If the 50th season of Saturday Night Live has, up until now, felt somewhat underwhelming, this past week has made up for it. It’s been one celebration after another, including a star-studded live concert that aired this past Friday, a repeat of the show’s very first episode during its regular Saturday-night time slot, and any number of self-produced and third-party retrospectives across the media landscape.
All of it was leading up to Sunday’s three-hour anniversary special. From previous specials, we knew about what to expect: the return of popular cast members, characters, sketches and guest stars; an audience of A-list celebrities; a diverse array of musical guests; and equal amounts of self-deprecation and self-mythologizing. Still, you knew there’d be plenty of fun surprises and probably a good bit of emotion on display.
That latter quality comes on heavy at the top of the show, with Sabrina Carpenter sharing a duet with showrunner Lorne Michael’s close personal friend Paul Simon. The song they’ve chosen is Simon & Garfunkel’s Homeward Bound, which the former previously played on Saturday Night Live, alongside George Harrison, in 1976. Carpenter gets in a funny line about how neither she nor her parents were alive then, but given how frail the 83-year-old Simon both looks and sounds, there is a real gravitas and gravity to this opening performance.
Favorite recurring host and “new diversity hire” Steve Martin is given the honor of delivering the opening monologue, which he regards as “typically the worst part of the show”. He takes digs at SNL’s age (“A person born during the first season … could today be easily dead of natural causes”) as well as his own (“I turned 79, but I feel like I’m 65 … which is also not good”). He is interrupted first by former show writer John Mulaney, who pays tribute to the celebrity hosts (“894 people have hosted … only two of them have committed murder”), and later by best frenemy/Canadian national Martin Short, who is dragged off stage kicking and screaming by Ice agents.
Martin jokes about “frontloading” the monologue so that they can slack off for the rest of the show, but it’s actually a pretty low-key intro. Nevertheless, Martin makes the most of it by being his funny, goofy self.
The first sketch of the night has Fred Armisen’s variety show host Laurence Welk introducing a musical act from horndog lounge singer Robert Goulet (Will Ferrell) and the three lovely Maharelle sisters (Anna Gasteyer, Kim Kardashian and Scarlett Johansson). But it’s freakish fourth sibling Denise (Kristen Wiig) who steals both the show and Goulet’s heart. A solid mashup of memorable characters from different eras of SNL.
We then get a new edition of Black Jeopardy. Kenan Thompson stars as host Darnelle Hayes, while the contestants are played by Leslie Jones, Tracy Morgan and Eddie Murphy as Tracy Morgan (this reveal earns the biggest laugh so far). The running joke of the sketch is that Black people don’t watch Saturday Night Live. The contestants are utterly clueless about it, even when Chris Rock shows up to remind them that he was once on it. Things do change when “Tracy Morgan” leaves and is replaced by returning champion/Maga voter Doug (Tom Hanks). It should come as no surprise that Murphy – the greatest cast member of all time – absolutely walks away with this one.
Emma Stone pops in to talk about the show’s history of contrarianism, before being interrupted by the high-kicking Sally O’Malley (Molly Shannon), who is also celebrating turning 50 this year. Together, they intro a video tribute to SNL’s long tradition of physical comedy. The likes of Shannon, Chevy Chase, John Belushi, Chris Farley and more are honored for their commitment to pratfalls, before the video wraps up with a lovely dance montage centered around the late Gilda Radner.
Then, Short and Shannon return as the absolutely soused parents of newlyweds Kelsey and Matt (Chloe Fineman and Andrew Dismukes). Their reception speech devolves into a drunken make-out session, before the bridesmaids (Carpenter, alongside Ego Nwodim, Heidi Gardner and Sarah Sherman) perform renditions of Wicked and Taylor Swift songs about the bride’s affair with “hung Latin guy” Domingo (Marcello Hernandez), who has once again made a cuck of poor Matt. This time though, Matt’s got backup in the form of his groomsmen (Bowen Yang, Kyle Mooney, Andy Samberg and Beck Bennett). Along with Carpenter, they sing a version of Espresso about Matt’s own affair with Domingo’s brother Renaldo (Pedro Pascal). Meanwhile, a third half-brother, Santiago (Bad Bunny), has been having sex with Kelsey’s parents. I’ll admit to not getting the appeal of the Domingo sketches beyond the fact that they always feature a singer with a huge fanbase on TikTok, but he is the first breakout character the show has had in ages, so it makes sense that they’d give a segment over to him here.
