It’s not even close as Tina Fey and Candice Bergen help usher Emma Stone into Saturday Night Live Five-Timers Club, George Santos gets musical send-off, AI gets Please Don’t Destroy test run, and a smarmy cigarette takes on vaping in season’s funniest episode by a mile.
There’s a reason Emma Stone is a Saturday Night Live five-timer. She really is that good every single time she hosts this show. She dominated tonight’s episode and it was the funniest SNL has been all season by a mile.
Fellow five-timers Tina Fey and Candice Bergen were on hand to welcome her to the hallowed halls of the Club as its 26th member — and sixth woman. As Candice was the first woman to join the club, it was special that she was on hand to describe the special women’s section that she created. It’s even more exclusive than the men’s side!
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As a testament to how strong Emma is as a host, most of the cast played second fiddle to her lead performances all night long, but it was clear they were happy to do so. She slipped into the ensemble seamlessly with the kind of performance that makes you realize how good she could have been as a cast member. And that’s a rare feat for a guest.
Emma also brought back one of her own recurring characters, though Marcello Hernandez replaced Pete Davidson, when she slipped back into her daffy poster pinup trying to help a hapless teen study for an upcoming exam. It’s just one of Emma’s stellar performances that set such a high bar.
It’s early yet in the season, but for overall consistency and quality of sketches throughout the night — there were maybe three that were sub-par — this is going to be a hard episode for anyone to beat this season. It’s already the funniest so far, but can anyone beat it? Time will tell.
As usual, we’re ranking all the sketches from worst to first, including the Monologue, Cold Open, “Weekend Update” and any sketches that were cut for time but made their way online. We’ll skip the musical guests, because they’re not usually funny — unless Ashlee Simpson shows up. We wrap up with a look at the cast-member who had the strongest week.
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Trese Tree Lighting
These Trese Henderson sketches usually go for it a lot more than this one did, but the entire roster has changed. Bowen Yang slides in for Kyle Mooney as the straight man of the piece with the raspy voice while it was Emma Stone who set up the disaster that left Trese distressed, this time about a type of shoe we’ve never heard of (and neither has anyone else). The beats of the sketch were familiar, but without the usual outlandishness. It just felt like a very random way to reach back and bring back a recurring character. Trese was only funny when it was so over-the-top you couldn’t believe what you were hearing or seeing and this wasn’t that.
Diet Coke by Olay
Pretty thin premise but amusing to see the ladies of SNL slamming this Diet Coke on their faces like it’s some kind of skin cream. We did enjoy the little comments along the way, like how it widens pores and defines wrinkles, but the piece lacked any big laughs beyond the initial shock that it’s Diet Coke. The ladies were committed to the sketch and it perfectly mimicked Olay advertisement, but it wasn’t nearly as strong as most fake ads. We suspect it was dropped at the end as something that would fit the time left, but it’s also indicative that maybe the show knew it wasn’t that strong, either.
What’s in the Kiln?
The characters created by Chloe Fineman and Heidi Gardner were definitely a lot of fun, and we dig the dubious quality of their work, but the buildup to what guest Emma Stone made, as well as the reveal of what it was and the wrap-up for the whole sketch, was all a bit underwhelming. The premise of these women being objectively terrible at their chosen craft has been done before and is ripe for fresh laughs, but this one just kind of flopped in the back half.
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Monologue: Emma Stone
With this being her fifth time hosting, Emma got ushered into the ranks of the Five-Timers Club in this monologue. We were kind of hoping for a full sketch as we’ve seen in the past with more five-timer cameos, but she was simply presented her jacked and welcomed to “herstory” by Tina Fey and Candice Bergen. They talked about the new women’s section of the club, which Candice designed, and dropped a few insider jokes about the various members like John Mulaney and Woody Harrelson, while burning Martin Short who falls just shy (though he was a cast member for a season). It was pretty tame as these things go, but in the annals of SNL lore, it was nevertheless a big deal and an exciting continuation of this tradition.
Please Don’t Destroy: AI
The randomness of a sketch that periodically dropped in just awful AI renditions to replace the various characters, including Emma, was made even funnier by Punkie Johnson stepping in as Emma’s body-double and taking her portrayal into unexpectedly raunchy territory, while Marcello suddenly replaced Ben Marshall and spoke almost exclusively Spanish. The beats of the sketch as written were relatively funny, but the AI swapping took it to that next level where it was so beyond ridiculous, we found ourselves anxiously awaiting the next swap.
Poster Physics
An Emma Stone recurring character, “Hell, yeah!” Her dimwitted poster girl again had us cracking up as she idiotically tried to help Marcello Hernandez with his physics homework. The other posts were certainly distracted by her, as well, but it’s Emma’s portrayal that usually brings the biggest laughs. This time, though, everyone dogging Mikey Day’s portrayal of David Beckham as not being nearly as handsome was pretty funny — especially as the last time it happened, it kind of looked like Mikey wasn’t expecting it and had to play it off. It was a fun side gag that really landed.
