It would seem that after a season of heavy-hitters and a 50th Anniversary that went all-out, the cast and crew of “Saturday Night Live” may have exhausted themselves a bit. For last night’s episode, hosted by recent Oscar-winner Mikey Madison and featuring controversial musical guest Morgan Wallen (who abruptly walked off stage during the show’s goodbyes), the episode felt like it was a bit on auto-pilot, reviving characters that really shouldn’t have been brought back and rushing through each sketch as if the humor wasn’t worth holding on to.
The night started (predictably so) with a cold open that highlighted our current government’s latest gaffe involving Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth sending attack plans to a group chat that included the editor of “The Atlantic.” In this version of events, Hegseth, played by Andrew Dismukes, ends up interrupting the text chain of a group of high school-aged girls. It was an easy laugh, though also extremely bleak considering the reality of our current circumstances.
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Marcello Hernandez has certainly become a standout amongst the cast this season, but when the first sketch of the night ended up being a retread of his acting teacher character he introduced earlier during “SNL 50” when Charli XCX hosted, one couldn’t help but wonder if the writers staff were so tired, they just couldn’t be bothered to come up with anything new. It’s not that the sketch didn’t have its funny moments, particularly with Hernandez chewing the scenery, but the conceit of an acting class for commercials led by a self-aggrandizing teacher is both too inside-baseball and somehow so obvious that every laugh comes as almost a courtesy.
There were a few pre-taped bits on last night’s “Saturday Night Live,” none of which proved that memorable, but the most amusing of which was “Big Dumb Line.” The skit featured Madison, Chloe Fineman, and Bowen Yang as a group of city-bound friends obsessed with spending their days on line for places recently spotlighted on social media. This is a trend that has become all-too-familiar and the way in which the bit mocks our appetite for these fads is right on-the-money, especially when it points to the fact that what these people are waiting in line for may not be all that worth it. An appearance by Joe Jonas at one in the video does sour the overall appeal, but nonetheless, “Big Dumb Line” does a very relatable quality that cuts us all down to size.
Not many of the live sketches really landed 100% last night and though “Jury Duty” is no different, it does reminds one of what it’s like to watch a live sketch show, with all of the unknown mishaps that can take place in the moment adding to the overall humor of the piece. The set-up for the bit is not dissimilar to the “Audition Tape” videos “SNL” has been known to trot out, allowing their cast and hosts to embrace their impersonation skills, but this time, the point is less about what makes whichever celebrity their playing so kooky and more about how kookiness itself has made it so we can longer have a functioning justice system. With Ego Nwodim as judge, Madison and members of the cast each step up to offer themselves for jury duty, either making every effort to get out of it or being so off-the-walls out there that having them on a jury would be a crime in and of itself.
“Saturday Night Live” returns April 5 with host Jack Black and musical guests Elton John and Brandi Carlile.
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