Lady Gaga Brings Some Welcome Weirdness to a Fun Saturday Night Live

And Your Host…

Nobody’s going to say that Lady Gaga wasn’t up for her daunting double-duty hosting/musical guest gig tonight. Apart from her two typically over the top, athletic musical numbers, the singer-actress did several on-camera quick changes, belted out two duets with a clearly having the time of his life Bowen Yang, and generally attacked every performance with a hungry eagerness to wow.

And she largely did. I might quibble that, Oscar nomination aside, Lady Gaga isn’t an acting natural, at least on live TV. There’s an effortful eagerness to please that never quite allows her to enter her characters completely. As seen in her two showstopper musical spectacles tonight, Gaga hurls herself at each moment, with the intention of smashing through the screen right into your house. And in those musical performances, she succeeds. The way second number “Killah” begins backstage with Gaga lurching through the SNL hallways (complete with overhead Busby Berkley synchronized dance spot) before she emerges to gleefully smash her shirtless drummer’s cymbals during a drum break, do one of those clothes-ripping quick changes, and never miss a note is some triumphant showmanship.

It’s bracing to see a performer visibly catching air after a song and to hear a few breathy mic pops amidst the flamboyant choreography. Flashy spectacle marks many an SNL musical performance, but—and here I’m looking at last week’s Tate McRae—often the meticulous design elements feel practiced and airless. Lady Gaga shows the work that goes into what she does.

In sketches, that eagerness works perhaps less well. She’s not bad in them, it’s more like she’s approaching each role like a new showcase to be attacked and overcome, which can feel a bit forced. Her monologue saw Gaga returning to a series of little shoulder shimmies that smacked of somebody who wasn’t quite sure what to do with herself. Still, live TV carries the highest degree of difficulty, and dinging a host for giving her all is all kinds of picky, even if, sure, Gaga was more “Gaga!” all night than she slipped in and out of character. When your whole persona is “larger than life,” asking you to just be a person is a big ask.

The Best and the Rest

The Best: I’m of two minds about Lorne’s product integration strategy over the past few years. Putting brands into sketches (often with specific slogans, price points, and the like) snags in my enjoyment of a sketch like a particularly inevitable splinter. On the other hand, the ability to jettison a few commercials at the top of the show allows things to flow a lot better. And so the Friendly’s sketch really annoyed the hell out of me at first, as the repeated name-dropping of the homely East Coast ice creamery’s “over 100 locations” stuck out awkwardly, just waiting to get under my skin.

But I’m gonna say—if Friendly’s signed off on this sketch, then the family-centric chain has more of a sense of humor than I’d ever have given it credit for. Goat demons, human sacrifice, and gouts and gouts of blood alongside your ice cream sundae isn’t on the usual menu at the place where my grandparents would take us for our Sunday Fishamajigs, is what this Boston boy is saying. The joke that poor Heidi Gardner is set up with the old “pretend it’s your birthday for free ice cream and a song” trick by her friends had to be setting up some swerve, but even I wasn’t expecting her to be chained into a Temple of Doom cage and have her heart ripped out (by Marcello Hernandez as Mola Ram, no less). Gaga, Kenan, and Sarah Sherman’s wait staff edge darker and darker with amusing commitment, culminating in Sherman’s gushing mouthful of blood and demon-modulated voice condemning the mendacious Gardner to eternal damnation for her crimes against casual chain dining.

And the commitment to the bit benefits from the specificity, as apparently Friendly’s corporate worships the Mesopotamian god-demon Lamashtu, the impressively goat-legged, horned beast-person who emerges thanks to the staff’s unholy summoning. The only bummer in this otherwise most welcome piece of elaborately provocative silliness is the clumsy botch job near the end, where either the blocking or the direction sapped the comic impact of Gardner’s heart-rip. Still, all hail SNL for getting strange with it, so I’m willing to forgive.

The Worst: Man, it was a good week for Latenighter‘s own Nick Riccardo to do a whole piece on the hard-working SNL puppeteers, huh? Apart from the adorable Pip in Dan Bulla’s new filmed piece (a mix of puppet and animation, anyway), we got a very good pug named Bailey in the post-monologue sketch. Taking over for a very good boy, Marcello Hernandez wound up cradling a mostly inanimate dog replica for the sketch’s on-luggage chase scene, which may stretch the definition of puppet, but I digress from a noisy, busy, and largely underwhelming sketch. (I did find it endearing how Marcello, required at one point to bellow to the rafters, kept stroking his canine co-star’s neck to keep him calm amidst all the noise. Marcello Hernandez is also a very good boy.)