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Cold Open: Goodbye George
We knew that this week might be the swan song for Bowen Yang’s George Santos considering the expulsion and indictment, but we had no idea what an epic sendoff they would plan. What started as a press conference, that Bowen’s Santos called, and a continuing string of ridiculous lies escalated until it was a full-on parody of Elton John’s “Candle in the Wind” tweaked for Santos and delivered with real gusto by Bowen. He’s always excelled in this caricature, but it was next level in this cold open. All of the little character flourishes he added were both completely recognizable and made this feel like a truly lived-in impression; easily one of the best we’ve seen in the past several years on the show. This is the kind of opening you want to see to get you excited about what’s to come.
Make Your Own Kind of Music
An incredible performance by Emma Stone recreating various movie scenes to the music of Mama Cass, played and sung by Chloe Troast (who’s really getting to use her singing voice these past few episodes). Emma was a tour de force in this one from vignette to vignette, with Mikey Day, Bowen Yang, and Andrew Dismukes doing a great job as the men she’s performing off of in those shorts. The final twist at the end was actually completely earned thist time, both fitting the sketch and elevating with a final punch(line).
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Weekend Update
Colin Jost slayed with his “rizz” joke — a joke delivered so well, we shan’t spoil it here — while Michael Che burned his co-anchor with an “Orange Jesus” joke that was as funny as it was obviously going to happen. The boys were giggly through this first segment, but delivered some funny jokes about George Santos, Elon Musk and Melania Trump attending Rosalyn Carter’s funeral.
Sharply written and another great showcase for Michael Longfellow, who’s smarmy delivery works perfect for this “bad boy” cigarette. His playing off of the stereotypes about Colin Jost made him a great guest to spar with the anchor, even going so far as to call him a Hitler defender in the night’s biggest surprise laugh to this point. We were actually expecting Bowen Yang — the king of inanimate object guests — to take on this, but Michael knocked it out of the park.
This whole back half, which was filled with great jokes about the guy caught getting nekkid at a Disney theme park, Sports Illustrated’s AN controversy and a diabetes walking sound effect, was a build-up toward Colin Jost being able to tell a joke about a three-year cruise canceled because they couldn’t find a boat. But longtime viewers no exactly who could have solved that problem — and we could have gotten a great Pete Davidson cameo, to boot. Short and sweet, this was still one of the season’s strongest “Update” segments.
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Fully Naked in New York
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If you ever wanted to fantasize about the SNL cast naked, this was your sketch. Aside from one issue with the blur on Chloe Troast, the illusion wasn’t too bad throughout this piece as a series of down-in-the-dumps New Yorkers celebrate the best way to cheer up, which is to do thankless work in the city while bare-a– naked. This was the kind of catchy number we could easily hear on a Broadway stage from the song itself to the various antics of the cast members and how they’re keeping busy while nude — bonus shoutout to Sarah Sherman for obviously being the one trying to catch rats. We couldn’t stop laughing or smiling as this one played out with great enthusiasm and charm from the “naked” players.
Question Quest
Now this is how you do a game show sketch. All it took was the addition of a huge tortoise that lives 150-190 years as the first prize and we got comedy gold. Michael Longfellow was incredible in the much-used game show host role with the added layer of his clear disdain for the tortoise and a bit of a sadistic streak (think Bill Hader). He played it off beautifully, creating great comedic moments opposite Emma’s shock and horror. Heidi Gardner was a typical peppy player while Punkie Johnson brought the comedy around with a whole different approach as an enthusiastic idiot. We don’t want to spoil any of what’s going on in this because it is just about a flawless sketch.
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PLAYER OF THE WEEK
This week was mostly an ensemble show and very much a show that had faith in its host. Emma Stone was the star of almost every sketch and in a dominating way. She was incredible in every performance, committed fully to a wide range of outlandish characters, and we don’t think she broke once!
The cast members who found a way to shine next to her were Bowen Yang, Punkie Johnson and one of our newer faces. Bowen was brilliant, as always, in his George Santos impression, and was great in the NY Nude musical number, but we found ourselves more impressed with Punkie Johnson this week.
She was cracking us up as the secondary source of humor in the game show sketch and then had us dying with her portrayal as Emma Stone in the “Please Don’t Destroy” piece. Punkie has really grown into a great sketch performer on the show, settling into her persona and being able to bring recognizable laughs because we get who and what she is as a comic actor.
This was the week for Michael Longfellow, though, who had what we would argue was his breakout night as a sophomore cast member. His comedic personality was cemented with great performances in the game show sketch and on “Weekend Update” and he’s fitting a slot the show otherwise does not have brilliantly.
Not only was he at home as a game show host — a much-used role on the show — but he brought something fresh to it with his dry sarcasm and charming nastiness. That characterization was amped up as the “Update” cigarette, cementing him as someone who’s found a great niche for his approach and someone who’s settling into this live format. He’s well on his way to becoming an indispensable part of the ensemble.
“Saturday Night Live” returns next week with host Adam Driver and musical guest Olivia Rodrigo.
