Eliana Willis

Television celebrates older people — but only for seeming like sexy young ones.In the first episode of ABC’s “The Golden Bachelor” — the new 60-plus addition to the decades-old “Bachelor” franchise — Gerry Turner, 72, puts in his hearing aids, dons a tuxedo and cries within the first three minutes of airtime. Gerry, our Golden Bachelor, has been widowed for six years. His wife, Toni, died suddenly, of an infection, and in describing her passing he cannot contain his grief. We see photos of their lives together, from young marrieds to parents, from middle-aged partners to retirees enjoying themselves on a boat. Gerry is uncommonly slim and good-looking and seems to have been so throughout these various life stages. Toni, whose age is not specified, ages less magically. Her waist and eyeglasses thicken, as these things tend to. Clearly these changes did not dampen Gerry’s adoration. The type of tears he sheds on camera over her passing reveal what looks like a deep and enduring love — the thing every contestant on the set of “The Golden Bachelor” is now competing to find with him.Like the original, “The Golden Bachelor” presents around two dozen women, all vying for lasting happiness through marriage to a single, eligible catch. Other than the fact that contestants range in age from 60 to 75, the formula is familiar. Like “The Bachelor,” the season aims to end with a proposal. Like “The Bachelor,” most action takes place in a mansion full of bunk beds. Like “The Bachelor,” the contestants are typically lithe, sexy and hyperactive; some wear stilettos to breakfast, along with tube tops and hot pants and all manner of plunging décolletage; there are boobs everywhere, often huge ones. As the contestants emerge from their limousines, one by one, near the start of the first episode, making grand entrances with their mermaid hair and Pilates abs and buns of steel and snatched cheekbones and pneumatic-looking lips, often all over Gerry within minutes, a truth seems to dawn on the septuagenarian widower: Older women are not what they used to be. They are nothing at all like what they used to be. As if to underline this point, one of the contestants emerges from her limo with curler-set gray hair, baggy dress and walker — only to rip the whole kit off, fling the walker onto the paving stones and reveal her true self. This is Leslie, a 64-year-old dancer and former aerobics champion in a tiny lace corseted minidress. Leslie looks about 40 and acts even younger. The show, of course, is fun to watch. Many of the women are beautiful and spirited and accomplished. Gerry seems like a lovely man. Still, there is something here that sends a chill down my spine. The show has received glowing coverage from predictable corners (USA Today) and scored huge ratings for ABC. But is any of this actually good? For older people? Or even for younger people? I mean, this is “The Bachelor,” a mainstay of reality TV — a certain amount of desperation and superficiality is built into the DNA of the genre. But plunging older people into this context and then valorizing them because, perhaps with some nipping and tucking, they can just about fit? This feels more like a denigration of aging. Some of these people have been on Earth for 75 years. Here is an opportunity for them to demonstrate that life, comfortingly, has many chapters — that there is always change and that this change is not only natural, but good. Instead, we get a tight-and-toned show in which success involves being able to repeat Chapter 3 for as long as possible. This version of freedom has nothing to do with wisdom or respite, with taking stock or giving back or the hard-won succor of age. It is about working extremely hard to remain the same as you were when you were younger (or maybe even more fabulously youthy), especially if that youthful you was wont to grind barelegged to “Don’t Stop Believin’” in a tinsel handkerchief dress.A state of nubile teenagehood already coats the age spectrum, from 8-year-olds with gel nails on Snapchat to middle-aged dads in hoodies on longboards. Now it is creeping ever further up the life span. Martha Stewart expanded from her cardigans and sheet-pan suppers to moue on TikTok and chitchat on talk shows about how she should date Pete Davidson. Madonna accuses critics of ageism as she rids her face and body of signs of time, to the point of looking like a different person. The idea of not aging