Like finding a stray onion ring in your French fries, it can be a little odd when “Saturday Night Live” uses its opening sketch to satirize sports coverage on TV. But hang in there, because this one still has some topical bite.
This weekend’s “S.N.L.” broadcast, hosted by Jack Black and featuring the musical guest Jack White, began with a sketch inspired by comments that Charles Barkley made last Sunday on a CBS broadcast of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. (Following a segment on the University of Connecticut forward Alex Karaban, whose parents are from Ukraine and Belarus, Barkley said in part, “I love that kid and his family, but the way some of these other immigrants are getting treated in our country right now is a travesty and a disgrace.”)
The sketch cast Kenan Thompson as Barkley, speaking extemporaneously about other up-to-the-minute topics on a Final Four broadcast surrounded by a panel including James Austin Johnson (as Ernie Johnson Jr.), Kam Patterson (as Kenny Smith) and Jeremy Culhane (as Bruce Pearl).
Qualifying his remarks many times — “now this might get me fired, so I’m going to choose my words real careful,” Thompson would say — he went on to address the war in Iran: “War is terrible,” he said. “Innocent people getting killed, and I don’t care who started it; we need to end it.”
He also declared the Artemis II space mission to be “a waste of money”: “They’re just flying around the moon,” Thompson said. “What’s the point of that? It’s like telling your kids you’re going to Disney World, and then you just take them to Goofy Lot D and go home.”
He decried betting sites like Kalshi and said that Pam Bondi had been a “terrible” attorney general: “We should all be glad that that freckle-chested dragon lady is gone,” Thompson said.
Those last remarks set up a response from Bondi herself — played by Ashley Padilla, who entered the segment by saying it was “so great to be here at the final four — years of this country.”
“The truth is, I was amazing at my job,” Padilla said, “and I am proud to say I made history as the first woman ever to be fired as Attorney General. I shattered that glass exit door.”
When Padilla started to get tearful about her firing, Thompson consoled her by saying she could always work in sports. “You already look like a women’s basketball coach who got suspended for pulling on a player’s braid,” he said.
“You think so?” Padilla said, starting to cheer up. She added, “That’s so nice.”
Five timers’ extravaganza of the week
This episode marked the fifth time that Black had hosted “S.N.L.” which meant that, in his monologue, he got to join the show’s celebrated five-timers’ club. There, he was greeted by other veterans who have hosted at least five times, including Jonah Hill, Melissa McCarthy, Candice Bergen and Tina Fey. Fey showed off a lavish, fur-collared robe she said was the “first-timers’ jacket,” she had received for hosting the new “Saturday Night Live UK” — made, she said, pivoting to present a rear view, out of Paddington Bear). Black was also met at the club by White, who was there for his fifth time as a solo musical guest (sixth if you count his appearance with the White Stripes).
Even so, White said this status only got him “parking validated for 15 minutes.” (Then he excused himself, saying he had to move his hearse.)
Weekend Update jokes of the week
Over at the Weekend Update desk, the co-anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che continued to riff on the war in Iran.
Jost began:
President Trump addressed the nation about the war with Iran and threatened to “bring them back to the Stone Age where they belong.” And in the spirit of Easter, let me just say “Jesus Christ!” President Trump’s speech on the war in Iran interrupted finale of “The Masked Singer,” and it’s really too bad because Trump would have found out that Cat Witch was revealed to be the new ayatollah.
Che continued:
In his speech, President Trump referred to the war in Iran as a “little journey.” Because little journeys are all anyone can afford to take now. President Trump said in his speech that the Strait of Hormuz would open up naturally. But if it doesn’t, the Marines will deploy a little bit of spit.
Jost also weighed in on Bondi’s firing:
This week, Attorney General Pam Bondi was asked to redact herself from her job. President Trump reportedly fired Bondi over her handling of the Epstein files. Because the only person Trump has ever trusted to handle the Epstein situation is a prison guard with the cameras off. Also, I kind of understand. If I was Trump I’d be mad too if someone took a Sharpie and drew all over my favorite memories [His screen showed a photo of Trump surrounded by women whose faces had been blacked out].
Weekend Update guests of the week
It was an honest-to-goodness twofer at the Weekend Update desk: the first guest was Sarah Sherman as Bryon Noem, the husband of former homeland security secretary Kristi Noem, whose lewd photographs in The Daily Mail this past week had onlookers seeing double. It was mostly just an excuse (though a very funny one) for Sherman to wear a pair of balloon-breasts under her shirt and to have an awkward exchange with Padilla (this time playing Kristi Noem). “Anything to add about my sweater puppies?” Sherman asked her. Padilla, cocked a rifle, asked in reply, “Did someone say puppies?”
Patterson also appeared at the desk playing Severus Snape, the “Harry Potter” professor who will be played by a Black actor in a coming HBO TV adaptation of the J.K. Rowling novels. Patterson was especially incensed by Kingsley Shacklebolt, another Black character in the novels, pointing out that his name contained the word “shackle.”
“For the very first time,” Jost said with comic understatement, “I’m starting to think that J.K. Rowling might be problematic.”
Best of the rest of the week
Inspired silliness abounded elsewhere in the show, including this sketch about a group of awkward husbands who bond over the Kansas classic-rock song “Carry On Wayward Son”; and this one, in which Padilla utters the question “We talkin’ TV?” in an office break room so many times that it will send you into a hypnotic trance.
Dave Itzkoff is a former Times culture reporter.
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