Following a brand new Deep Thought by Jack Handey – “Looking back over 50 years, we treasure the laughs, the friendships, the fond memories … but the real treasure was how much money we were making” – Tina Fey and Amy Poehler take center stage.
The pair field questions and answers from celebrity audience members Quinta Brunson, Tim Meadows, Ryan Reynolds (who alludes to the ongoing drama between himself, wife Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni), Nate Bargatze, Jon Lovitz, wardrobe team member Donna Richards, John Lovitz, Julia Louis-Dreyfus (and her service dog), Adam Driver, Keith Richards, Zach Galifianakis, Jon Hamm, Bad Bunny, Al Sharpton, Ray Romano, Seth Meyers, Jason Momoa and Peyton Manning. An obvious excuse to milk the celebrity star power in the building and (as Meyers points out) shove in people they don’t have anything else for.
A new Digital Short has Samberg and Yang singing about how everybody who every worked at SNL had anxiety (and IBS). Lorne Michaels, Chris Parnell, Will Forte and the show’s crew all pop in.
Then Aubrey Plaza drops by to introduce the next musical act, Miley Cyrus and Brittany Howard, who perform Nothing Compares 2 U. Although originally a Prince song, the track became a number one hit when Sinéad O’Connor covered it in 1990. O’Connor infamously had her career derailed after tearing up a picture of Pope John Paul II (in protest for Catholic church’s culpability in wiping out indigenous cultures and its widespread sexual abuse of minors) while performing on SNL in 1992. The show disavowed her and her actions in the aftermath. This seems to be a tribute to the late Irish singer, but because there is no explicit mea culpa (despite history proving her actions 100% justified), it plays as false and even galling.
Colin Jost and Michael Che look back on 50 years of Weekend Update with the help of some old friends. First though, they thank the crew (and congratulate them “on their January 6 pardons) and give a heartfelt shoutout to the late, great Norm McDonald’s nemesis OJ Simpson. Norm would undoubtedly have loved this.
Guests include segment favorites The Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started a Conversation With at a Party (Cecily Strong) and Drunk Uncle (Bobby Moynihan), who’ve shacked up and are expecting a baby; Lorne’s Best Friends from Growing Up (Armisen and Vanessa Bayer) who whisper gossip about the cruel showrunner; and former anchors Seth Meyers and Bill Murray, who is there to share his personal ranking of the 10 best Update anchors. Everyone in this Update segment does great work, but, as with Eddie Murphy, Murray is operating on another level.
Up next is the return of perennial alien abductee, Coleen Rafferty (Kate McKinnon). She and two of her trailer park buds (Pascal and Woody Harrelson) give testimony of their outer space adventures to two Pentagon officials (Hamm and Aidy Bryant). While the bros shared a transcendent experience, Rafferty had her “unkempt private area” poked and prodded by a group of horny Grays before being unceremoniously pushed out of the spaceship’s hatch. Something feels missing here and its easy to figure out what – there’s no Ryan Gosling to crack up at McKinnon’s mugging. Meryl Streep does show up as Coleen Sr, but she noticeably struggles with the material.
Season one cast member Laraine Newman has her nostalgic tour of the studio interrupted by slacker idiot Chad (Pete Davidson), then we get the absolute pleasure of a surprise appearance from Jack Nicholson.
He introduces his Anger Management co-star Adam Sandler for the next musical number. Sandler, guitar in hand, sings a very sweet song about 50 years of SNL. While he mainly lists off the indignities of working on the show – having sketches cut, hosts visibly reading from cue cards, waking up Sunday afternoons depressed and, above all, living in perpetual fear of Lorne Michaels – the song climaxes with a moving look back at the tenures of various cast members, the last two spots reserved for his pals Farley and Norm.