But the sketch seemed so enamored of its green screen and its rideable luggage conceit that it became a case of the Samsonite wagging the sketch. There were a few eccentric touches that I liked—the way everyone hit the French accent while pronouncing the French cooking school Gaga’s aspiring chef is jetting off to was weird enough to be amusing, and the luggage-ridin’ biker gang gave James Austin Johnson a chance to really channel what a mutton-chopped scooter jokey might sound like.

But for a show-opener, it just didn’t have the confidence to set things roaring off like a motorized suitcase scooter with a global singing star astride it. Sometimes a sketch reveals the “hey, you know those rideable luggage deals? Why don’t we do something with that?” of its conception and never quite justifies itself apart from the prop work. In a solid show overall, this wasn’t a crippler or anything—I appreciated the show coming out of the gate with s loopy premise that incorporated so many would-be out there elements. As a sketch, though, this just didn’t cohere, especially in the all-important first slot.

I will say that, as in the “Killah” musical number, it was cool to see SNL breaking the backstage barrier by having Gaga’s airport rush drive through the “tunnel” under the bleachers on her way to the next set. SNL could do with more of that sort of playfulness. Break the proscenium, gang! It’s neat.

The Rest: There’s a species of SNL sketch that low-key works pretty much every time. Building on a specific cultural observation, the sketches pile on associated details, embroidering the initial premier with layers and layers of specificity enough to bury the petty little annoyance under waves of recognition laughs. Pick your own apple orchards. Those ubiquitous among certain demographics metal water bottles. And here, little red glasses.

Ego, Sarah Sherman, and Gaga all essay the roles of the sort of women who, the sketch contends, utilize those attention-grabbing little reading glasses as part of their costumed identity as individuals who “teach philosophy and eat tapas every night,” who are “very bad therapists,” and whose dress is always “a little bit Asian.” Reading The Kite Runner in full every morning on the toilet is another marker of red eyeglass wearers, along with having names like Bitsy, Titsy, or Rachel (Hebraic pronunciation). Also once having gone down on Leonard Cohen is also apparently a must.

It’s all gentle joshing, fueled by a trio of amusing performances, and all the funnier for how extended the comic takedown gets. Chloe Fineman even does a spot-on guest shot as Great British Baking Show’s perpetually color coordinated Prue Leith, lusting after Chuck Schumer’s signature red specs (and dropping a Linda Belcher reference, which always gets extra credit from me). It was Gaga’s most lived-in characterization of the night, and while hardly a gut-buster, the piece was assured and funny.

The funeral home sketch could have used a little goose to sell its conceit as funeral directors Gaga and Heidi Gardner repeatedly pitch a Roaring 20’s themed service to grieving daughter Ego. Hinging a sketch on one (or in this case two) character’s weird obsession has potential, but, apart from a nifty quick change into flapper gear at one point, there’s not enough snap to the joke.

Kenan (shocker) steals it when his 20’s-look bartender breaks character to commiserate with Nwodim about her father’s murder, noting that he’d listened to the podcast about it and nudging her to look out for boyfriend Andrew Dismukes, who is the only one into the murder mystery-themed 20’s idea. Again, I point to Gaga as the weak link here, with Gardner doing her best to keep things alive. A sketch based on obsession has to be anchored by someone who can sell the obsession with a straight face—nobody’s obsessions are funny to them, so playing it with commitment is key. Still, on a night with welcome weirdness throughout, the idea that Dismukes would propose to the bewildered Nwodim right in the midst of everything else was in the right spirit.

Writer Dan Bulla gets another showcase with his latest Midnight Matinee featuring some more of that puppet work I was talking about. Here, brought to life with a mix of meticulous miniature work and animation, is Pip, the mouse-sized mouse teenager in a classroom full of jeering human high schoolers. Encouraged by Gaga’s fellow student to follow his dream of winning the big school weightlifting tournament in spite of bully Marcello Hernandez’s mockery, Pip trains in his Wes Anderson-charming in-school mouse hole with the usual equipment—cheese barbells, hamster wheel, etc. And when the big day comes and Pip is confronted with Marcello’s 500-pound clean-and-jerk, he… fails, naturally. He’s a mouse, and two ounces is just too much.