is not only normalized but treated as an accomplishment. No surprise, then, that one “Golden Bachelor” contestant shows up on a motorcycle or that another, age 70, flashes Gerry her “birthday suit” upon meeting him or that everyone stays up all night dancing in skyscraper heels, apparently bunion- and sciatica-free. Other than the odd passing remark about “ear candy” (code for hearing aids) or taking the bed nearest to the bathroom, this show — sold as a showcase for how fabulous and free growing old can be, and how “it’s never too late” to find love — actually negates aging, erases lateness. More than 10,000 baby boomers turn 65 in America every day; by 2034, there will be more Americans over age 65 than children. What we are being told is that they will be vital and relevant mostly insofar as they have maintained arms like Jessica Biel and off-the-chart libidos.A couple of weeks ago, I watched a few episodes of the 1980s sitcom “The Golden Girls” with my daughters. Like any other woman of 50 who knows how old those mostly gray-haired characters were supposed to be — at the start of the series, Blanche, Dorothy and Rose were in their early 50s — I experienced some cognitive dissonance. “Do they seem like they are the same age as me?” I asked my 11-year-old. No, she said. They seemed “more comfortable, like grandmothers used to.”Odd, but true: The kind of aging depicted on “The Golden Bachelor” is itchy and awkward. We hear a contestant say it’s nice to see older women enjoy how they feel in their skin; we hear contestants say they are breaking stereotypes of what it means to be old. But what good is that when those stereotypes are instantly replaced with “Girls Gone Wild” stereotypes about what it means to still be young? In Episode 1, after most of the contestants have sashayed into the mansion, another woman emerges. She is 84. She is wearing a nice blouse and forgiving trousers and flat shoes, like a normal person in her 80s. She says she is Jimmy Kimmel’s aunt — Aunt Chippy, as featured on his show — and she just wanted to meet Gerry, as she was sure he was lying about his age. The gag is that she is not really in the game, because she is old. Sitting with the other women in the mansion, she says: “I don’t belong here. Those ladies are really something. Look at this one. I’m in the wrong place.” She is later caught napping; at least one person here is comfortable with where she finds herself.But of course, Chippy leaves the set. I imagine her going home, making coffee, putting her feet up and calling a grandkid or an old friend to talk about the truly weird day she had, and how — thank God — she doesn’t need to be like that anymore, with the hair and the boobs and the sex. Because she was already young once, and even then it was exhausting, and now? She can’t even imagine.Source photographs for illustration above: Brian Bowen Smith/ABC; Ricky Middlesworth/ABC; Rosemary Calvert/Getty Images; Jonathan Knowles/Getty Images. More

“This morning, I didn’t even know who Tom Emmer was,” Kimmel said about a short-lived candidate for House speaker. “Now, I still don’t. I have no idea.”Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.‘You Will Be Googled’Representative Tom Emmer, Republican of Minnesota, was nominated for speaker of the House on Tuesday before withdrawing because of a lack of support from the right.Jimmy Kimmel joked that it was just the latest history-making delay of the House “ungaveling before our eyes.”“In the history of our country, there has never been a situation like this. And there’s nothing in the Constitution that covers it, because the founding fathers, as forward-thinking as they were, never imagined such a large group of elected officials being so unbelievably dumb.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“This morning, I didn’t even know who Tom Emmer was. Now, I still don’t. I have no idea.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“According to people I pay to care about it, Emmer is the House majority whip. He sits on the Financial Services Committee, and, perhaps most notably, he got two D.U.I.s, then sponsored legislation to lower the legal penalties that face accused drunk drivers. OK, so a little self-serving? He also introduced H.R. 2435: That Mailbox Was Already Knocked Down.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Altoids last longer than these Republican nominees.