Sydney Sweeney’s debut as “Saturday Night Live” guest host went smoothly. The star of “Euphoria” and “The White Lotus” proved in sketch after sketch that she could hold her own comedically even if much of the material didn't give her much to work with beyond playing up her public image as a sex symbol or stereotypical characters of a single note.
That doesn't mean the show didn't have its moments. Maybe it was because of musical guest Kacey Musgraves' very short performances, but this week's episode of “SNL” had a batch of live sketches. Sweeney played a 22-year-old intern who Help the NYPD solve cold cases being good at social media; she flirted with the dog Air Bud like a high school cheerleader who will date the most popular player on the team regardless of species; a plaintiff in a silly 17-judge court show called “big bench”; one of two wedding makeup artists have a bad time in asking for money and Instagram photos when a boyfriend runs away; and a Hooters Waitress Who Still Gets Big Tips while their co-workers are ignored or abused by customers.
None of these were bad sketches, they just didn't give Sweeney much range to show and didn't go much beyond his basic premises. She was much better served with “Bowen's straight line”, a video sketch about all the people cast member Bowen Yang hangs out with because he's secretly straight (they include a guest star, Gina Gershon), a Please Don't Destroy video that we'll talk about in a moment At the end. featured piece about a couple on a date night who find ways close the noisy tables around you.
Musical guest Kacey Musgraves performed “deepest well” and “Too good to be true.”
This week’s cold open was a parody of “Inside Politics with Dana Bash” with Heidi Gardner as host. The guests, including California Governor Gavin Newsom (Michael Longfellow), White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre (Ego Nwodim), Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas (Marcello Hernandez) and the star NBA star Draymond Green (Devon Walker) took turns hyping President Joe. Biden's mental acuity and physical feats. Newsom claimed Biden can catch a baseball in his sleep like Robert DeNiro in “Awakenings,” while Jean-Pierre ran through a presidential calendar that includes leading a SoulCycle class and winning a push-up contest. Mayorkas said Biden climbed over the U.S.-Mexico border wall, dove into the Rio Grande River and came back with a fish in his mouth. Each supporter repeated the phrase “Behind closed doors” as an increasingly skeptical Bash pressed for proof that these stories were true. When Newsom calls Biden (Mikey Day) on FaceTime, the exhausted president can't turn up the volume and instead hangs up on the call.
In her monologue, Sweeney joked that while you may have seen her in the movie “Anyone But You” or the series “Euphoria,” you definitely didn't see her in the recent “Madame Web” (presumably because of its bad box office). She mentioned her upcoming role as a nun in “Immaculate”: “I play a nun, so it's perfect casting.” The actress said that people know her for roles in which she screams, cries, has sex or does all three at the same time. She wowed by showing a five-point PowerPoint plan she put together when she was a child to convince her parents that she could pursue acting; her joke was that her plan B was “Show tits.” Lastly, she addressed what she called false rumors. that she and her film co-star Glen Powell had an affair. Sweeney said her fiancé Jonathan Davino was on the set of “Anyone But You” every day and was, in fact, in the audience. But when the camera cut to show him, a surprised Powell appeared. Powell returned for the show's final sketch as a boss who has an affair with his employee (Sweeney).
Best Skit of the Night: Airbnb Interior Designers
Sweeney and Chloe Troast play black-robed interior designers Chanel and Chanel (the latter is pronounced “Channel”), who have a business that helps Airbnb renters decorate their homes and apartments the way we expect. There is “a single disturbing photo of the family who actually lives here,” sheets worse than you'd find in a hotel, a camera in the bathroom, and a 12-page packet on how to take out the trash. Buried at the end of the show, it includes the greatest jokes of all the episode's sketches and will ring true with anyone who's ever marveled at the poor decor of a short-term rental they're occupying.
Also good: RIP Rev. Butt Cheek P. Rosenthal
The guys from Please Don't Destroy are back this week with a very silly pre-recorded sketch in which they mourn the loss of their friend, a 1,500-pound man named Rev. Butt Cheek P. Rosenthal. He died after a donkey kicked him so hard in the private parts that he fell into the Grand Canyon. Sweeney hears the story and is incredulous, believing that the boys are lying to her, until she is shown a video of the incident. She somehow involves Chef Boyardee and the tweets of Joe Biden, Malala Yousafzai and The Pope. This was a nice return to form for Please Don't Destroy; Many times, these sketches don't have to make sense, they just have to be really absurd, funny, and well edited.
'Weekend Update' winner: North Carolina's 'immaculate' stingray
Gardner played a “Woman aging gracefully,“But it was Nwodim's interpretation of Charlotte, a streak that was mysteriously impregnated in a North Carolina aquarium, who won the segment. Nwodim, dressed in an enormous stingray costume, immediately implicated “Weekend Update” co-host Michael Che as the father of the “little Che Ray” she plans to have. Unfortunately, he says, he may have quadruplets and knows that Che can't afford to raise them: “You work one day a week,” he said. While some have speculated that the royal stingray's pregnancy may be the result of an immaculate conception, Charlotte denies this: “You became immaculate and then I became immaculate three times in a row,” she tells Che. “I would say you broke my back, but I have no bones,” she concludes.
