In some of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s seminal action flicks, audiences are asked to believe that, prior to the inciting incident, this man is simply a regular-ass, working-class stiff tucked away somewhere in suburbia, even though he appears to be a parade float of what a jacked guy looks like, with a schnitzel-grade Austrian accent to boot. It was always a bit ridiculous, but the story kind of demanded it, so we all went along with the charade because of where it would lead. (Jingling all the way, some might say.)
Jacob Elordi faces similar hurdles to passing as a mere mortal.
Of the two men, Schwarzenegger may be the only one whom the Guinness Book of World Records has called “the most perfectly developed human in the history of the world,” but Elordi is so tall and so striking he can’t realistically blend in with the rest of society either. (Go ahead and try picturing him waiting in line at the DMV.) It’s no coincidence that the Euphoria star broke out on the big screen last fall in Priscilla by playing Elvis Presley and in Saltburn by playing a man so desirable he induces psychosis.
This debilitating handsomeness-plus-height obviously could not go unremarked upon during Elordi’s debut on Saturday Night Live this week. Sure enough, the writers found a clever way to address it in the opening monologue and an early sketch set on a dating show. However, by the fourth such instance of addressing it — a somewhat meta sketch in which Elordi plays a star whose Adonis-like looks have led to a charmed career — it felt addressed into the ground, not unlike Saltburn’s most famous image. At that point, it would have been refreshing to see Elordi play a dental hygienist or whatever. Throw a bad wig on the guy; schlub him up. I promise we can roll with it.
Thankfully, the overreliance on sketches about Elordi’s retina-bursting rizz barely diminished an otherwise fantastic midseason premiere.
A lot has happened in the five weeks since Saturday Night Live last aired a new episode, and the writers wisely chose which bits to build into the show and which ones to leave out. Building off a banger of a Kate McKinnon–hosted Christmas show, this episode has kicked in the door of SNL’s 2024 with the confidence of a real Jacob Elordi type.
Here are the highlights:
Trump Courthouse Cold Open
In many ways, Donald Trump is the “Jacob Elordi’s hotness” of American politics right now — impossible to avoid addressing head-on. SNL has captured lightning in a bottle with James Austin Johnson’s impression, though — and the postmodern way the show deploys it — which has kept its potency after all this time. By now, it’s a challenge to find new things to say about this performance, as reliable as a finely tuned karaoke joke machine. Johnson and the writers deftly incorporate key changes — like a new rising inflection in Trump’s soft voice or his tendency to stand “weirder than ever” now — but the song remains fundamentally the same. And it slaps.
Crown Your Short King
A classic rule of thumb for satire is to heighten reality only just so, and a dating show for short kings measures up accordingly. It’s a — forgive me — high concept that still seems like it could get green lit by Netflix tomorrow to be binged alongside Love Is Blind: Sweden. Although bachelorette Chloe Fineman and host Mikey Day eventually display contempt for the diminutive contestants, they start off blithely patronizing in a way that’s consistent with these shows. (The tiny little crown Fineman is to give her chosen king is an especially nice touch.) The turn that even the most regal of short kings would be promptly discarded for any dingus who looks like Jacob Elordi is the episode’s most successful use of the actor’s appearance as a plot point.
Club Shay Shay — Extended Cut
All I will say about this sketch, supposedly culled from eight hours of bonus footage from the recent scorched-earth interview between Shannon Sharpe (Devon Walker) and Katt Williams (Ego Nwodim), is that I would gladly sit through the entire eight hours. Hopefully, the show doesn’t wait for another wildly viral moment to bring Nwodim’s Katt Williams back.
Entertainment Tonight Lip-Readers
This sketch starts off gently mocking the cottage industry of lip-reading experts that emerged in the wake of recent, much speculated-about Golden Globes conversations. From there, however, we springboard into experts Elordi and Bowen Yang acting out Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift’s internal monologues. (Elordi’s Kelce is a less-articulate Shrek.) By leaving the Globes element behind, the show gets to have its topical point about parasocial relationships and also go full-on Goofballs McGoo with it.
Bowling
Some of the best SNL sketches are those that make viewers wish they could see a separate video of the writers pitching the idea. (We all do this, yes?) This one centers on those little animated clips some bowling alleys use to illustrate the results of a bowler’s turn. There is no obvious path to building a joke engine around the existence of these silly videos, but the idea of making the clips darkly complicated pays off so well that it seems obvious in retrospect. I probably laughed more at Bowen Yang saying the word “nawr” during the monologue than I did during the entirety of the bowling sketch, but this kind of inventiveness should be applauded.
Cut for Time
• Huge spoiler for Saltburn in the monologue.
• Elsewhere in the monologue: a cameo from SNL writer and stand-up comic Rosebud Baker, performing horniness for Jacob Elordi.
• Anyone looking for more short-king humor from Marcello Hernández, look no further than this Weekend Update desk piece from last season.
• The joke in the Alaska Airlines ad about tightening up the bolts that hold the plane together? Not a joke! Loose bolts were the actual cause behind that recent midair blowout. Yikes!
• Michael Che’s relationship with the studio audience’s reaction to his Weekend Update jokes is now an ongoing subplot within every episode of SNL. “I’m gonna sleep like a baby tonight,” he assured the crowd after one joke drew more oooh’s than usual.
• Between his portrayal of Shannon Sharpe in the Katt Williams sketch and his Tim Scott on Weekend Update, Devon Walker might have had his best episode of the season so far.
• “Your top has fallen slightly open” is the perfect thing for Elordi to say in the AA sketch when Punkie Johnson nonchalantly appears with her bra fully out.
• It was a smart bit of stunt casting to have the original Regina George from Mean Girls (Rachel McAdams) introduce the new Regina George from Mean Girls (musical guest Reneé Rapp) during the latter’s performance. It’s too bad McAdams’s talents went underutilized in the acting-class sketch later in the episode, in which she had about the same amount to do.
• To anyone puzzled by the crowd reaction to the entrance of Garrett from Hinge, the guy who talks in indignant upspeak, as though everything he says is a question he can’t believe he has to ask: Bowen Yang introduced the beguiling weirdo in last spring’s Travis Kelce–hosted episode, and you can probably expect to see him again.
• The Please Don’t Destroy boys have been absent for a few episodes now. [Note to editor: Please insert here an eyes emoji large enough to fill the entire screen.]