We continue with the musical acts by way of a brand-new Broadway revue. Anchored by Mulaney and Davidson (as well as David Spade), this giant song-and-dance number charts the sleazy history of New York City from the 1970s up to now, via twisted spins on classic showtunes from the likes of Paul Schafer, Maya Rudolph, Nathan Lane, Jason Sudeikis, Will Forte, Wiig, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Paul Rudd, Nick Jonas, Taran Killam and others. For all its big production, the best bit is Mulaney cavalierly dunking on Sherman’s ultra-brief Michael Bloomberg impression.
SNL’s greatest-ever host Alec Baldwin finally shows up to set up a montage of the best commercial parodies in the show’s history, then we get a new Bronx Beat sketch.
Rudolph and Poehler’s flirty, brassy hosts pick actor Miles Teller from the audience and bring him on stage to harangue him until they get tired of him. They’re about to sign off when they get a surprise visit from their idol Linda Richman (Mike Myers), host of Coffee Talk. She kvetches with the girls before dispensing some hard-won wisdom: “Maybe the secret of life is there are no big whoops, only a series of small, agonizing whoops.” Myers, like Murphy and Murray, hasn’t missed a beat.
Dave Chappelle introduces Lil Wayne and the Roots, then Tom Hanks solemnly takes the stage for what seems to be an in-memoriam segment of dead cast members but, as revealed in a hilarious rug pull, is actually a look back at the “SNL characters and sketches that have aged horribly”.
The list includes long roll call of ethnic stereotypes, sexual harassment, underage sexual harassment, animal cruelty, body shaming, slut shaming, gay panic, ableism, sexism, child molestation, questionable makeup (featuring blurred out instances of blackface, brownface and yellowface), problematic guests (OJ Simpson, Robert Blake, Diddy, R Kelly, Jared Fogle), racial slurs and the utterly uncategorizable (Adrien Brody’s baffling and unauthorized Rasta Man act). Kudos for a legitimately sharp bit of self-flagellation.
Jimmy Fallon celebrates the occasion by sharing a drink with Ayo Edebiri and Drew Barrymore. Unfortunately for them, their bartender is none other than Debbie Downer (Rachel Dratch), who proceeds to bum them out with depressing facts about alcoholism, animal extinction, bird flu and her gout. She scares them away, only for Robert De Niro to show up. Already on edge because of everything happening in the world, it doesn’t take long for the actor to snap and try to strangle her.
Sudeikis returns to play an NYPD officer intent on scaring straight a couple of young shoplifters with the help of Thompson, Murphy and Ferrell’s crazy convicts. Their hardscrabble personal stories and sexual threats fall flat, given that they’re all clearly based around the plots of family movies like Harry Potter, The Nutty Professor and Elf. An odd choice of sketch for this show, but at least Murphy and Ferrell are having a blast.
OG cast member Garret Morris pulls up a chair and introduces Tom Schiller’s 1978 black-and-white short film Don’t Look Back in Anger, which finds an elderly John Belushi as the last living cast member of what was then known as, simply, Saturday Night. He visits the graves of his long-gone friends and co-workers, reminiscing about how they each met their end: Jane Curtin died from complications of cosmetic surgery, Morris OD’d on heroin, Chevy Chase bit it right after his first movie with Goldie Hawn, Dan Aykroyd was obliterated in a motorcycle accident. It makes for somewhat eerie viewing considering what real life held in store for all these people, especially Belushi. But it also feels the exact right note to close out the comedy section of this show: edgy (for its time anyway) and unsentimental.
Yet, this is an emotional night for the people involved with the show, which makes Paul McCartney’s climactic rendition of the Beatles’ Carry That Weight properly cathartic. As with Simon at the beginning of the special, McCartney looks and sounds his 82 years of age, which adds more power to the lyrics.
Martin Short is given the honors of signing off. He shouts out to the original cast members gathered on stage, concluding with a tribute to Lorne Michaels. The hugging then commences.
This was a fun, appropriately star-studded celebration, but running throughout was an unmistakable sense of, if not death, then mortality. Man, woman or sketch comedy show – time comes for us all.
