On Easter weekend, Saturday Night Live begins with a message from the Easter Bunny (Bowen Yang). Almost immediately, the “freakiest” holiday character hands things over to a random selection of public figures.
dr Anthony Fauci (Kate McKinnon) compares Covid cases to Jesus (“They have risen again!”), while Marjorie Taylor Greene (Cecily Strong) worries that “between the pastel colors and the jellybeans, this holiday has gotten a little too LGBQRST for me” New York Mayor Eric Adams (Chris Redd) brags about catching the Brooklyn subway bomber even though “it took 30 hours and the suspect turned himself in” while Elon Musk (Mikey Day) tries to to buy the vacation, Britney Spears (Chloe Fineman) is making waves and Jared Leto (Kyle Mooney) is begging people not to review his awful new movie Morbius.
Eventually, former President Donald Trump (James Austin Johnson) interrupts proceedings to rant about Reese’s Eggs (“I like Reese, I’m very good friends with Reese…”), Cap’n Crunch (“He was very rude to me at Count Chocula’s 500th Birthday”) and Little Caesars (“I told him to say, ‘Pizza! Pizza!’ He always said it once and I said we should say it twice!”)
Aside from Austin’s Trump and Redd’s Adams, these are some of the worst, sickening, and downright lazy impressions in the cast’s repertoire. The writing descends to match them on multiple fronts, from hypocritically mocking Musk (albeit slightly) less than a year after the show ceded its entire platform to him, to softening Taylor Greene by telling her portraying them as harmless lunatics trying to get it both ways by pointing out how useless New York law enforcement is while parroting their talking point of “increasing crime”.
In tonight’s episode, Lizzo takes on a dual role as presenter and music guest. The singer-songwriter promises to “break the record for the number of times bitch is said on live television” before opening up about her recent Ted talk on the history of twerking (“I’m like Einstein clapping that ass could”). Slamming down rumors about her love life (“They think I collect members of One Direction like Infinity Stones”) and encouraging audiences to love themselves in order to achieve their dreams. The last bit is really groaning — this is supposed to be a comedy show, not an affirmation Instagram post — but Lizzo shows a good flair for comic delivery. She also appears to be taking her earlier promise seriously, with the bitch count being eight at the end of the monologue.
Guess That is a game show that requires contestants to answer rapid-fire trivia questions. Things start off quite normally until Lizzo’s contestant botches a question and hijacks the show, refusing to admit she was wrong, accusing the host of setting her on fire and trying to unseat him as “Mayor of Game Town.” This final gambit wins her comrade’s support.
It’s a welcome twist on the usual game show narrative and a promising start to the episode proper, but things take an immediate nosedive for the next sketch, the latest in the irrevocably awful Tik Tok Scrolls. Instead of coming up with something original, the show simply recreates—meaning: steals—the latest viral videos from the social media platform. Everyone involved should be ashamed to call themselves comedians.
Somehow this is followed by an even worse sketch. We remember the Interscope Records Studios in spring 2008, where the Black Eyed Peas are recording songs for their latest album. Their producers help them brainstorm lyrics for several singles, including the ridiculously simple Boom Boom Pow, the extremely random party anthem Tonight, and the highly problematic Let’s Get Retarded, which was later changed to Let’s Get It Started.
The problems with this sketch are numerous: from the lack of narrative cohesion (the producers are worried one second about the astounding lyrics, then in ecstasy the next), to Lizzo’s constant breaking up, to the cowardly attempt to do it both ways creating jokes to center the offense of Let’s Get Retarded without actually saying the offensive lyrics (thereby placing the responsibility entirely on the audience). Additionally, this sketch speaks to just how stuck in the past the show is. It’s not that SNL should refrain from joking about older pop culture — one of its biggest sketches, after all, revolved around a 24-year-old Blue Oyster Cult track — but that doesn’t bring anything original or fresh to the table. It just draws on obvious observations and tired impressions that have passed 14 years past their expiration date.
It seems the author’s mind got stuck in mid-air as the next sketch finds a couple’s first date (Lizzo, Day) punctuated by a fellowship of dancing old geezers “from the Six Flags commercials,” a play pop culture flash in the pan was first published in 2004.
This is followed by a new Please Don’t Destroy segment. Ben, Martin and John try to help Lizzo break writer’s block by coming up with a “Black Woman’s Anthem” to sing on the show. All they can think of are sad “White Guy anthems”, The Sopranos theme, one of Lizzo’s old tracks and a song about Martin’s girlfriend who looks like Spongebob. They’re about to give up when Lizzo realizes that the skit they were originally going to suggest – about a horny zookeeper – is actually a great song. As is becoming increasingly clear, the more the PDD segments rely on guest stars, the less they work, with this one being the most forgettable so far.
On the weekend update, the show continues to have and eat its cake while simultaneously poking fun at Elon Musk/kissing ass, with Michael Che opening up about his failed attempt to buy Twitter to relax free speech rules : “That’s how badly white guys want to use the N-word,” asks Colin Jost, why someone “builds electric cars [and] Going to Mars would even waste his time with such a flimsy app. (A dig at Meghan Markle is sure to earn Jost plenty of angry comments on this platform to come tomorrow). In case it wasn’t entirely clear what anti-establishment bofides the show ever had, it’s long gone.
Jost finally welcomes this update’s only guest, his personal driver, Cesar Perez (Melissa Villaseñor), who wants to try out some of his stand-up materials. Perez fires off a series of jokes about his nerdy, lizard- and masturbation-obsessed nephew Carlito, only to succumb to instant regret. His tearful apologies make for a soft, funny show of Latino-specific Catholic guilt. However, this character segment is dragged down by several extremely outdated jokes – this time by constant references to The Mind of Mencia.
Update bids farewell with a tribute to the late great alum Gilbert Gottfried, who passed away earlier this week.
Next, two party planners in ancient Egypt rehearse an orgy they’re throwing for their mad god-king (who eventually turns out to be a little kid). Hedonistic commissioned performances include “sensuous woman and her tender boy”, a sparkling fire-eater, “old made-up woman with rotten teeth who laughs”, a trio of handsome swingers, a well-endowed fan wobbler, a goat wrangler (with real goat) and a “pucky goblin” older than advertised. This feels like a half-length at first, and constantly breaking the cast doesn’t help things. The live goat is pretty neat though.
Then Lizzo plays a flutist auditioning for the first chair in the DeVry University Symphony Orchestra. Her musical skills are second to none, but she can only perform while twerking. That’s all there is to it. Given Lizzo’s association with the dance move, it makes sense that the show would build a sketch around it, but they certainly could have come up with something better.
The final sketch of the evening features a group of friends celebrating one of their own (Andrew Dismukes) for quitting his job to capitalize on his investments. Their moral support quickly erodes once the said investments are revealed to be his Beanie Babies collection. It makes sense that the episode would end with another tired premise, centered around a cultural phenomenon several years — in this case, decades — behind us.
Her constant dodging made Lizzo an appropriate host, but everything around her — from the terrifying cold, to the genuinely horrible midsection, to the non-stop stream of extremely outdated pop culture references — was unbearable. This was by far the worst episode of the season, and possibly the worst since Musk hosted almost a year ago. (Apt that he should be featured so heavily on tonight’s show).
It’s good that the show is off for memory of the month, although it’s doubtful the hiatus will do much good. At this point, Saturday Night Live needs not just a course correction, but some really serious soul searching.