For someone whose nerves were at a self-described 10 out of 10 in the week leading up to his Saturday Night Live debut, first-time host Josh O’Connor began his Studio 8H debut about as smoothly as possible: In his monologue, the Wake Up Dead Man star glided easily from self-effacing jokes — “No, I am not the mouse from Flushed Away” — ripped from the digital zeitgeist to cheekily leaning into his public persona as a “soft boy,” otherwise known as an “average 65-year-old woman” who embroiders, scrapbooks and gardens.
The tight 3-minute opener took a delightful turn when O’Connor addressed fans pitching him to play Alfredo Linguini in a live-action remake of Walt Disney/Pixar Animation’s beloved Ratatouille (a film he has espoused affection for more than once) and chief creative officer Pete Docter’s subsequent rebuke of such a project. “Do you know how it feels to be publicly rejected from a job I didn’t even want? For the record, I don’t even want a live-action Ratatouille,” he said, before eventually interrupting his own thoughts to pivot: “Sorry, sorry, for what it’s worth: I would kill as Linguini.”
Unfortunately, similar to the (albeit heartwarming) tale between a restaurant garbage boy and Remy the rat, O’Connor — much like Linguini — was stuck playing second fiddle tonight on SNL, puppeted to and fro from sketch to sketch that sidelined his comedic talents. The late-night mainstay struggled to bottle up O’Connor’s distinct whimsical charms (ones showcased in Emma and The Mastermind, for example) via skits that didn’t play to his strengths as a deft performer, and often didn’t know how to utilize him entirely.
In early sketch “Let’s Find Love,” O’Connor is a boyish dating show contestant who, when presented with three potential romantic partners in a blind format, is almost immediately upstaged by an 84-year-old, scooter-riding Ashley Padilla, whose blatant disregard of reality TV (and social) norms gets big laughs early on, but eventually peters out due to repetitiveness.
Similar problems abound in a later sketch concerning deleted scenes from The Wizard of Oz, which features Dorothy (Sarah Sherman), the Wizard (Bowen Yang) and her ragtag group (Andrew Dismukes as the Scarecrow, Kenan Thompson as the Cowardly Lion and O’Connor as the Tin Man). When Thompson’s Lion is revealed to have wished for a “big ole thing” rather than bravery, the other two male characters hop on the bandwagon to wish for the same thing. Not only is O’Connor given a few middling lines, but the skit itself can only go so far as a dick joke can carry you. (As the naughty refrain goes, it’s not the size that matters, but how you use it; in this case, not the content of the sketch, but how it’s executed.)
Meanwhile, the night’s closing brunch sketch didn’t feature O’Connor until the latter half; playing an awkward and intruding dad whose presence is clearly unwelcome, the sketch careens through a cast of characters who take turns breaking the fourth wall via song to comment on the “quite strange” nature of their outing. It is as overstuffed as Veronika Slowikowska’s character finds Chloe Fineman’s to be, after the latter character commits a mathematical faux pas by grabbing an extra slice of flatbread.
In one solid, pre-taped sketch spoofing Spotify’s beloved wrapped playlist, O’Connor doesn’t show up at all. Perhaps this was a scheduling conflict, and certainly, not every host has been in every sketch, but it does seem to be a glaring oversight to not include O’Connor in one of the best of the night.
The strongest outing of the night was, without a doubt, “Bachelorette Party Strippers,” with Ben Marshall and O’Connor as the “most sensitive strippers in all of the Catskills.” With A Little Life in tow, beanies hanging loosely on their perfectly rumpled heads and multiple layers of clothing, the sketch’s golden moments include a lo-fi version of Ginuwine’s “Pony” and line readings of “You are enough” and “You have to forgive yourself,” all of which gets Padilla’s bride-to-be more than hot and bothered — though the real steamy will-they-won’t-they is found in the undeclared romance between Marshall and O’Connor’s Augie and Remington.
And while SNL opted for resurrections this episode, it did so with varying levels of success. Another run at Yang’s Dr. Please character, first originated triumphantly during Ryan Gosling’s hosting stint last year, fizzled out quickly: O’Connor portrays an intern with little to do, especially as Padilla’s repartee with the doctor upstages everything else (“Doctor, your car…” she begins, “Was towed?” Yang asks. “No, was left at the scene of a crime,” she answers. “Just like I left it,” he concludes.) There was also round two of Mikey Day and Streeter Seidell’s animated short, “Brad and His Dad,” first introduced during Nikki Glaser’s run earlier this season, the holiday-themed No. 2 installment of which felt like little more than filler tonight.
As for Weekend Update, there were decent jabs at President Donald Trump (“In a new interview, President Trump said that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s ‘days are numbered.’ As opposed to Trump, whose days are lettered,” co-anchor Colin Jost quipped, as the screen flashed with the image of a weekly pill organizer. “Trump also said that the proposed merger between Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery ‘could be a problem,’ adding ‘Bribe!’ In response, Netflix is offering Trump one night with the [KPop] Demon Hunters.”
But perhaps the best aspect of Update was the return of Jane Wickline’s offbeat keyboard ditties. Addressing the “greatest threat to humanity right now” via song, Wickline’s ode initially presented as a foreboding warning against AI, before the track abruptly switched gears to discuss the child stars of Stranger Things. With lines like “They’re adults, we have to destroy them before they destroy everything / AI is just a distraction / The real threat here is Sadie Sink and her child co-stars on Stranger Things,” “Stranger Things is ending / They’ll have so much free time / What if they grow self aware / We need to keep them occupied / They’ll mobilize their followers, 60 million followers / We need to keep them occupied” and “Finn Wolfhard is the devil to me / The six of them are in a room right now preparing to seize the next election / And for these reasons, I stand with Vecna,” Wickline cautions the cast could go by way of Joe Rogan who “used to make people eat bugs [on Fear Factor], and now he’s President of the United States.”
And, in what has become a bit of trend in recent years at SNL, especially this season, Lily Allen‘s second performance — the West End Girl single “Madeline” — featured a surprise appearance by Dakota Johnson, who was revealed to be the woman performing the spoken lines in the song, hidden behind a sheer curtain. The Materialists star made her grand entrance as Allen wrapped up the track, greeting the musician with a hug and kiss on the cheek.
Natalie Oganesyan
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