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Martin Scorsese’s out here making movies that last longer than speaker candidates.” — DESUS NICE, guest host of “The Daily Show”“Farewell, Tom Emmer. You will be Googled.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“At this point, I’d call the G.O.P. a clown car, but clowns go to college.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (Who Flips Next? Edition)“Trump 2020 campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis pleaded guilty today to a criminal charge in the Georgia election interference case, making her former President Trump’s fourth co-defendant of the trial to plead guilty. So I guess, in the end, he did teach them all ‘The Art of the Deal.’” — SETH MEYERS“That’s three Trump lawyers in one week! Which leads us to America’s favorite new game show: ‘Who … Flips … Next?’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Right now, half of Trump’s lawyers are trying to keep him out of prison; the other half are trying to keep themselves out of prison.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Bits Worth WatchingMick Jagger joined Jimmy Fallon to divulge some “Freezer Secrets” on Tuesday’s “Tonight Show.”What We’re Excited About on Wednesday NightThe Canadian stand-up comedian, actor and writer Mae Martin will appear on Wednesday’s “Late Show.”Also, Check This OutThe Birmingham Royal Ballet performing “Black Sabbath: The Ballet,” which has had sold-out runs in England in Birmingham, Plymouth and London.Ellie Smith for The New York TimesHeavy metal meets classical dance in the Birmingham Royal Ballet’s smash hit, “Black Sabbath: The Ballet.” More

Candid memoirs by Henry Winkler and John Stamos reveal how lucky breaks — and Yale training, and a curling iron — made them into household names.IF YOU WOULD HAVE TOLD ME: A Memoir, by John Stamos with Daphne YoungBEING HENRY: The Fonz … and Beyond, by Henry Winkler with James KaplanWhen I worked for a casting director in the 1980s, the most fun part of the job was looking at the marked-up appointment sheet at the end of each day. Because film and TV auditions are intimate, often conducted over a desk, my boss had devised a code by which to secretly rate the sensitive actors sitting just inches away from her: CBNC (close but no cigar), LLIT (a little long in the tooth), and so on.Listen to This ArticleOpen this article in the New York Times Audio app on iOS.So you can imagine my surprise when, after a very chatty young actor known for playing snotty know-it-alls had auditioned one day, my boss abandoned her usual hieroglyphics and simply scrawled next to the actor’s name on the appointment sheet, in all caps, the seven-letter epithet that starts with “A” and ends with “E” and is synonymous with “backside.” Cowabunga!Neither of the smart and entertaining new memoirs by Henry Winkler and John Stamos inspires such odium — even if both TV stars have written books that traffic heavily in their authors’ lesser angels. These foibles elicited differing reactions from me — I wanted to give the adorably needy Winkler the kind of slow-burn hug that would both congratulate and pacify him; I wanted to abandon the businesslike and unidealistic Stamos in a black box theater with Stella Adler until he starts babbling about “making choices” and his “instrument.”Winkler’s essential m.o. in life, we learn, is to try to make everyone love him because his Holocaust survivor parents didn’t. After graduating from Yale Drama School, he got his breakout role as the too-cool-for-school Fonzie on “Happy Days” just six weeks after moving to Los Angeles.Playing the Fonz has been a meal ticket that has yielded Winkler interesting reactions from unlikely sources. “You do not have to tell me who you are,” Marcello Mastroianni made clear. “Finally, we meet,” Orson Welles uttered.On the flip side, Winkler has spent much of his post-Fonzie career trying not to be typecast — an obstacle not made easier by the fact that he didn’t learn he was severely dyslexic until he was 34. Winkler has made up for lost time by branching out into other pursuits — directing, producing, writing children’s books .But Winkler’s bigger obstacle, it seems, has been emotional immaturity: Until he started therapy seven years ago, he had intimacy problems, including not being able to tell his partner, Stacey, that he loved her. (Wonderfully, Stacey, now his wife, writes responses throughout the book, such as “There were times when I