Luckily (for Pip), the roof (set up as a hazard) caves in, and the assembled adults are two ounces too weak to save the students. Enter Pip, the roof is raised, and Marcello’s heartfelt thanks and explanation of the reasons for his assh*lery are cut short when Pip drops the enormous load, squishing his tormentor in a gory red explosion. As Gaga asks for reassurance that it was just too heavy, right?, Pip strides away, his signature silence left for us to interpret.

SNL pre-tapes are uniformly well shot and performed, and this is no exception. As ever, James Austin Johnson inhabits his teacher with underplayed aplomb, and the mouse-work is gently exquisite, exuding a touching charm, right up until Pip may or may not murder a kid. If I have a complaint, it’s that there isn’t much of a joke undergirding all the technical skills. But with Bulla getting the rare name-tagged showcase this season, I’m reminded how such boutiques within the SNL formula have paid off over the years. Sometimes a writer’s sensibilities get the nod from Lorne as unique enough to warrant five minutes in the rundown, and its’s usually a sound decision, bringing a signature shading to the usual proceedings. Bulla’s a weirdo with a taste for dark comedy, and the filmmaking on his pieces this far have served his out there ideas well.

Weekend Update Update

Jost and Che did their signature sniping double act, with perhaps a little more welcome vigor tonight. Every topical monologist and fake news show does Trump jokes now, and if you’re not going for depth and breadth like John Oliver, then putting a little mustard on your pitches and throwing high and tight is a good look. (Man, I cannot wait for baseball season.)

Trump and Musk’s various atrocities and stumbles fueled a few of the better one-liners. Jost alluded to Tesla’s plummeting stock and Trump’s idiot trade war by consoling those faced with 12 grand-higher new car prices that they can probably pick up a discarded Tesla for free. “Yeah, and nobody changed airport security faster than Bin Laden,” was Che’s retort to trump crowing at the State of the Union about how rapidly he’s transformed the government in his fascist power-grab.

Jost got a huge laugh by referring to a crazed-looking Musk photo by calling him “the white Kanye West,” and Che piled on with a reference to French and English leaders advising Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy how to deal with Trump from now on. “It’s like how you need special training to be a special ed teacher,” basically calls out Trump for being dangerous and insane, with Che doubling down on the theme by referring to Trump’s “bi-polar” off-and-on trade war threats.

Jost mocked the fact that under-investigation for sex trafficking failed senate candidate and pro wrestling exec Linda McMahon is now dismantling the Department of Education by simply showing her getting suggestively tombstone-piledrivered (piledrove?) by Kane. He also noted Donald Trump Jr’s apparent intention to run for president by musing, “Well, that’s how things work here in hell.” None of it is subtle, but it’s clever and mean, which is pretty much the only language likely to wound a pair of malignant, self-obsessed narcissists who are famously hate-watching, so have at ’em.

Correspondent-wise, Kenan continued his string of NBA impressions, here busting out former well-traveled player turned commentator Kendrick Perkins. Kenan isn’t an impressionist as such, so his Perkins rides on (slightly) exaggerated claims and fact-averse blather as apparently is Perkins’ way. (I don’t watch a lot of Inside the NBA but I get the gist.) Like his very funny LaVar Ball, Kenan’s Perk is all about confidently spouting escalating nonsense, with his estimation of LeBron James’ age leaping a decade between utterances while asserting that the NBA legend also just won the Tour de France. “I just be sayin’ things, Michael,” Kenan’s Perkins asserts at one point, which sums up the gag, but Kenan is so infectiously and invariably amusing that the minor key piece works just fine.

Mikey Day had a funny turn as Lord Gaga, a foppish textile magnate blissfully unaware of wife Lady Gaga’s success and stature. “I’m glad she has a hobby!,” is his Lordship’s condescending assessment, with Day having fun dropping lyrics from his wife’s songs that he’s apparently never heard. It’s all really just a set-up for some more Jost-bashing, which is a fruitful, decade-long Update theme. Hearing of his Lady’s supposed mountains of wealth, Day’s Lord booms out incredulously, “A man whose wife makes more money than he? Can you imagine?,” to Jost’s smirking discomfort. You get it.

Political Comedy Report

These opening Trump sketches are going to get more surreal as the actual Trump careens America straight through democracy’s roadblocks on its way to fascist oligarchy. James Austin Johnson’s characterization remains as impersonator immaculate as it is becoming less impactful under Saturday Night Live‘s ineffectual comic mandate not to upset too many people.

