Singer-songwriter Dua Lipa has performed her music on “Saturday Night Live” before, but for the first time she pulled double duty as a guest host and musical act. The sketch-heavy show didn't try to surround her with a bunch of cameos or five-stroke jackets or anything fancy this week. except for a Appearance on “Weekend Update” by Jerry Seinfeldwho was there to promote his new Netflix movie,”without freezingand a musical introduction by actor and musician Troye Sivan, Lipa was left alone to show if she could “give you everything” as she promised in her monologue.
The result? A mix of sketches that were neither derailed by the singer nor really elevated much by her presence. Except for a fun filmed one. Tribute to “The Elephant Man”. She was either relegated to supporting parts that didn't require her to carry a scene, or she appeared for a few lines and then was made to disappear. At least two of the sketches were repeats of previous episodes, including a Young Spicy's sketch on announcers recording inappropriate rap song intros and the return of phone number jingle artists Soul Booth at the end of the show. Elsewhere, Lipa played a woman with a Sonny Angel doll collection comes to life and wants to recreate the vibe of the new movie “Challengers,” a wearer of tiny activist pins on the red carpet, and a penne alla vodka eater, which is always there for us in its soft and comforting way. She was also a nurse to a barbecue master turned OB-GYN named Fat Daddy.
If nothing else, this episode whetted the appetite for Maya Rudolph's return as host next week.
As the musical guest, Dua Lipa performed “Illusion,” hosted by Sivan, and “Happy for You,” hosted by Seinfeld.
This week's cold open avoided White House politics or Trump courtroom drama to see how parents are reacting to recent student protests on college campuses. The backdrop was a program, “Community Affairs with Ryan Abernathy,” whose host (Michael Longfellow) asked parents of New York college students what they thought about their children's protests (presumably over Palestine). The joke was that Alphonse Roberts (Kenan Thompson), father of a Columbia student, is not worried about his daughter Alexa Vanessa Roberts because she is not protesting. “She better have her butt in class. I support all of you “The children are protesting, not my children,” he said. “Release this, release that. I’ll tell you what’s not free: Columbia.” She talked about the jobs she is working to help pay $68,000 a year in tuition so her daughter can earn a degree in African American studies and how she looks forward to going to her graduation while she is in deep denial that she graduation may be cancelled.
In her monologue, Lipa (or as she has come to accept, “Dula Pio) showed her parents in the audience, who called her Dua, which in Albanian means “love,” and Lipa, which in Albanian means my last name. The singer said that her parents partied as much as she did and told how she ran into them late one night at a London club. She talked about her new album, “Radical Optimism,” and gave examples of it to cast members in the audience who told of her sad situations, such as being abandoned or a doctor telling her to stop drinking. Lipa's advice: “There are always poppers!” But she interrupted an audience member, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem (Heidi Gardner), before she could ask anything. She joked about him “lazy dance” meme which she has accepted over time and has promised to do the opposite as a guest host. “I'm going to give you everything! I make the wigs, I hand out Adderall to the writers, I do it all!
Best sketch of the night: 'The Anomalous Man' has arrogance
The pre-recorded black-and-white sketch features Sarah Sherman as an Elephant Man-like playwright named Peter, who has claw-like hands, a pig's snout for an ear, and a gigantic eye on his back. A woman named Emily (Lipa) meets Peter and shows him an affection that she says she has never felt before. The two begin to fall in love, but the first night they share a bed, she wakes her up to the sound of text messages. It turns out that Peter has several phones and several women he plans to sleep with, and he sends messages like, “POV: You're about to get criticized by a weirdo.”
Also good: Explaining the feud between Kendrick Lamar and Drake
On the television show “Good Morning, Greenville,” the hosts (Gardner and Mikey Day) unknowingly try to explain the growing dispute between rappers Kendrick Lamar and Drake, which came to a head on Friday with the release of three diss tracks and was followed by a fourth on saturday night. Hilariously, the two hosts try to include their black meteorologist (Devon Walker), who asks to be excluded from the basic, uninformed discourse. A piano teacher (Lipa), who considers Elton John's lyrics to be rap, tries to decipher the clues and concludes that Drake is Canadian and that Kendrick's shoe size is being analyzed. The level of embarrassment reaches its peak when the hosts try to squash the meat with cutouts of Drake and Lamar's faces that they use as puppets. “No,” the meteorologist says as he leaves the studio.
'Weekend Update' Winner: Cricket is a Good Boy
This week’s “Weekend Update” had three guests, including Chloe Fineman reviewing his JoJo Siwa impression to chronicle her new “bad girl” image, and Seinfeld talks about the fatigue of doing too much press for his new movie, with a specific warning for Ryan Gosling. But it was Marcello Hernández who made the biggest impact with his portrayal of Noem's other pup, Grillo Séptimo, who defended the governor while apparently suffering from Stockholm syndrome. The canine insisted that the first six crickets were bad dogs, while he hoped for a long life. A talking button worn by the canine disagreed with messages including: “She's going to kill me tonight” and “I die tonight.” “I am a good boy!” The dog insisted when he concluded the segment.