thought … ‘Now I have another child?’”)Winkler’s affective shortcomings throw his social anxiety and bouts of verbal diarrhea into high relief. After meeting Paul McCartney, Winkler, hoping to hang out with the former Beatle, called him 10 times without getting an answer; after chattering incessantly at Neil Simon’s house over dinner one night, he spent months summoning the courage to ask Simon over, only to be told twice that the playwright was “busy.” It’s this kind of candor — coming from someone who once duct-taped deli turkey to his shoes so his dog would play with him — that makes Winkler so lovable on the page. Under the juddering neediness lies a mensch: After Winkler had shot his role in “Scream,” he was told his name couldn’t be on the movie poster because the Fonzie connection would create the wrong expectations for a horror film. But, Hollywood being Hollywood, when the film came out Winkler was asked to do press. Which he agreed to. Winkler’s story is also aided by the fact that his deepest work as an actor — on the terrific recent HBO series “Barry” — came directly after the therapy sessions that helped Winkler with his intimacy issues. As my former boss might have written, VTEBNLPBI (very tidy ending, but no less powerful because of it).John Stamos, he of “Full House” and “E.R.” and Broadway, takes longer to warm to on the page. Stamos is blessed with some of Winkler’s candor — he admits to having had two nose jobs and having gone to Alcoholics Anonymous. However, it’s hard to rouse a head of steam for a thespian whose raison d’être is to “get famous” and who cops to “trying to achieve sex symbol status.” WIJJ (where is the joy, John)?Such dampening pragmatism seems to spill over even to Stamos’s love life. After saying of one actress more famous than he was that “it wouldn’t hurt to get to know her,” he dated her for almost a year. Later in the book, Stamos confesses that he used to want to partner up with “someone who has a bigger, more exciting life than mine to elevate me” so they’d be “a power couple always in the press,” but, once he started seeing his now-wife, Caitlyn, he realized that what he’d always needed was someone who’s cozy-making — someone who would tell him when he has “too much product in my hair.” Some Stamos fans may enjoy this kind of Malibu verismo, but I found myself repeatedly looking floorward in search of a dog to pet. That said, a few things save Stamos from hanging himself. For one, he’s great with period detail. When Stamos auditioned in the early ’80s to play the thief and urchin Blackie Parrish on “General Hospital,” he had his mother feather his hair with a curling iron — hair that was already streaked with Sun In. He rejected his father’s Members Only jacket in favor of his mother’s long leather jacket, and tied a yellow bandanna around his leg in homage to Chachi on “Happy Days.” Then he drove to the audition in an El Camino he calls “the El Co.” You can almost smell the Travolta.Second, we can chalk some of Stamos’s apparent lack of passion about acting up to the fact that music — specifically, drumming — seems to be his true love. After befriending at Disneyland a Beach Boys cover band called Papa Doo Run Run early in his career, Stamos proceeded to charm his way into the inner circle of the actual Beach Boys and then to play drums hundreds of times with the legacy pop group during the 1980s and ’90s. These sections of the book are some of its most exciting.Lastly, Stamos is a highly social creature. I enjoyed reading about his mentors, Garry Marshall and Jack Klugman; the charity work he has done with abused and neglected kids; and the strings-pulling that he did on behalf of both his first wife, the actress Rebecca Romijn, and his pal Don Rickles. Similarly, the chapter about his friend and “Full House” colleague Bob Saget, who died last year, is lovely.Speaking of tidy endings: Winkler, it turns out, was an early influence for Stamos. After meeting the affable fellow actor, Stamos decided, “I’m going to treat people the way he treats me.”ALAFWARHC: At last, a friend for Winkler who’ll always return his calls.Audio produced by More

