Saturday Night Live takes on Luigi Mangione’s arrest, Donald Trump’s very good year, racism, office Christmas parties, Sabrina Carpenter’s lack of a sexuality scandal, and more as Chris Rock fumbles, but still delivers.
We honestly thought there’d be more of a 50th anniversary celebratory feeling with former cast member — albeit short-lived — Chris Rock returning to Saturday Night Live, to be followed by former cast member Martin Short next week. It felt like the celebrations would begin, but that didn’t happen.
Instead, we just got a fairly typical SNL, with a huge surprise later in the show when Adam Sandler showed up to completely knock the show off the tracks and deliver some of the biggest laughs of the whole season. It looked half unscripted, it was a literal and figurative mess, and we could not stop laughing!
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As for Rock, he was confident enough to take the lead in most of the sketches, and just shaky enough with his line deliveries — and badly reading them from the cue cards — to hinder their momentum. This problem did get better as the night wore on, and he was luckily also supported by some great work from the whole cast.
As expected, suspected shooter Luigi Mangione was a hot topic in both the off-kilter Nancy Grace Cold Open for the show, as well as Michael Che and Colin Jost on “Weekend Update.” Less expected was a commentary (in song) about Sabrina Carpenter’s lack of sexuality scrutiny.
There was a lot of great racial commentary in Rock’s distinct style, as well as something of a rarity for the show these days; the return of a popular recurring character, this one from 22-season veteran Kenan Thompson.
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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Monologue: Chris Rock
In a solid and confident standup monologue, and after expressing “real condolences” for the UnitedHealthcare CEO who got shot and killed, Rock noted, “Sometimes drug dealers get shot.” He then went on to rail against the tough year his people — Black people — have had, including 27-year-old Jake Paul beating up on a 58-year-old Mike Tyson, and then going in on Trump’s big victory and his plans to deport everyone with the richest African-American in the world … Elon Musk. “Nobody knows how to get rid of people like a South African,” he quipped.
Simpsons Secret Santa
We didn’t expect the direction this Secret Santa went in, and Rock’s fumbling line deliveries didn’t help much, but it was still an enjoyable romp into the world of The Simpsons after he received a gift of himself in the likeness of the hit show’s characters. We also got a laugh out of Chloe’s reaction to her gift of tampons — which worked whether she was supposed to be joking or not. More a slice-of-life sketch, this proved to have a sweetness behind it, even as it strayed more and more from plausibility.
Blind Date
There were no real surprises in this one as Rock’s character obviously lies his way into a blind date with Ego Nwodim, but we respect the directness of his request to go have sex in his car. From there, the sketch moved as you might expect, with a nice enough twist at the end when her real date finally showed up. There weren’t necessarily any huge laughs to be had, but rather this was a bit that left you with a slight smile. It was enjoyable enough with some pleasant chuckles along the way.
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Which Santa?
“Which Santa?” A pretty barbed look at bias and subtle racism with a mall offering more than one Santa option and Chris Rock’s elf wrangler joyfully asking primarily white families which one they’d like to have their picture taken with. It starts with just white and Black Santas, but the list does expand as it moves on. There was some great justifications from the various guests as to why they might choose the white one. The biggest problem the sketch had was Rock stumbling all over his lines throughout, but all in all, it was a very clever premise executed well by all parties.
Cold Open: Nancy Grace
Sarah Sherman gets the spotlight at the top of the show with a wild Nancy Grace impression where she’s basically inventing some kind of Brit-Southern-hick-ccent on the fly. Nevertheless, it was a fun impression as it went along, adding to her exploration of the country’s thirsty reaction to suspected healthcare CEO shooter Luigi Mangione. We did appreciate the abrupt cutting off of guests, as well as the random ad interruptions on a YouTube feed, as that captures two annoying things viewers would experience on that show. Emil Walkim touched base as someone who vaguely resembles the suspected shooter, but honestly, we’d have been just as satisfied reading more of those thirst tweets! Can you believe what is going on in this “cruntree”?
Grandpa’s Magic Car, Kirby
An old jalopy from the 1950s reveals its true colors. Just the visual of Kirby coming to life, opening its doors to invite the grandson and his friends inside and then slamming them shut before Rock, Ego Nwodim, and Devon Walker could get in, leaving the three of them standing outside, was perfection. That moment cemented what was happening, but we loved the rest of the details about the magic car’s personality that emerged, as well as the way the sketch wrapped his story. It was strong enough without the tag slapped on, too.
