Although the goal of “Saturday Night Live” week after week is comedy (“Allegedly!” yells a heckler from the back row), not all guests hosts show up just to prove they can be hilarious.
Instead, some do the show to not only promote their latest project, but to introduce additional parts of themselves to what may be the biggest audience they’ve had to date.
That felt like the case with Teyana Taylor, who was nominated this week for a lead actress Oscar for “One Battle After Another” after walking away with a Golden Globe earlier this month. In her first time hosting “SNL,” the goal seemed less to make her the funniest host than to show people who only know her from the Paul Thomas Anderson film that she’s incredibly talented in more ways than just acting.
After a charming monologue that included her young children, Taylor sang with cast member Kenan Thompson in an airport terminal sketch featuring Shrimp ‘n’ Grits, two gate agents who make their flight delay announcements as R&B songs. Sure, cast member James Austin Johnson may have come in and stolen the sketch as a pilot who’s been drinking, but it was the first indication that Taylor could hold her own vocally with the longest-running cast member in “SNL” history, Thompson.
Later in the show, she dazzled in a dance performance as a surprisingly limber 87-year-old grandpa who’s brought to life by Earth, Wind & Fire songs at his grandson’s wedding. She co-hosted a news panel show in which the two Black hosts (Taylor and Thompson) wordlessly hum judgment on opinions spouted by their white panelists (Mikey Day and Chloe Fineman) and played her “One Battle” character Perfidia Beverly Hills in a pitch-perfect Mattel toy commercial parody.
Taylor played smaller supporting parts such as sideline reporter Lisa Salters in an NFL report that turns into an extended promo for a lesbian culinary show called “Quefs.” “Queer Chefs?” Sportscasters Troy Aikman (Andrew Dismukes) and Joe Buck (Johnson) were afraid to guess. She also portrayed a confused contestant who is there to make friends on a “Survivor”/”Traitors”-style reality competition show and a student in a confidence class taught by a wreck of a teacher (a fantastic Ashley Padilla).
Was Taylor the funniest host “SNL” has had this season? Not by a long shot. But she proved to be one of the most multi-talented.
Musical guests Geese performed “Au Pays du Cocaine” and “Trinidad.” Please Don’t Destroy’s Martin Herlihy wrote and directed a short film that closed the episode about techniques to get someone to break up with you.
In what may have been a missed opportunity, “SNL” wasn’t able to pivot on short notice to address the day’s biggest national news in its cold open: the killing of an ICU nurse by federal agents in Minneapolis. The incident was alluded to on “Weekend Update,” and egregiously missing from a news panel sketch that specifically talked about incidents in Minneapolis. Instead, perhaps to the show’s detriment, it was another week of Johnson’s President Trump impression, this time as host of the Trumps, an award show for the president and members of his administration. There were jokes at the expense of J.D. Vance (Jeremy Culhane) and Kristi Noem (Padilla); for the former it was a dig on his sexuality while Noem was honored for sucking up to Trump before the president stole her award, Kanye West-style. Mike Myers returned as twitchy, unfunny Elon Musk, there to introduce a memorial segment and accompanying song eulogizing the things the Trump administration has taken down including the East Wing, D.E.I., civil rights and Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Taylor’s monologue focused on the other interests and pursuits she has apart from acting in Oscar-nominated films, like directing and going to culinary school. She showed a clip of herself dancing in MTV’s “My Super Sweet 16,” a real thing that happened in her life, and mentioned winning “The Masked Singer” (also true). But the monologue ended with Taylor discussing being a mother and how her big moment at the Golden Globes was undercut by her kids playing on their phones during her speech. Cut to her kids in the “SNL” audience, looking at their phones. Any parent could relate.
Best sketch of the night: This could be better than Mattel’s ‘Boogie Nights’ playsets
You may think that the only movie kids care about at the Academy Awards this year is “KPop Demon Hunters,” but according to this ad from Mattel, it’s toys based on “One Battle After Another” that they really want. The movie’s main characters get action figures with accessories like a battle robe for Leonardo DiCaprio’s character Bob and a pregnant belly add-on for Taylor’s. The parents in the ad (Padilla and Mikey Day) don’t love their kids acting out the lives of toys with names like Junglepussy or reenacting a motel sex scene between Taylor and Sean Penn’s characters. Great conclusion to the piece: the promise of toys based on other Anderson films including “There Will Be Blood.” “I’ve abandoned my boy!” a kid cries, a clever shoutout to an all-but-forgotten Bill Hader sketch.
Also good: Grandpa Jackson probably dances so well because he has no bones
Wedding sketches are a staple on “SNL,” but there probably has never been a guest host who danced the hell out of one the way Taylor did as Grandpa Jackson, who takes to the dance floor to celebrate the bride and groom (Padilla and Kam Patterson). Even with the sketch threatening to go off the rails as Taylor’s bald cap started peeling off, she never missed a step and her dance moves were astonishing. Johnson appeared as a sort-of doctor to help the grandfather after he finally collapses to put a nice capper on the basic, but very effective sketch.
‘Weekend Update’ winner: That’s a wrap for ‘cap’
New featured cast member Culhane debuted on “Update” as Mr. On Blast, a roasting commentator with very light roasts and a lot of body language. But it was Marcello Hernández who won the week with helpful translations of Gen Z expressions including “chopped,” “fahhh” and “glo-up.” Hernández teased “Update” co-host Colin Jost for being out of the loop, declaring terms such as “cap” dead the moment Jost used them (with a gravestone for emphasis). As Hernández explained, Gen Z slang is just Black slang adopted by young people before it gets used by white people. “Once Elon Musk says it, it’s dead,” he declared.
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