Saturday Night Live opens with Donald Trump’s (James Austin Johnson’s) “liberation day” speech, where he rolled out his disastrous tariff plan, which he calls Magda: “Make America Great Depression again.” Trump notes that no country is safe from his tariffs, including what he mistakenly thinks is a place called McDonald’s Island (“Get me to God’s country,” he exclaims in the first of two digs at last week’s musical guest, Morgan Wallen, which gets a huge pop from the crowd), as well as South Africa.
The mention of the latter nation brings out Elon Musk (Mike Myers), who glitches out before whining about how poorly Tesla is doing. To combat this, he introduces a new, fully self-vandalizing model, which comes complete with AI-powered graffiti. Choice includes penises, swastikas, and his favorite: “Swastikas made out of penises.” Before he can complain about how dumb the tariffs are, Trump pushes him out of the way and wraps things up.
This is a thoroughly fine send-up of this week’s big news story. Johnson is on point as ever, Myers’s Musk remains solid and appropriately mean-spirited, and the jokes about the tariffs basically write themselves.
Jack Black hosts for the fourth time, but the first time in 20 years. The pressure is too much, so he decides to quit on the spot, until he’s brought back around by the band rocking out. He performs a self-referential version of Steve Winwood’s Back in the Highlife Again, taking it into the crowd before introducing a marching band for the big finish. It is a characteristically electric performance, but one that some of Black’s fans might find hard to fully enjoy in the wake of his throwing longtime friend and Tenacious D bandmate Kyle Gass under the bus this past summer after an on-stage Trump joke led to rightwing backlash.
Love Match is a game show where a single gal picks from three available bachelors, none of whom she can see. The contestants include a nerdy nice guy, a baby-faced playboy, and Black’s Gene, an emotionally intuitive man cosplaying as Indiana Jones. When Gene starts to win the girl over, the host intercedes to let her know he’s dressed like the iconic adventurer, which leads to an argument about whether he has ever heard of the character. This is in line with a certain modern-day SNL sketches based entirely around the minutia of a pop culture institution; see the Matt Damon Weezer sketch from a few years back or the Chris Rock Simpsons one from earlier this season. These are usually fun, but this one doesn’t push the premise or specificity far enough.
Then, Black teams up with Cheetos mascot Chester Cheetah to pitch Flamin’ Hot Preparation H Brief and disposable, but the visual of Black bent over a chair, pants and underwear down around his ankles, applying the burning cream to his hind parts as his CGI pal watches in horror, is good for a laugh.
A dinner between college friends turns into a game of liberal one-upmanship, as each of them brag about how they have given up social media and alcohol, only read physical books, shop at thrift stores, watch foreign films with no subtitles, teach Spanish to special needs kids, and swim exclusively at black-owned pools. A solid fart joke can’t save this one from the fourth wall breaking mugging.
We travel back in times to Athens, circa 500 BC, to witness the first performance of the first ever play. The audience, not understanding what they’re watching, continually interrupt the performance, accusing the actors of lying and tricking them–at least until they’re promised nudity. This is better in concept than execution.
Kenan Thompson and Ego Nwodim perform a Jamaican reggae song about miserable goth kids dragged to the sunny island on family vacations. Black jumps in as said goth kid all grown up, singing to the tune of My Chemical Romance’s Welcome to the Black Parade. That unexpected moment, along with Michael Longfellow’s very convincing goth brat, make this a winner.
Elton John and Brandi Carlile are the night’s musical guests. They play the rollicking honky-tonk song Little Richard’s Bible. This is a breath of fresh air after last week’s miserable turn.
Speaking of, Colin Jost kicks off Weekend Update by reporting: “Money is leaving the stock market faster than Morgan Wallen at good night.”
A little later, he brings back previous Update guests Grant and Alyssa (Marcello Hernández and Jane Wickline), the couple you can’t believe are together, to talk about spring romance. The boorish bro and nerdy wallflower explain that their dynamic works because they have ground rules: he does the dishes (“Because I like playing in the water”), she cooks (“Because I’m not allowed to touch the stove”), and finally, per her: “Don’t wear those little shorts around unless you’re trying to drop them.” The characters are clearly heightened versions of the performers, which is a big reason why they land.
Jost reports on Russell Brand being charged for rape, before wincingly rolling a clip of Brand as SNL host, introducing musical guest Chris Brown.
Then, in response to the White House correspondents’ dinner’s announcement that they will no longer feature a comedian at their yearly celebration out of deference to Trump, Nwodim comes out to make the case for herself hosting. She promises not to talk politics and instead only do material about the actual diner. Taking up Def Jam-inspired persona she performs a tight 3, getting the audience to shout out ‘SHIT!’ at one point. A great turn from Nwodim, whose fake material is funnier than most jokes on SNL these days.
Black and Sarah Sherman play a new couple who decide to take things to the next level by sleeping together. This leads to a sensual ballad (which they perform while floating above the bedroom set on wires). But, as described in their song, the lackluster sex (“First we do things to me for a while, then we do things to you not that long”) and dirty talk (“You’ve been so bad I’m gonna … kill you”), lead them to bring in a third (Bowen Yang) and even a fourth (Carlile). Kudos to Carlile for making her comedy debut via literal high-wire act.
Next, Black fronts a jam band, inviting musicians in the crowd to jump on stage and get in on their cover of Tom Petty’s Free Fallin’. But everyone who joins in – a couple of long-haired hippies, a busty wet T-shirt contestant, a crackhead, even a dog – only plays the bass. Like the musicians in the sketch, this is one-note.
John and Carlile perform their second set, then the show wraps up with a black-and-white sketch set on VJ Day. We see the events surrounding the famous photo taken of a returning sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square. The nurse’s actual boyfriend, a hot-dog scarfing doofus who spent the war stateside drawing racist (even for the time) propaganda cartoons, watches in shock and dismay as she makes out with half a dozen returning troops. There’s not much meat on this bone, but the cast is having fun with their old-timey accents. It beats most of the recent episode enders.
Following a quick tribute to the late, great Val Kilmer, we get the curtain call, with everyone sticking around this time. This episode was a big improvement over last week’s, thanks to them knowing how to use the host, two excellent performances from real-deal star musicians, and a show-stealing turn from Nwodim.