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Your Office Christmas Party
The accuracy! This over-the-top “extreme” ad for an office Christmas party seems to hit all of the beats as to why your company may just decide to cancel the event next year and give everyone a fruit cake instead. All the major players are there, from the guys dancing on the table, to work spouses meeting real spouses, to that one coworker’s exhausting Secret Santa. This piece was delivered rapid-fire with great monster-truck-style gusto that should make anyone invited (read as obligated) to one give pause and consider calling in sick that day.
Weekend Update
Coiln Jost and Michael Che were welcomed by a rowdy and fired-up audience, later patting themselves on the back for getting at least four groans in a row. Those were well-earned, though, with some great jokes about Luigi Mangione’s “hypocrisy,” the mysterious New Jersey drones, Matt Gaetz moving to OAN, and RFK wanting to revoke polio vaccine approval. Honestly, they were on fire tonight, regardless of audience enthusiasm, with some great political commentary in this first section.
Just a fantastic performance from Andrew Dismukes as a bald man who will not be made fun of, despite all of his efforts to give Jost reason after reason to do just that. Even as Jost could not keep it together, Andrew impressively did. His commitment to the character and the absurdity of some of his claims and actions only made this bit even funnier. This was a huge success from start to finish.
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The audience was a little calmer, but the boys still delivered with solid material about “porn literacy,” Michelob Ultra becoming the number one draft beer in America, and a groaner we really appreciated about Krispy Kreme’s cybersecurity. All in all, this was a very strong night for the duo and the writing team.
After a mixed first song appearance on “Update,” Jane came back far more confident and with an even funnier song with her acting as Sabrina Carpenter asking what a pop star has to do to get some LGBTQIA+ speculation around here. Kiss Jenna Ortega? Yeah, that doesn’t seem to matter. Fruitcake? Nothing? Really!? How about kissing a female alien at the VMAs? The premise was both silly and actually pretty accurate, leaving you wondering why there is no speculation or outrage about her either being a part of that community or pandering to them.
Charlie Fired
We have to wonder if Rock requested this sketch, as we know hosts sometimes want to visit some of their favorites, as he worked alongside Kenan Thompson’s inappropriate front desk worker Charlie as they apologize for being inappropriate. Even though we’ve seen it before, Kenan’s impish performance as Charlie, recalling how sexually awful he was (to everyone’s shared delight) remains as charming as ever. Even the anticipated twist at the end was still fun. Sometimes dipping into a familiar well again pays off.
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Surgery
As gruesome as this was visually, it could have easily been closer to the top of the show as it was brilliantly funny in the most off-the-rails way. Adam Sanderl makes a surprise appearance as the patient in this operating room sketch, immediately seems to ignore half of the script to riff on the cast members — and give a shout-out to newcomer Emil Wakim — and Rock. Sarah was also fantastic as a whiny, insecure, and incompetent worker more worried about her feelings than anything else. Every bit of this worked even as it completely fell apart and nearly descended into chaos. This was an instant classic, thanks to Adam, mishaps, and Sarah’s work.
PLAYER OF THE WEEK
There were a lot of supporting roles and ensemble pieces throughout the night with great work from everyone in the cast with the moments they were given. We have to give particular credit to all of those who had to work opposite Adam Sandler’s arterial spray in this one as he was relentless (and liberal) in its usage.
Kenan Thompson brought back one of his funniest characters with Charlie, the deeply inappropriate front desk guy at a corporate office building, in one of the night’s strongest sketches. There’s just a charm in his delivery where we found we couldn’t be mad at him, either. And no one could pull off a role like that better than Kenan, who’s just so likable in the role.
We were happy to see more air time for this season’s three new Featured Players, with Jane getting another shot at the “Update” desk, which she killed with her very funny Sabrina Carpenter song, while both Ashley Padilla and Emil Wakim were stronger than ever in key support roles.
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But all of that brings us to what felt like this week’s obvious winner. Not only did Sarah Sherman show up in almost every sketch throughout the night, she made the most of all of those appearances, and managed to open the show with a delightfully off-kilter Nancy Grace impression and hold her own opposite Sandler as a needy hospital employee.
The rise of Sarah in her fourth season from a quirky, unique personality who struggled with traditional sketch work into a utility player who can seemingly step into almost any role and make it work has been incredible to watch. She’s quickly become one of this cast’s leaders and comedy powerhouses.
That said, we do kind of miss some of the weird Sarah moments that really shined in her early years. When is she going to take over “Update” again to give us Sarah’s take on the news again — which is really where her tearing into Jost took off.
Sarah is proving a great sketch performer, but don’t lose what made you and us fall in love with her in the first place. She has a unique comedic style that deserves to shine, too!
Saturday Night Live’s 50th season continues next week with host and SNL alum Martin Short and musical guest Hozier.
