The “Blonde” star was the host and Karol G was the musical guest on an episode that was light on topical moments.
Well, you can’t open “Saturday Night Live” every time with a sketch about the indictment of former President Donald Trump. Following a week with few significant news developments in that case, and rather than pivoting to, say, President Biden’s trip to Ireland, “S.N.L.” took a break from topical satire to instead seek comedy in the weather.
This installment of “S.N.L.,” hosted by Ana de Armas (“Blonde”) and featuring the musical guest Karol G, kicked off with a would-be red-carpet segment called “The First Warm Day of the Year Arrivals Show.” As a co-host played by Heidi Gardner explained, high temperatures hit New York several weeks ahead of schedule. “And while that may be terrifying on a climate level,” she said, “the warm weather can only mean one thing: all the freaks, crazies and weirdos are headed to Central Park.”
Enter a progression of cast members playing single-serving characters, including Mikey Day as Older Man Doing an Aggressive Power Walk, Michael Longfellow and James Austin Johnson as Two Perverts Who Came to the Park to Pleasure Themselves, and Devon Walker and Punkie Johnson as a pair of Park Employees Who Do Not Care About Their Jobs. Asked how she would handle people who aren’t obeying the rules, Johnson bestowed the park with an unofficial motto: “You do you,” she said.
Opening Monologue of the Week
De Armas, who was born and raised in Cuba, became the latest “S.N.L.” host to perform a portion of her monologue in Spanish. After stepping onto the stage of Studio 8H, she told the audience, in Spanish, that she’d had an incredible year and was happy to be on the show, adding: “Just kidding. I speak English.” (She also explained that she’d learned English “the way everyone who comes to this country does, by watching ‘Friends.’”)
De Armas follows other recent “S.N.L.” hosts whose monologues included brief bilingual portions, including Anya Taylor-Joy (who concluded her opening remarks and welcomed her musical guest, Lil Nas X, in Spanish) and Pedro Pascal (who offered love to his family members in Chile and asked them to stop giving out his phone number). Later on Weekend Update, Sarah Sherman referenced de Armas’s remarks, playing a meditation guru who joked that the anchor Colin Jost would end up in his dressing room after the show, “still fuming about the bilingual monologue.”
De Armas’s linguistic skills were also put to use in a sketch where she, Marcello Hernández and Karol G ran rings around a mediocre high-school Spanish teacher, played by Day. (If you’re unclear why Karol G wore a T-shirt opposing Photoshop, it was probably a reference to the singer’s dispute with GQ magazine, whose Mexican edition published a cover photo of her that she said had been heavily edited and did not represent her.)
Fake Movie Trailer of the Week
If a brightly colored “Barbie” movie, co-written and directed by Greta Gerwig and stocked with an all-star cast, can become one of the summer’s hottest box-office prospects and an endless source of internet memes, well, why not a film that brings the world of American Girl dolls to life? This segment quickly makes clear why: it would be depressing as hell. While cheerful pop music plays in the background, we meet eerily chipper dolls like Samantha (Chloe Fineman), an orphan whose parents died in a boating accident, and Addy (Ego Nwodim), a runaway slave. Don’t get too attached to Kirsten (Gardner), who says she wants to end cholera and then coughs blood into a handkerchief.
Weekend Update Jokes of the Week
Over at the Weekend Update desk, the anchors Jost and Michael Che riffed on the leak of American intelligence documents by a 21-year-old National Guard airman.
Jost began:
The person who allegedly leaked classified Pentagon documents on social media has been identified as Jack Teixeira, who is a Massachusetts Air National Guardsman, I assume in a school play. Teixeira shared the document in a private social media group that members say started as a place where young men could play war-themed video games, bond over their love of guns and post racist memes. And now it’s ruined. It was revealed that just before his arrest, Teixeira contacted the members of his group and said, “Guys, it’s been good — I love you all.” And of course, his friends all replied, “Gay.”
Che continued:
The online group Teixeira started was named Thug Shaker Central. Thug Shaker Central is also what Colin calls Atlanta. President Biden is trying to downplay the recent leak of classified U.S. documents that were posted on social media. Because when you’re over 80, a couple of leaks is nothing to be embarrassed about.
Weekend Update Desk Segment of the Week
Molly Kearney, the first openly nonbinary cast member on “S.N.L.,” used a desk appearance on Weekend Update to comment on a recent wave of anti-transgender bills — as well as the harness that uncomfortably delivered Kearney to the stage, providing a useful metaphor throughout this commentary. “I tried to call down but no one could hear me,” Kearney said. “At one point I heard a crew guy say, ‘Is she going to die up there?’ And then another guy was like, ‘You mean, are they going to die up there?’ And then they walked away and didn’t help — which feels a lot like how trans people are being treated right now.”
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