Candid memoirs by Henry Winkler and John Stamos reveal how lucky breaks — and Yale training, and a curling iron — made them into household names.IF YOU WOULD HAVE TOLD ME: A Memoir, by John Stamos with Daphne YoungBEING HENRY: The Fonz … and Beyond, by Henry Winkler with James KaplanWhen I worked for a casting director in the 1980s, the most fun part of the job was looking at the marked-up appointment sheet at the end of each day. Because film and TV auditions are intimate, often conducted over a desk, my boss had devised a code by which to secretly rate the sensitive actors sitting just inches away from her: CBNC (close but no cigar), LLIT (a little long in the tooth), and so on.Listen to This ArticleOpen this article in the New York Times Audio app on iOS.So you can imagine my surprise when, after a very chatty young actor known for playing snotty know-it-alls had auditioned one day, my boss abandoned her usual hieroglyphics and simply scrawled next to the actor’s name on the appointment sheet, in all caps, the seven-letter epithet that starts with “A” and ends with “E” and is synonymous with “backside.” Cowabunga!Neither of the smart and entertaining new memoirs by Henry Winkler and John Stamos inspires such odium — even if both TV stars have written books that traffic heavily in their authors’ lesser angels. These foibles elicited differing reactions from me — I wanted to give the adorably needy Winkler the kind of slow-burn hug that would both congratulate and pacify him; I wanted to abandon the businesslike and unidealistic Stamos in a black box theater with Stella Adler until he starts babbling about “making choices” and his “instrument.”Winkler’s essential m.o. in life, we learn, is to try to make everyone love him because his Holocaust survivor parents didn’t. After graduating from Yale Drama School, he got his breakout role as the too-cool-for-school Fonzie on “Happy Days” just six weeks after moving to Los Angeles.Playing the Fonz has been a meal ticket that has yielded Winkler interesting reactions from unlikely sources. “You do not have to tell me who you are,” Marcello Mastroianni made clear. “Finally, we meet,” Orson Welles uttered.On the flip side, Winkler has spent much of his post-Fonzie career trying not to be typecast — an obstacle not made easier by the fact that he didn’t learn he was severely dyslexic until he was 34. Winkler has made up for lost time by branching out into other pursuits — directing, producing, writing children’s books .But Winkler’s bigger obstacle, it seems, has been emotional immaturity: Until he started therapy seven years ago, he had intimacy problems, including not being able to tell his partner, Stacey, that he loved her. (Wonderfully, Stacey, now his wife, writes responses throughout the book, such as “There were times when I thought … ‘Now I have another child?’”)Winkler’s affective shortcomings throw his social anxiety and bouts of verbal diarrhea into high relief. After meeting Paul McCartney, Winkler, hoping to hang out with the former Beatle, called him 10 times without getting an answer; after chattering incessantly at Neil Simon’s house over dinner one night, he spent months summoning the courage to ask Simon over, only to be told twice that the playwright was “busy.” It’s this kind of candor — coming from someone who once duct-taped deli turkey to his shoes so his dog would play with him — that makes Winkler so lovable on the page. Under the juddering neediness lies a mensch: After Winkler had shot his role in “Scream,” he was told his name couldn’t be on the movie poster because the Fonzie connection would create the wrong expectations for a horror film. But, Hollywood being Hollywood, when the film came out Winkler was asked to do press. Which he agreed to. Winkler’s story is also aided by the fact that his deepest work as an actor — on the terrific recent HBO series “Barry” — came directly after the therapy sessions that helped Winkler with his intimacy issues. As my former boss might have written, VTEBNLPBI (very tidy ending, but no less powerful because of it).John Stamos, he of “Full House” and “E.R.” and Broadway, takes longer to warm to on the page. Stamos is blessed with some of Winkler’s candor — he admits to having had two nose jobs and having gone to Alcoholics Anonymous. However, it’s hard to rouse a head of steam for a thespian whose raison d’être is to “get famous” and who cops to “trying to achieve sex symbol status.” WIJJ (where is the joy, John)?Such dampening pragmatism seems to spill over even to Stamos’s love life. After saying of one actress more famous than he was that “it wouldn’t hurt to get to know her,” he dated her for almost a year. Later in the book, Stamos confesses that he used