If you were to go by “Saturday Night Live” hosting performance alone, you might think that the best way to ensure a memorable, well rounded and surprisingly funny show is to book a female pop star — preferably one with some child-acting experience.
With apologies to Harry Styles, it’s been pop stars including Ariana Grande, Sabrina Carpenter, Dua Lipa and now Olivia Rodrigo who’ve shown themselves to be naturals at adapting their on-stage talents to the Studio 8H stage for “SNL.”
And while she might not have crushed it to the degree of Grande (something about the Bowen Yang era of the show and Grande seemed in perfect lockstep with each other), Rodrigo was a very good host. Whatever she lacked in sketch comedy chops, she more than made up for as musical guest, world-premiering a new song called “begged,” and singing in several sketches, including a memorable one about a girl in a zoo on a planet of bug people (we’ll get to that).
After a charming monologue in which she also sang, Rodrigo played a scheming woman in a “Dynasty”-like nighttime soap opera from the 1980s, “Edge of Destiny,” where people kept falling down the stairs. The mix of physical comedy, distant cue cards and having to keep from breaking character as cast members flopped down a set of fake stairs seemed almost too much for the guest host. But she recovered nicely in another solid (and hilariously gross) “Shop TV” sketch about a baker (Rodrigo) who makes lava cakes that look a lot like anuses.
She also played a woman competing with her ex-boyfriend (Ben Marshall) at a birthday party by pretending to have a date (he does the same with a wacky Ashley Padilla). She also played a cheating romantic partner in a musical sketch about getting busted, a rideshare passenger whose driver (Andrew Dismukes) discovers he has a talent for Jamaican dancehall rapping, and a TikToker employed by a home security company to take viral videos of burglars.
Rodrigo’s songs were tremendous, especially “begged,” but it was hard for any of the sketches to top Aziz Ansari’s appearance as FBI Director Kash Patel, which drew the biggest non-musical audience reaction of the show when he appeared in the cold open.
As musical guest, Rodrigo performed her latest single “drop dead,” introduced by Debbie Harry, and a new song, “begged,” introduced by recent host and “Heated Rivalry” star Connor Storrie.
It was the rare cold open without a rambling James Austin Johnson performance as President Trump. Instead, after a clever opening title card (“You’re watching A-Span. Of your life disappear. Watching C-SPAN.”), White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt (Padilla) talked about her upcoming maternity leave before introducing “The man, the myth, the liability,” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (Colin Jost). Hegseth talked about the war in Iran with its “sick air raids. This war has been a movie … specifically ‘The Neverending Story.’ ” Hegseth fielded a few questions, belittling reporters as he’s done before, answering the question of when the war will end: “That’s like asking when is sex gonna be over,” he replied, “Answer: when the man is done.” Hegseth introduced Patel (Ansari), who fast-talked his way through a defense of his alleged drinking and spending. From low hanging fruit (“We dotted every T and bulged every I”) to a much sharper takedown of Patel (“I’m the first Indian person to suck at their job”), Ansari brought his Tom Haverford from “Parks and Recreation” energy, particularly when describing jumping on the couch at a night club screaming, “Who wants the nuclear codes? J/K, I ain’t got ‘em!”
Rodrigo’s monologue began by acknowledging how young the 23-year-old pop star really is: they say your favorite “SNL” cast is the one you saw when you were a teenager and hers, she said, was the current cast. After teasing her new album out next month, she showed a clip of a commercial she did for Old Navy and mentioned working with Jake Paul on the Disney Channel show “Bizaardvark.” Paul, she said, once told her, “I really want to beat up old guys on Netflix!” and they both achieved their dreams. Rodrigo then played at a piano a take of her first hit single “drivers license,” focused on getting a Real ID at the DMV and all that it requires. “Passport, W2, first-born son / Gas bill, body count, bra size, how long will this be? I’ll just use my old fake ID,” she sang.
Best sketch of the night: They even have Olivia-shaped popsicles!
Unsurprisingly, the best of the night was one of Rodrigo’s musical performances, this time a pre-taped music video about a girl who loves her perfect bedroom. It’s got a purple corded phone, a lava lamp, a beanbag chair … and it happens to be a habitat at a zoo on a planet of bug people. The wistful, lovely song is accompanied by weird visuals of the aliens, who look like praying mantises, admiring the human specimen through the room’s windows, applauding when she goes to the bathroom and taking pictures. There are enough bizarre touches, such as a VHS version of “A League of Their Own” with aliens in human skin suits, a bug protester and an unsuccessful male mate (Johnson), that quite a bit of world building happens in the short span of the very catchy tune. Can we get this song on Apple Music and Spotify, please?
Also good: Cute — cake frosting on the nose. Sexy — mashed potatoes all over the face.
Former “SNL” cast member Kristen Wiig had a talent for introducing characters whose one bizarre trait, expertly performed, could drive a whole sketch. These days, it’s Ashley Padilla (maddeningly, she’s still billed as a “Featured Player”) who is able to elevate a potentially annoying character with a collection of hilarious tics and a lot of boundary overstepping. In a sketch about a broken-up couple (Rodrigo and Marshall) who try to make each other jealous by glomming on to fake new dates, Padilla laughs too loudly, smears mashed potatoes all over Marshall’s face, gives an unhinged speech that includes, “We are to be married at midnight! Now let us pray.” It seems like every episode of late has had one sketch reserved for Padilla to show her way with these types of self-unaware characters, and this was another great showcase for her.
‘Weekend Update’ winner: Podcasters are at war and it’s hard to understand why
If you don’t know why “Call Her Daddy” podcaster Alex Cooper (Chloe Fineman) and TikToker and “Hot Mess” podcaster Alix Earle (Veronika Slowikowska) are feuding, trust us, you are not alone. Their apparent beef, which has been speculated about by very online people and, weirdly, business reporters, is now “Weekend Update” fodder, with the women comparing their fight to a “literal Chernobyl for white women.” Perhaps the best part was Michael Che’s complete bafflement as to who these women are and why they’re mad at each other. Elsewhere, Kam Patterson continued his streak of clunky “Update” segments, this time vying for a date with Megan Thee Stallion after her breakup with NBA player Klay Thompson. In describing himself, Patterson said, “Some say he’s finding his voice more every week.” Unfortunately for Patterson, there’s only two episodes left in the season.
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