<\/p>\n
If you were to go by \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d hosting performance alone, you might think that the best way to ensure a memorable, well rounded and surprisingly funny show is to book a female pop star \u2014 preferably one with some child-acting experience.<\/p>\n
With apologies to Harry Styles<\/a>, it\u2019s been pop stars including Ariana Grande, Sabrina Carpenter, Dua Lipa and now Olivia Rodrigo who\u2019ve shown themselves to be naturals at adapting their on-stage talents to the Studio 8H stage for \u201cSNL.\u201d<\/p>\n And while she might not have crushed it to the degree of Grande (something about the Bowen Yang era of the show and Grande seemed in perfect lockstep with each other), Rodrigo was a very good host. Whatever she lacked in sketch comedy chops, she more than made up for as musical guest, world-premiering a new song called \u201cbegged,\u201d and singing in several sketches, including a memorable one about a girl in a zoo on a planet of bug people<\/u><\/a> (we\u2019ll get to that).<\/p>\n After a charming monologue in which she also sang, Rodrigo played a scheming woman in a \u201cDynasty\u201d-like nighttime soap opera from the 1980s, \u201cEdge of Destiny<\/u><\/a>,\u201d where people kept falling down the stairs. The mix of physical comedy, distant cue cards and having to keep from breaking character as cast members flopped down a set of fake stairs seemed almost too much for the guest host. But she recovered nicely in another solid (and hilariously gross) \u201cShop TV\u201d sketch about a baker (Rodrigo) who makes lava cakes<\/a> that look a lot like anuses.<\/p>\n She also played a woman competing with her ex-boyfriend (Ben Marshall) at a birthday party by pretending to have a date (he does the same with a wacky Ashley Padilla). She also played a cheating romantic partner in a musical sketch about getting busted<\/u><\/a>, a rideshare passenger whose driver (Andrew Dismukes) discovers he has a talent for Jamaican dancehall rapping<\/u><\/a>, and a TikToker employed by a home security company to take viral videos of burglars<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n Rodrigo\u2019s songs were tremendous, especially \u201cbegged,\u201d but it was hard for any of the sketches to top Aziz Ansari\u2019s appearance as FBI Director Kash Patel, which drew the biggest non-musical audience reaction of the show when he appeared in the cold open.<\/p>\n As musical guest, Rodrigo performed her latest single \u201cdrop dead<\/u><\/a>,\u201d introduced by Debbie Harry, and a new song, \u201cbegged<\/u><\/a>,\u201d introduced by recent host<\/u><\/a> and \u201cHeated Rivalry\u201d star Connor Storrie.<\/p>\n