to want to partner up with “someone who has a bigger, more exciting life than mine to elevate me” so they’d be “a power couple always in the press,” but, once he started seeing his now-wife, Caitlyn, he realized that what he’d always needed was someone who’s cozy-making — someone who would tell him when he has “too much product in my hair.” Some Stamos fans may enjoy this kind of Malibu verismo, but I found myself repeatedly looking floorward in search of a dog to pet. That said, a few things save Stamos from hanging himself. For one, he’s great with period detail. When Stamos auditioned in the early ’80s to play the thief and urchin Blackie Parrish on “General Hospital,” he had his mother feather his hair with a curling iron — hair that was already streaked with Sun In. He rejected his father’s Members Only jacket in favor of his mother’s long leather jacket, and tied a yellow bandanna around his leg in homage to Chachi on “Happy Days.” Then he drove to the audition in an El Camino he calls “the El Co.” You can almost smell the Travolta.Second, we can chalk some of Stamos’s apparent lack of passion about acting up to the fact that music — specifically, drumming — seems to be his true love. After befriending at Disneyland a Beach Boys cover band called Papa Doo Run Run early in his career, Stamos proceeded to charm his way into the inner circle of the actual Beach Boys and then to play drums hundreds of times with the legacy pop group during the 1980s and ’90s. These sections of the book are some of its most exciting.Lastly, Stamos is a highly social creature. I enjoyed reading about his mentors, Garry Marshall and Jack Klugman; the charity work he has done with abused and neglected kids; and the strings-pulling that he did on behalf of both his first wife, the actress Rebecca Romijn, and his pal Don Rickles. Similarly, the chapter about his friend and “Full House” colleague Bob Saget, who died last year, is lovely.Speaking of tidy endings: Winkler, it turns out, was an early influence for Stamos. After meeting the affable fellow actor, Stamos decided, “I’m going to treat people the way he treats me.”ALAFWARHC: At last, a friend for Winkler who’ll always return his calls.Audio produced by More

Stephen Colbert named actual candidates for the job before switching to made-up politicians — “and literally no one knows when I did, including me.”Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Speaking for Whom?With Jim Jordan officially out of contention, Republicans continued their struggle to pick a new speaker of the House on Monday. In the running were nine potential candidates — later eight, with Dan Meuser dropping out — a group that Stephen Colbert found unremarkable. “This time, nine Republicans will battle for the top post: Tom Emmer from Minnesota, Kevin Hern from Oklahoma, Jack Bergman from Michigan, Byron Donalds from Florida, Mike Johnson from Louisiana, Sam Nayman from Tennessee, Dan Marks from Wisconsin, Ben Warner from Georgia and Ken Sherman from Pennsylvania — and I started making up names partway through that list, and literally no one knows when I did, including me.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThis week’s guest host of “The Daily Show,” Desus Nice, pointed to the sole Black contender, Byron Donalds, among a group of white men.“I’m going to be honest: I kind of want to root for Byron. I feel like he might be my guy. I mean, no particular reason,” Nice joked.“It looks like someone put a bottle of Hershey’s syrup in the mayonnaise aisle.” — DESUS NICE“Yo, all these white dudes look the same. In fact, three of them are the same guy, and you didn’t even notice.” — DESUS NICE“There are now eight candidates for speaker — seven white men and one Black man, or as Republicans call it, a very diverse slate of choices.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“It’s like the reunion of a college basketball team from 1955, you know?” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Nine House Republicans have announced plans to run for speaker. But if you wanted to see nine people who have no chance of winning, just go to a Mets game.” — SETH MEYERSThe Punchiest Punchlines (Sports News Edition)“Let’s ease into everything with some sports news, and by sports news, I mean Taylor Swift: America’s sweetheart. She did some charity over the weekend by shining a spotlight on a little, unknown sport called football.” — DESUS NICE“Also, props to Brittany Mahomes. She leveled up. She went from being the quarterback’s wife to Taylor Swift’s B.F.F. — that’s like the highest level a white woman can get.” — DESUS NICE“Yeah, I guess it works, because Travis Kelce had his best game of the season yesterday. He finished with a touchdown, 12 catches, 179 yards, and 35 friendship bracelets, so, what a haul.