Tonight’s cold open hinges on the supposed friction between certain Trump cabinet members and unelected billionaire and Nazi-saluting, ketamine-chugging workforce chainsaw maniac Elon Musk, with Mike Myers returning to play the South African impregnation fetishist once again opposite JAJ’s Trump and Marcello Hernandez’s petulantly servile Marco Rubio. As for the New York Times report of cabinet members purportedly objecting to Musk’s firing sprees alongside his army of manchild tech bros with names like “Donkey Dog” and “Boner King” (according to JAJ’s Trump), I’ll believe it when I see it.

The Republican Party is now fully ensconced in Donald Trump’s capacious backside, snuggling in for the country’s ride into white supremacist authoritarianism and Putin-esque kleptocracy, and whatever niggles Rubio and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy (as reported) raised in their meeting with Trump and Musk I fully anticipate being steamrollered out in the mad rush to dismantle American democracy.

The sketch was both short and meandering. The idea of both Trump and Musk zoning out to muse their maniac thoughts in private is at least different, with JAJ’s Trump musing, “I’m thinking something and not saying it out loud… this could save me a lot of trouble.” Myers’ Musk is all tics and little leaps. He channels Musk’s offputting style fine, and his Musk’s own musing does lay out the calculating menace behind all the stupid hats and suspicious indoor sunglasses, as he reassures himself that all his recent setbacks (Tesla protests and tanking stock, reported loss of a hundred million or so, another rocket exploding and showering the country in garbage) are in service of “phase 1” of some supervillainy. (Cue Dr. Evil impression—hey, you get Mike Myers in the house, he’s gonna do schtick.)

Marcello’s Rubio initially exhibits more spine than I image the real article could muster, eventually collapsing under the weight of his own self-debasement in working for the person who’s done nothing but belittle and demean him. (Seriously, the wheels of the Trump bus have “Little Marco” written all over them. I’m predicting he’ll be squished underneath them by May.) The sketch nods toward some of Trump’s more high-profile bullsh*t along its pokey, ineffectual way. The whole “transgender mice” justification for gutting science finding is, again, complete bullsh*t, and JAJ’s Trump admits as such in private, explaining to Rubio, “I said it and it got a laugh and that’s addictive.” The whole English as official language thing has long been a jeering f-you from white conservatives, so Trump mocking Rubio by renaming him “Mark Ruby” at least illustrates his executive order’s true, trolling intention.

It’s all… fine. With a world-class Trump impression and a roomful of comedy writers presumably as plugged into the 24-hour doomscrolling cycle as the rest of us, a guaranteed five minute prime spot from which to take on what’s happening in the teetering, reeling, deeply imperiled country could be a potent, immediate, rapid-response satirical surgical strike each week. That is is [gesturing feebly] so reliably this is a failure, no matter how you look at it.

Reading interviews with SNL writers over the years, the complaint recurs that there are always smarter, funnier, more adventurous pieces presented at each week’s read-through than what we get on the show. It’s impossible not to look at the wealthy, self-regarding millionaire behind the whole enterprise and surmise why Saturday Night Live, despite its carefully curated rebel mythology and its live TV potential for incisive satire, consistently chooses the mushy, inoffensive middle. While JAJ’s Trump breezily assures the anxious Rubio, “America is doing bad guy now,” Saturday Night Live continues to act as if that’s just another joke.

Recurring Sketch Report

Midnight Matinee is a franchise, not a repeater. Big distinction.

Not Ready for Prime Time Power Rankings

Bowen Yang was pretty much living his best life all night. An avowed Lady Gaga enthusiast, Bowen got to mock himself by nervously jumping the musical intro during the monologue before joyously belting out the real one later, had not one but two duets with the singer, and was clearly in heaven. It was infectious, honestly. Bowen’s a big star on SNL, but there’s a special sort of live TV electricity when a cast member is clearly enjoying the experience as openly as Yang was all night.

