“Because These Men Ain’t What?”: Ego Nwodim is Saturday Night Live’s MVP

“Miss Eggy is my stand-up persona, now let me cook!” demanded Ego Nwodim, shushing Colin Jost in front of the Weekend Update desk. This episode had everything: host Jack Black singing My Chemical Romance, Mike Myers as Cheesehead Elon Musk, Elton John in neon green glasses pounding the keys, Brandi Carlile up in the air with Black straddling her from behind, Bill Burr and Kieran Culkin in the audience, and two jokes about Morgan Wallen ditching last week’s goodnights for God’s Country. And in all that abundance, it was Nwodim who brought the house down.

Since first getting cast in 2018, Nwodim’s had many beauts—Lisa from Temecula, Rich Auntie with No Kids, Dionne Warwick. But her performance last night during Weekend Update, in which she bemoaned the decision not to invite a comedian to host this year’s White House Correspondents Dinner, was on a different level. What if, she pitched Jost, she didn’t roast the administration or the media, but went after the dinner itself? “Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for the baddest chick on the block,” a dumbstruck Jost said on command.

Nwodim strutted back and forth in front of an enchanted Jost and Michael Che, purse swinging from her arm as she went after the halibut on the menu and the vegetarians in the room. Jost didn’t know who this Miss Eggy persona was and she didn’t have time to explain it to him. “As if I didn’t give that man five children and ten years of my life,” she said apropos of nothing. (“You don’t have kids!” Jost reminded.) “Now listen here, sex is a little different after fifty.” (“You’re not fifty!” Jost protested.) Complaining about all the scrubs out there, she was like a Pied Piper leading the crowd to network censors. “’Cause these men ain’t what?” she demanded of the audience. And they universally responded, “Shit!” The anchors collapsed on the desk as a happily taken aback Nwodim warned of fines sure to follow. “Lorne going to be mad at ch’all,” she said. Alas, if you didn’t see it live, you’re stuck with the bleeped out version, which is too bad. It was truly a chef’s kiss of crowd work.

We were well-fed by Weekend Update tonight. “Money is leaving the stock market faster than Morgan Wallen and goodnights,” said Jost. Then unlikely couple Grant and Alyssa returned to comment on how to survive the spring relationship slump. Marcello Hernandez and Jane Wickline are perfect together. He bellows and throbs beneath his backwards hat and football jersey. She cowers into herself, heart simmering underneath her turtleneck. “If you ever come for my man, I’ll break a bitch off like a Kit Kat bar,” she warned.

Jack Black deserves his full due. It seems inconceivable that this was his first time hosting again after a twenty-year absence, but he made the most of it. “How dare you play that riff!” he told the band. “It gives me the power to host again.” He somersaulted, he belted “Nachoooooooooo!,” he failed to impress some teenagers in the audience (possibly his sons?), he turned red-faced and sweaty running up stairs and crushing on stage but he did not have a heart attack. “SNL‘s 50 and I’m 55,” he sang. “The older we get, the more we feel alive!”

Elton John was feeling it all on stage with Brandi Carlile. If the music was too loud to hear his lyrics on their first number, it didn’t effect the athletic joy of his piano playing. Failing eyes be damned. His fingers are still fire. As is Carlile, who brought her heat to a sketch as well. Black and Sarah Sherman, clad in silk pajamas, were ready to take their relationship to new heights. Up they went in the air, singing about sex. Soon Bowen Yang air-swum into the picture, offering himself up for a threesome. Carlile floated in next, an angel in silver top coat and gold shoes, straddled by a marooned Black from behind. “You lesbun!” said Yang amidst much wafty air humping.

It was a silly night that never lost steam. If you weren’t able to make it out to a Hands Off protest this weekend, the old open of Donald Trump‘s Cheesecake Factory menu of an economic plan and the unveiling of Tesla’s first fully self-vandalizing model might scratch an itch.

And if you’re feeling anxious over the fate of Chelsea and Rick on The White Lotus finale, make yourself a mimosa and treat yourself to Goth Kid on a Vacation.