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“I will say it’s a good thing Taylor is dating someone on a good team. If she was dating someone on the Jets, she wouldn’t have a touchdown handshake. She’d just have a reassuring shoulder tap: ‘We’ll get ’em next time. You can’t win ’em all. Or any of them.’” — DESUS NICEThe Bits Worth WatchingThe “Priscilla” star Jacob Elordi talked about his childhood celebrity crush — Brad Pitt — on Monday’s “Tonight Show.”What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightThe author Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah will chat with Desus Nice, the guest host, on Tuesday’s “Daily Show.”Also, Check This OutIn “Fellow Travelers,” Jonathan Bailey, left, and Matt Bomer play men who move in and out of one another’s lives as history unfolds around them.Ben Mark Holzberg/ShowtimeThe Oscar-winning screenwriter Ron Nyswaner’s debut TV series for Paramount+, “Fellow Travelers,” is an adaptation of the 2007 novel by Thomas Mallon. More

Bad Bunny was the host and musical guest in an episode that included cameos from Jagger and Pedro Pascal.The chaos surrounding efforts to choose a new speaker of the House may be less than ideal for the nation, but it’s practically a gift to “Saturday Night Live,” which satirized House Republicans’ political turmoil in an opening sketch this weekend.The broadcast began with Mikey Day playing Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, who on Friday lost a secret ballot vote to remain the Republicans’ nominee for the speakership after losing a third vote for the position on the House floor.Speaking on a phone in his office, a seemingly calm Day said, “No, I didn’t win, honey. No, not this time either. It’s OK. I’m feeling good.” Then after completing the call he broke the receiver in two.“Some of us are here to actually serve the American people,” Day said angrily. “All I want to do is get Congress back to work so I can shut it down again.”An assistant (Heidi Gardner) offered him a new phone and introduced a visitor: Representative George Santos (Bowen Yang), who was holding a baby.Asked why he had the baby, Yang answered, “No one seems to know.” He handed it to Gardner and said, “Just put him in an Uber.”Offering his consolations to Day, Yang said, “I want you to know I voted for you and — get this — so did Shoshanna Loggins.” Day asked, “Who’s that?” Yang responded, “Also me.”Day asked him if he should try running for speaker one more time. “Well, look, I would be lying if I said yes,” Yang answered. “So, yes.” Then he took a call on his cellphone that he said was from Tupac: “Girl, I know,” Yang said into his phone. “Jada is crazy.”Day received a call from Representative Lauren Boebert (Chloe Fineman), who offered her support while a hand reached in from offscreen and groped her. “Are you out somewhere?” Day asked her. “Yeah,” Fineman said, “I gotta go. I’m at the theater seeing ‘Aladdin.’”Finally, Day was visited in his office by former President Donald J. Trump (James Austin Johnson). “Yoo-hoo, is this the loser’s office?” Johnson asked as he knocked and entered.“You endorsed me and then you kind of disappeared,” Day told him.“Yeah, well, that’s because I prefer the Jordans who win, OK?” Johnson said. “Like the great Michael Jordan or the even greater Jordin Sparks. ‘No Air,’ remember that? Now that was a song. Tell me how I’m supposed to breathe with no air? You can’t. You can’t do it.”Johnson boasted he’d make a great speaker himself if he weren’t otherwise occupied. “Sadly, I’ll be too busy campaigning, traveling from city to city, visiting their beautiful courtrooms,” he said.Day complained, “I did exactly what you would do. Intimidation. Threats. Why didn’t it work?”Johnson answered, “Well, because, frankly, you’re not me, OK? You’re no fun, I’m hilarious.”Opening Monologue of the WeekBad Bunny, the Puerto Rican pop star who was both host and musical guest this weekend, continued a recent “S.N.L.” tradition of Spanish-speaking hosts who delivered a portion of their monologue in Spanish. As he spoke, a satirical caption appeared below him on the screen that read “[SPEAKING IN NON-ENGLISH],” tweaking a (nonhumorous) incident in which similar captions were shown at the 2023 Grammy Awards when Bad Bunny performed and during his acceptance speech for the Best Música Urbana Album.