The newly minted Oscar nominee brings her acting chops and charm to Studio 8H during a dark weekend for the country.
Photo: Will Heath/NBC
Well, it’s a dark weekend for the country. That’s nothing new, really, and Saturday Night Live has been working around national tragedies since forever anyway. Addressing ICE’s murder of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis was always going to be difficult in sketch comedy form, especially without much time to prepare. So it’s not totally SNL’s fault that it couldn’t always meet the moment in this episode, though there are enough acknowledgments of Minneapolis (along with the usual Trump focus) that the episode doesn’t feel entirely toothless.
The newly Oscar-nominated Teyana Taylor is the latest host whose acting chops are wasted, though her good energy and gameness shone through even when the writing didn’t have much to offer her. In a charming enough monologue, Taylor insisted that she doesn’t like attention, only to show us footage proving she did, in fact, always love attention. For those who only know Taylor for her work in film or music (or aren’t familiar with her at all), it’s a good introduction, showing off her eclectic mix of skills and accolades. (She first appeared on MTV’s My Super Sweet Sixteen; she won The Masked Singer; she’s currently in culinary school.) And the kicker with her kids “cheering her on” from the audience was cute.
In the sketches, Taylor occasionally got to show off her singing and dancing talent — particularly when playing an 87-year-old bald man getting down to Earth, Wind and Fire at the wedding of his grandson. (There’s an amusingly obvious stunt dancer swap toward the end.) But often she wasn’t really the focus. She and Kenan Thompson shared vocals as gate agents Shrimp & Grits, but their tunes about flight delays are only mildly funny; James Austin Johnson’s drunk pilot is probably the most memorable part, sobering up instantaneously with Pedialyte.
Some of the premises this time were strong, though their execution left something to be desired. Ashley Padilla anchored the confidence class sketch, with Taylor showing up as one of the many students openly poking at their coach’s supposed self-assurance. It’s funny-ish, especially when the coach skips wordlessly through the rest of her slideshow at the end. And the “Beyond the Headlines” PBS show took some deserved shots at tone-deaf white liberals who keep stressing the unprecedented nature of the federal occupation in Minneapolis without recalling the countless times law enforcement waged war on Black Americans. SNL has done versions of this before, and the point is well-made, but it also can’t help feeling like a bit of a distraction from the urgency of what is happening right now — or a way of wriggling out of addressing what happened to Alex Pretti head-on. I get that nobody wanted to talk or make jokes about that, but there were opportunities to at least take some risks here, and the episode fell short.
Here are the highlights:
Look, this wasn’t my favorite because Trump’s well-established narcissism and ego have already been thoroughly satirized (if you can even use that word) on the show, and there are so many bigger things to critique right now. But at least there’s an acknowledgment of the 1st Annual Trumps serving as a distraction from what’s going on with ICE, and there are a handful of funny moments adapting typical Trumpisms to an award-show setting. I snorted at the three camera shots of himself from different angles during the reading of the awards, for example, and at the multiple Best Kiss nominees for “Trump’s Ass,” and at “Eric, go to bed!” I never mind seeing more of Mike Myers’s Elon Musk, either.
It makes sense that Perfidia Beverly Hills would show up in some form in this episode, given that Taylor just got an Oscar nod for the role. But I didn’t expect her to arrive in this form. I was startled at how much I laughed at this one, especially compared to most of the material in this episode; it’s reliably hilarious to hear kids quote lines like “My name is Junglepussy” and “Do you like black girls? I love ’em!” I hate that I’m such a Paul Thomas Anderson bro that some of those action figures actually appeal to me — that snap-on pregnant belly? The light-up joint!? The 50-piece desert road with “so many rolling hills”? Some of these would actually sell among the me demographic, especially from the larger master set.
Your mileage may vary on this one. Taylor’s Lisa Salters didn’t have much to do besides saying “come on” over and over, but the wording of James Austin Johnson’s shoehorned Quefs ads got me sometimes, especially with the network sitcom overlay that keeps appearing at the bottom of the screen. That’s about it.
Update had some of the strongest jokes this week, including some jabs from Che at Ghislaine Maxwell and Stevie Wonder. (Sorry, those two shouldn’t be grouped together like that.)
And while I dislike SNL’s lazy reliance on sketches that revolve around Gen-Z slang, Marcello Hernández’s appearance as a translator did get some laughs out of me, mainly when it came to roasting Colin. (Whenever he uses a word, it immediately goes out of style.) I appreciated the cuts to gravestones, mourning “cap,” “chopped,” and then seven other phrases all at once.
Jeremy Culhane also debuted a new character: Mr. On Blast, who fires off limp one-liners roasting billionaires. I’m not sure he has the juice to become a successful recurring character on Update, but his appearance here is amusing enough, especially with the synths.
A solid sketch to end the show, with Martin Herlihy offering tips on how to get your partner to break up with you. Still feel like this was more funny-in-theory than hilarious in practice, but props to Herlihy for getting more of his solo stuff to air.
• I’m not somebody who feels super strongly about Geese one way or the other, but I did like the two performances here.
• “Hey, what do you think ‘Quefs’ is short for? Queer chefs?” “Let’s not guess, Troy.”
• “Taylor Swift has become the second youngest person inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame behind Stevie Wonder. The difference with Taylor is that they can’t just say they made her a plaque.”
• “Experts believe the decreasing number of Chinese children could have a devastating effect on my sneaker collection.”
• “Also opening soon: your aunt.”
• I don’t typically love Che’s jokes about Colin getting molested, but I did giggle at this one, particularly Colin’s “That wasn’t at dress rehearsal” reaction.
• As a reality TV fan who watches Survivor and The Traitors, “Backstab Island” should’ve been right up my alley. But it feels a little confused about what type of show it’s targeting — despite the ostensible take on deception-based competition reality, the one-liners feel more Bravo-esque. (Same goes for the guava juice-throwing.)
• I do like the idea of a contestant who totally subverts the traditional “I’m not here to make friends” philosophy, and Taylor plays that role well. (“I am here to make friends. It’s the only reason I’m here. I love people.”) But I also feel like a lot of Survivor contestants these days are the type who care more about making friends than backstabbing.
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