Of the two numbers, I’ll throw in for the “Wonderful Tonight” restaurant duet, which tossed escalating weirdness in among Yang and Gaga’s first date singing. From Yang’s stated expertise in “wine, niche anime, and women,” to Gaga’s claim that her “heart belongs to someone else” referring to her transplant operation (“Thank god for motorcycles, right?”), the sketch builds up a nice stock of absurdity. I enjoy this sort of sketch, where the gradual reveal is that the people involved are singular loons, here Yang and Gaga’s match emerging as the perfect, gently silly storm of meth addiction, violent nipple play, and inexplicable anti-Italian bigotry. And if the joke about Bowen “coming into some money” isn’t the filthiest in a long while, it’s at least only the first of two “bust it/blast it” ejaculation jokes on the night. (Standards and Practices, my ass.)

After being completely absent from sketches last week, Michael Longfellow had a small but weird comeback tonight. In the above sketch, he showed off his ability to imbue a waiter with engagingly smirky menace, and then he and Jane Wickline earned some hazard pay by cradling a live, enormous, and very alert python in the Friendly’s sketch. Seriously you two—bank that assignment and cash it in when it comes to getting bumped up the cast list.

The mascara fake ad doubled as opportunity for all the female cast to get some screen time in a funny conceit about watered-down eye makeup made specifically to draw attention to yourself. Everybody got a little bit of business to do as they assured everyone around them that they are fine, dammit, even as the specially formulated mascara streams down their cheeks in passive-aggressive rivulets. SNL commercial parodies are so assured as a rule that it’s tempting to take them for granted, but this was a solid concept, executed well. And for Jane Wickline and Ashley Padilla, it put them right in the mix with the established stars for a change, which is a good look, featured player-wise.

10-To-Oneland Report

It’s the Bowen and Gaga musical hour once more in the 10-to-one slot, as their pair of brunchers rise to take their friends to task with a song about their effortful parroting of camp catchphrases. Their duet is entitled “No More Slay,” but Yang and Gaga also take their pals to task for being in their 40s and dropping terms like “giving,” “bop,” “flex,” “oomphy,”and, more elaborately, “pooing in the mother toilet” and “blowing slay chunks and vomiting into the mother back(?).” (I am old, straight, white, and more prone to sit at home rewatching John Sayles movies than hitting the clubs, so I’m taking gay icons Yang and Gaga’s word that these are terms in actual rotation.)

Yang has brought a lot of welcome, unapologetic gayness to SNL‘s cultural comedy, and if some of his influence is lost on some of SNL‘s audience, well, how does it feel to be excluded for a change? The point about straights airily appropriating queer trappings (“queening out” in the sketch’s parlance) simply isn’s a point of view Saturday Night Live has been in a position to reckon with in the past, and Yang and Gaga belting out this very specific complaint with such gusto is niche in the best of ways. Plus, here’s to Bowen for, again, living his best life. (That may or may not be the sort of cliché the sketch is making fun of. I’ll never know.)

Stray Observations

Lots of monologue mea culpas for Joker: Folie á Deux from Gaga tonight. Noting her “win” at the beyond-tiresome and frequently wrong Razzies (although not in Joker’s case), Gaga noted she’s on her way to an EGORT, which “is like an EGOT but it’s hurtful.”

Gaga also felt the need to apologize for her “featuring” guest singer from her 2013 SNL appearance. Honestly, if R. Kelly got that handsy with me onstage, I’d feel kind of icky about it, too.

This review didn’t go up late, it’s Daylight Savings Time. As Colin Jost noted, “Tomorrow is the start of Daylight Savings Time, when we set out clocks ahead. Ideally, four years.”

How are we feeling about companies turning old SNL sketches into commercials and then airing them during SNL? Tonight, I got a The Californians and a Delicious Dish, while current cast members from Kenan to Marcello, to Sarah and Bowen, to Ego all routinely pop up as if SNL were bleeding into the network feed like some sort of lucrative double-reverse product integration. The membrane between art and advertising is getting awfully thin, y’all.

Che’s habitual mockery of women’s sports just won’t die. I suppose tonight’s joke was more about calling male soccer players gay or something, which… nope, not better.

Jost, pretending to jump on Trump’s obsessive Canada hate, refers to our beleaguered upstairs neighbors as “those syrup-guzzling, poutine-munching, moose-humping hockey sluts,” while accusing “filthy Canadian” of stealing American sketch comics’ jobs. [Cue Mike Myers photo.]

Episode Grade: B-Minus for sometimes unrealized ambitions.

No announcement tonight of who the next host will be, and when. (Next week’s Chris Rock/Gracie Abrams episode is a repeat from December.) So see you when I see you.