“Not again, please,” Bad Bunny said, and the caption below him changed to say “[SPEAKING A SEXIER LANGUAGE]”.As a surprise guest, Bad Bunny was joined by Pedro Pascal, the star of “The Mandalorian” and “The Last of Us,” who translated some of the host’s remarks into English and offered him advice on connecting with the audience.“Audiences love it when you show an embarrassing photo of yourself,” Pascal suggested, and the screen displayed a beefcake-y photo of Bad Bunny.“I’m sorry, how is that embarrassing?” Pascal asked. “Because I forgot to put on clothes,” Bad Bunny answered. (If that’s not enough Pascal content for you, he returned later in the night for a sketch where he reprised a past role as Marcello Hernández’s wryly judgmental mother.)Filmed segment of the weekEven rarer for “S.N.L.,” a filmed segment called “La Era del Descubrimiento (The Age of Discovery)” was presented entirely in Spanish.It featured Bad Bunny as a 16th-century Spanish monarch, Hernández as his son, and Day and the “S.N.L.” alum Fred Armisen as explorers who have come to share the wonders of un nuevo mundo to their unimpressed rulers. A turkey is described as having “testicles on its face,” while the king and prince recoil at the sight of a pumpkin: “That melon has herpes!” they scream.Celebrity cameo of the weekNo disrespect intended to Pascal or to Lady Gaga (who popped up to introduce Bad Bunny’s first musical performance), but we’ll give the edge to the Rolling Stones lead singer and longtime Lorne Michaels pal, Mick Jagger, making the latest in a long string of “S.N.L.” appearances that stretch back to the late 1970s.Jagger was a beast of burden in two sketches tonight: once in a fake mustache, playing a cackling character in a Spanish-language telenovela, and later on playing a lusty Lothario hiding out in a convent. If his comedy career doesn’t work out, there’s always rock music.Weekend Update jokes of the weekOver at the Weekend Update desk, the anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che riffed on President Biden’s diplomatic efforts during the Israel-Hamas War, and Republicans’ struggles to choose a new speaker of the House.Jost began:In what many people are calling a high point of his term, President Biden gave multiple speeches this week in which he issued the same strong warning to anyone thinking about attacking Israel. And here was his message: [The screen showed a video montage of Biden saying, “Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.”] I won’t. I really like that Biden only needs one word to get his point across. He’s basically the Groot of presidents. But to give you an idea of how effective “Don’t” is, it’s the same thing Biden says to his dog right before it bites another Secret Service agent.Also while he was in Israel, Biden said the Hamas attack was like “15 9/11s.” OK, you can’t go somewhere to calm people down and then start rating things in numbers of 9/11s. That is not a calm scale. It would be like if your doctor gave you Ambien, and said, “This will make you sleepier than 20 Cosbys.”Che continued:Jim Jordan, seen here describing how he attacks the nipple, is no longer the nominee for House speaker after Republicans dropped him Friday, which by the way he’s used to because he was dropped a lot as a child. Potential new candidates for speaker include Tom Emmer, Kevin Hern, Jack Bergman and six more candidates who are clearly George Santos. [The screen showed six images of George Santos in obvious disguises.]Weekend Update desk segment of the weekCapping a highly quotable and often baffling period of promotion for Jada Pinkett Smith’s new memoir, “Worthy,” Ego Nwodim appeared at the Weekend Update desk to impersonate that actress and on-again/off-again spouse to Will Smith.“Sorry if I seem a little tired,” Nwodim said to Che. “I’ve been on the ‘Today’ show 14 times in three days.”She shared what she said was the secret to a successful marriage — “Never go to bed happy,” Nwodim said — and explained why she would never divorce her husband.“Divorce is not an option,” Nwodim said, adding: “I have principles, Michael. If we got divorced, he could mess around and end up happy.” More