When Saturday Night Live’s chief wackadoo, Sarah Sherman, showed up to a musical sketch late last night rocking a Phil Spector perm, foofy ascot, and lapels so wide they look like they hate each other, I had a Pavlovian response: Here we go.
It took a second to realize this was actually host Emma Stone and not Sherman, just before the anticipation of Sherman-esque chaos and hilarity proved correct.
Upon reflection, though, of course it was Stone. The official Five-Timer has long since established herself as an SNL unicorn — an Oscar-winning A-lister who cut her teeth in popcorn comedies like Superbad and Easy A, can very much sing, and yet still gravitates toward the weirdest possible projects that might somehow fetch her further awards. She is a blank canvas that can hold whatever art the show splashes on her and reliably enhance said art. While most other hosts who can carry a tune might be relegated to the straight role of Mama Cass occupied by Chloe Troast in this sketch, giving the flashy whirling-dervish part to Stone is a no-brainer — like passing the pigskin to whoever is the best wide receiver in the NFL right now. (I am an SNL recapper, I do not follow football.)
Although the episode had too many sketches that were either more clever than funny or didn’t quite connect, Stone was as dazzlingly versatile as ever, and her inevitable sixth turn hosting can’t come soon enough.
Here are the highlights:
George Santos Expelled Cold Open
Anyone betting on which topical news item would color this week’s cold open would’ve been foolish to go with anything other than George Santos getting kicked out of Congress. But just because it was kind of obvious — this prescient tweet even got the musical twist almost exactly right — didn’t make the resulting sketch any less fun. Santos has been the gift that keeps on giving for SNL all year, but in this appearance, it was Bowen Yang who was giving. He must have known this would likely mark the character’s largest-ever spotlight on the public stage, if not his final one, and threw everything he had into it. With his lips on full pout, he imbues lines like “I am a proud gay thief†with such verve Santos should feel proud to have inspired them. Just hours before the episode aired, HBO announced that a Santos movie is now in the works. After this sketch, they needn’t bother.
Emma Stone Five-Timers Monologue
Long before Stone became the 24th member of the Five-Timers Club, this bit had begun to feel a little stale. (They even built her monologue around a Four-Timers Club joke the last time she hosted.) Whenever the show’s writers find new pockets of lore to explore, though, rather than wringing an event out of the jacket receipt itself, they are cooking with gas. This time, it’s Tina Fey and the great Candice Bergen offering a tantalizing peek into the women’s section of the Club. Apparently, the section was established by Bergen as a “small place for women to cry,†but as the show’s storied sexismgave way to progress over the years, it became “a big luxurious place for women to cry.†The most delectable treat of the sketch, however, is the sting at the end, addressing Woody Harrelson’s controversial anti-vaxx monologue from earlier this year. This is the kind of score-settling content SNL nerds crave.
Please Don’t Destroy — AI
It’s always validating to see the ever-looming threat of artificial intelligence playfully mocked. The smartest part of this sketch, however, is when the Destroy Boys mock themselves by making the fake sketch they supposedly needed AI to complete, involving the host having an unlikely romantic connection with Martin again — a twist that AI might have come up with.
Old Fashioned Cigarette on Banning Vapes
“Weekend Update†was solid altogether in this episode, but Michael Longfellow ran away with it in one of his best desk pieces yet. Something about his particular brand of deadpan comes across as sinister, so applying it to a cancer stick trying to deflect from its legendary run as a death merchant works perfectly. This cig is a spiky little devil, whether he’s photoshopping a vape pen into a picture of Hitler or trying to goad Colin Jost into saying a Britishism for cigarette that will get him in trouble. Between this appearance and a similarly sardonic turn in the game-show sketch, Longfellow may have been the cast’s MVP of the night, with the exception of Stone.
Make Your Own Kind of Music
Speaking of Stone, as discussed in the intro, her manic yet perfectly controlled performance in this sketch elevated it among the season’s best. When her louche producer character first enters the recording studio in the middle of an actual famous song’s assembly, it seemed like the setup for a sequel to â€More Cowbell.†What it ends up being is something far stranger and better than whatever that retread might have been. Possibly inspired by a writer’s recent rewatch of this scene in Free Guy, the sketch finds a fun way to mock the cinematic trend of juxtaposing joyful songs with scenes of rampant violence and the trend of putting pitched-down versions of famous songs in trailers. It’s a blast to watch and a notable new entry in Stone’s burgeoning portfolio of accent work on SNL.
Cut for Time
• As mentioned in the monologue, Stone really did meet her future husband at SNL when she hosted in 2016, though that husband is Brigsby Bear director Dave McCrary and not, as suggested, Lorne Michaels.
• John Mulaney caught a stray in the monologue when Tina Fey likened him to a creepy ventriloquist’s dummy. Between that and Sherman’s impression of him in the Timothée Chalamet episode, I’m starting to wonder whether the once-beloved host may have ruffled some feathers the last time he hosted.
• Welp, it turns out Charles Darwin and Steve Irwin did indeed both own the same tortoise — Harriet, who died in 2006 at age 176 — as mentioned in the game-show sketch. It’s amazing what you can learn from this show.
• With her vocal turns in the Fully Naked in New York digital short and the Mama Cass sketch, Chloe Troast continues to cement her status as the cast’s go-to chanteuse of this era. (Although Yang makes a strong case for himself this week as well.)
• It’s a testament to Kenan Thompson’s charm and skill that he ever turned his scatting lounge act into a recurring sketch in the first place, given its baseline resemblance to the iconic What’s Up With That. Still, this latest installment should probably be its last.
• Meanwhile, although an echo of Delicious Dish rang faintly throughout What’s in the Kiln, the specificity of regional vibes made it feel like Portlandia by way of Brattleboro, Vermont, and I wouldn’t mind seeing this amateur pottery talk show come back in the future.
• And the â€Weekend Updateâ€Â Joke of the Night Award goes to … Colin Jost’s “I think [Elon] Musk could destroy Hamas almost instantly by becoming their CEO.â€
• Stone returned for a third round of the Posters sketch, once again with a vocal fry so deep it’s practically battered. (Her line-read last time on “My long, fat garden hose that I’m drinking from like a dumb, silly doggy†lives in my head rent free.) In this iteration, though, she kind of gets upstaged by the running joke of how Mikey Day is decidedly not quite as handsome as the David Beckham poster he’s portraying.
• I definitely know several people who would use Diet Coke as a skin-care product if only there were any cosmetic benefits whatsoever.
• Musical guest Noah Kahan got a huge reaction from the live audience when he improvised mid-song, “I’d die for you, SNL. Or at least seriously injure myself.â€
Correction: A previous version of this recap incorrectly stated the last time John Mulaney hosted Saturday Night Live.