the first presidential debate.]”

colin jost

“This week, Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted, ‘Yes, they can control the weather.’ And I don’t know why ‘they’ is but it has been a suspiciously nice Rosh Hashanah weekend.”

michael che

“It was reported that Donald Trump has refused to release his medical records and I bet I know what he’s hiding, but I’m not allowed to dementia-n it.”

michael che

Episode Grade: B

Next week: No offense to the Wicked star, but am I the only one wishing host Ariana Grande and musical guest Stevie Nicks swapped roles for the night? Plus, how is Stevie Nicks not in the witch musical? These are the questions I think of at 3 a.m.