Episode nine of Saturday Night Live’s 50th season opens with Nancy Grace’s (Sarah Sherman, doing a solid impression for a change) YouTube show’s coverage of Luigi Mangione, the recently apprehended alleged murderer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. The hypocritical Grace is morally outraged over Mangione’s status as a sex symbol, dismissing people’s fury over the state of healthcare in America: “Then how come my dentist gives me breast exams for free?”
She briefly interviews a psychiatrist (Ashley Padilla), a witness from the McDonalds where Mangione was captured (Kenan Thompson), and a man who looks like the assassin (Emil Wakim). Aside from Thompson’s witness, no one can get a word in between the apoplectic Grace and the nonstop ads for bro-y fitness scams.
This is a nothing of a cold open that wastes the resemblance between Wakim and Mangione to instead parody Grace, a figure who hasn’t been relevant in almost a decade.
Former cast member
Chris Rock returns for hosting duties. He delivers a standup routine about current events, getting in a good line about Brian Thompson (“I have real condolences … but, you know, sometimes drug dealers get shot”) before doling out several lazy – not offensive, mind you, just lazy – jokes about Mexicans getting deported under Trump. Rock’s material has been better.
The first sketch of the night takes place at a mall Santa’s village. Rock’s happy elf gives visitors two options to choose from – a white Santa and a Black Santa – forcing uncomfortable white parents to choose or flee. A few years ago, this premise might have proved cutting, but post-Trump’s re-election, these pokes at fragile Caucasians and their white guilt complexes just don’t land with the same force.
At an office secret Santa party Rock’s employee is gifted a portrait of himself as a Simpsons character. He’s so psyched about it that he creates his own episode, one where he plays Bart’s dance instructor, who discovers Homer is physically abusing Marge. He decides to take matters into his own hands, hunting down Homer at Moe’s, where he beats him to death (“as he lays dying on the floor, he utters his final words: D’oh!”). The imagined episode ends with him and Marge in bed, orgasming together. This one coasts on easy pop culture nostalgia, but it also contains some unexpectedly funny lines (such as Chloe Fineman excitedly exclaiming “I can’t wait to try these!” when given a box of tampons for a present).
Then, a group of friends discover a magical car from the 1950s, only to find that it’s super racist and sexist. One note and over before it begins.
Musical guest Gracie Abrams performs her first song, then it’s time for Weekend Update. The segment’s first guest is a bald man (Andrew Dismukes in a bald cap), there to comment on a British court’s recent ruling that calling someone bald is a form of harassment. The chrome dome commenter angrily chides Colin Jost and others for their constant jokes and stereotypes, even as he makes himself look like a stick of deodorant and polishes his head like a bowling ball. Silly and stupid, in a good way.
Later, Jost welcomes freshman cast member Jane Wickline to debut a new Sabrina Carpenter-styled song. Rather than attempting to do an impression of Carpenter or sing in her style, she explains that, for the purposes of the performance, she simply “is” her. The song is about her jealousy over fan speculation of every other celebrity’s sexuality: “Why am I the only straight pop star taken at their word?” The audience is initially cold to the bit, but Wickline gradually wins them over.
A surgery goes awry when the doctors realize they’ve removed the patient’s gallbladder instead of his appendix, like they were supposed to. The blame lies on nervous nurse Leslie (Sherman), who marked the wrong organ for removal (she also lost one of her air pods in the patient and didn’t give him enough nitrous oxide to stay sedated). Despite how bad she messed up, the patient himself – played by Adam Sandler in a surprise reveal – defends her, even as he douses the room in blood from his open incision. This goes completely off the rails thanks to faulty special effects, but Sandler salvages things simply by being his goofy, charming self.
After Abrams’s second song of the night, we get a monster truck-style advertisement for a corporate office Christmas party featuring uncooperative music apps, annoying kids, interminable Secret Santa games, jealous spouses, pissed off cleaning staff and DUIs. Your standard roll call sketch that doesn’t give any joke the room to breathe, but at least this one uses a different template.
As seems to be the new tradition, we end on a sketch set in a restaurant. Ego Nwodim’s nervous single awaits her blind date, only to be met by Rock’s horny, scheming interloper. He’s a lying scumbag who constantly interrupts their conversation to ask if she would like to have sex in her car. She naturally rebuffs him, but when her actual date shows up and turns out to be a smug, young finance douchebag, she realizes he was actually the lesser of two evils and decides to put out. A flat note to end a mostly flat episode.
On paper, Rock seemed like the type of host this season should be stacked with. However, his most memorable moments during his three years on the show came about in Weekend Update appearances where he was himself, so it wasn’t like he had any popular characters to bring back. That would be fine if he were a more natural sketch comedian, but he came off noticeably awkward most of the time. Sandler helped pick up the slack, but it wasn’t enough to redeem the episode.
Noticeably absent was Dana Carvey, breaking what had been the longest streak of consecutive guest appearances in the show’s history. It would have been nice to see him, Sandler and Rock together, since they are all season 17 and 18 alumni, but alas.
