Saturday Night Live celebrated Easter with a re-enactment of the Last Supper that is interrupted by freshly indicted/arraigned Donald Trump (James Austin Johnson), who immediately compares himself to the messiah: “Mr Jesus, quite a guy! But now people are saying, perhaps, I’m even better than Jesus, because I’m a self-made billionaire and Christ was, let’s call it what it is, a nepo baby, OK?”
The ex-prez and potential future ex-con rambles on about Florida governor Ron DeSantis (“I very generously pretended to like him, then he did a Judas … now he can’t even get the gays out of Disney World”), Good Friday (“With me we’d be doing Great Friday, perhaps even TGI Fridays, with the stuff on the walls … ”) and egg hunts (“I have many beautiful eggs from time in the White House, and now the Department of Justice is saying, where are the eggs, we need the eggs back”). As with last week’s Trump-centric cold open, there’s not much meat on the bone, but Johnson’s impression remains a winner.
Former cast member Molly Shannon makes her long-awaited return to host for the second time. The actor, comedian and new author speaks briefly about her problems before launching into a rendition of Everything Is Coming Up Roses with the help of the neurotic cast, a smugly content Lorne Michaels and a rabid Martin Short in the throes of an Ozempic withdrawal, before closing things out with her signature Superstar pose. It’s nice to see Shannon get her literal roses, even if it’s Short who gets the only real laugh of the monologue.
During a job orientation, Andrew Dismukes’s seasoned valet demonstrates the cornerstones of success to a trio of new hires: “Lil joke, lil bow, lil jog.” Things immediately go off the rails as the trainees insult, hit on and threaten hotel guests. As with many an SNL sketch, there’s no forward narrative progression, just a lot of gormless mugging that peters out quickly.
Shannon brings back her “legendary” standup comic character Jeannie Darcy for a new Netflix special. Although the ad promises a “takes no prisoners” show, Darcy’s hacky material (“Have you guys heard about this TikTok thing? The only tick tock I hear is my biological clock. Don’t get me started … ”) and wooden delivery leave the audience cold. Outside of a twinge of nostalgia, the sketch likewise falls flat, especially since it initially promises a parody of Chris Rock’s recent divisive Netflix special but then fails to deliver. It’s also beset by yet another in Chloe Fineman’s long line of bad celebrity impressions (in this case, Sarah Silverman).
At an office baby shower, Shannon’s soon-to-be mom discovers her baby bump was just gas after she “rips a big old fart”. Enjoyably juvenile, if noticeably beset by some off-timing.
Then, on a new Please Don’t Destroy, Ben, Martin and John introduce Shannon to their favorite video game, which just so happens to be based on her life. Molly Shannon 2k23 lets you play as Shannon, “balancing your career as an actor while raising your family”. Although she’s initially bewildered, she soon becomes addicted to it, turning into a shut-in gamer who pees in Gatorade bottles.
Next, a playwright (Heidi Gardener) and her new beau (Devon Walker) take in the opening night performance of her new autobiographical play, A Year of a Thousand Men. He is forced to sit in horror and humiliation as the play reveals how she screwed her way through 999 men – including musical guest Nick Jonas’s hunky ex and the entire Los Angeles Lakers – before begrudgingly settling for him. Just as things get interesting thanks to a further meta-twist, the sketch abruptly ends.
On Weekend Update, Michael Che brings on Aladdin villain Jafar (Bowen Yang) to discuss Ron DeSantis’s flailing war on Disney after the company voiced opposition to his “don’t say gay” law. Jafar acknowledges that DeSantis is legitimately evil (“I mean, banning Rosa Parks in schools? I’m a dark sorcerer and even I’m like, Jesus, dude, its Rosa Parks”), but scoffs at his attempts to make Disney World gay-free: “If there is no gay, there is no Disney. And everyone loves Disney, including you – because your dumb ass got married there. And that’s the gayest thing you can do!” It makes for welcome change of pace watching Yang lend his swagger to an actual character (as opposed to just playing a heightened version of himself like usual). It’s also about time SNL started going hard after DeSantis.
Later in the segment, Gardner shows up as “your very busy co-worker”, Crystal, an uber-stressed, hyper-manic white-collar professional who makes a gigantic mess by flinging paperwork and salad all over the desk and Colin Jost. This kind of high energy performance has been sorely missed on Update since Cecily Strong said goodbye earlier this season.
Next, Shannon plays a commercial actor filming a musical ad for a new menopause medication called Vagerted. There are several different threads playing out at once – the drug’s awful name, Shannon’s actor viciously turning on her co-stars, Kenan Thompson’s pitchman going off script – none of which are given enough time to develop.
Apropos of the Easter holiday, Shannon resurrects another of her popular characters, this time trotting out sassy 50-year-old show woman Sally O’Malley, newly hired as the new choreographer for the Jonas Brothers. With the group in tow, she shows off her signature moves (“Kick! Stretch!”), along with some heavy camel toe.
The episode concludes by bringing things back around to Trump’s indictment via CNZen, a new meditation app for people whose “entire personality is hating Donald Trump”. The app features news anchors, political reporters and elected officials – including Wolf Blitzer (Sarah Sherman), Maggie Haberman (Shannon) and a tearful Lindsey Graham (Johnson) – delivering erotic ASMR recounts of the case against Trump to help pussyhat-wearing liberals relax and get their rocks off. Credit to SNL for finding a clever new angle from which to tackle this story, while also taking some much-needed piss out of the other side for a change.
If not quite as even as last week’s episode, this edition of Saturday Night Live still had several things going for it, including some expectedly solid hosting from the veteran Shannon, another fun edition of Weekend Update – which has shown a marked improvement all season long – and an especially strong closer.
