Saturday Night Live was holding out for a hero. This week’s cold open, “Eye on Minnesota”—in which white TV hosts gave their Black counterparts their infuriatingly naïve belief in Derek Chauvin’s inevitable conviction—was both a bummer and a bit of snooze. The only real laugh of the sketch came after Kate McKinnon’s prim journalist lamented “We lost royalty yesterday,” and Ego Nwodim’s host naturally pivoted to “Yes, the rapper DMX died.” If the sketch felt less grand opening than third-half-hour material, Carey Mulligan’s charming but stiff monologue might have had you thinking about an early bedtime.
The British Oscar nominee acknowledged her doppelganger in Michelle Williams, then largely tossed the baton to her rock star husband Marcus Mumford, of Mumford & Sons, who was sitting in the audience. “You’re being that guy who pulls out his acoustic guitar out at a party,” she chided him after he strummed uninvited. Cute couple, indeed… but it seemed like an early tip of the hand that, however lovely, Mulligan wouldn’t be the go-to for laughs.
And yet! Surprise saviors came in unpredictable garb. Like Timmy Chalamet in “Weird Little Flute.” Chris Redd, who’s having a helluva season, Pete Davidson, and musical guest Kid Cudi were serving a perfectly okay digital short when Chalamet popped up in his beanie cap, prancing around with his own beloved flute. It was just the strange shot in the arm the night needed.
Other heroes of the episode? Kid Cudi himself. I’m likely too old and uncool to understand the appeal of his music, but here was a man who understood the power of wardrobe. He did his first performance in a Chris Farley t-shirt and natty Kurt Cobain cardigan, as sentimental a shout-out as one can imagine, then wore a Betty Draper-like garden party dress for his second number. He was relaxed and pleased with himself, whether he was giving a curtsy at the end of “Sad People” or flexing his biceps during the cast goodbye. The choice of a dress may have been an homage to Kurt Cobain, or a pointed challenge to gender stereotypes, or an uncomplicated act of whimsy from a confident man who knew he looked good in a gardenia print. Whatever the motivation, that floral number was as provocative as it was no big deal.
And everybody should give thanks to Bowen Yang and whatever hero constructed his blue-tinged giant meringue of a hat. Yang appeared in white gloves and blue lips as the Iceberg that Sank the Titanic on Weekend Update, playing a character that was at once absurd and divine and irrelevant and totally necessary. “I’m not here to talk about the sinking, I’m here to talk about my album!” he whined to Colin Jost. Resigned to the fact that Jost wouldn’t be sticking to pre-approved questions, Yang finally defended himself against the 20 or 30 people, whatever, who perished that fateful night when the doomed ship sank in icy waters. “First of all, you came to where I live and hit me!”
Kate McKinnon had a great evening as well. I’d read a graphic novel series centered around the friendship of Josh and Jason, two curly-haired nerds who adore each other and keep a hundred napkins and earrings for their choir teacher in their pockets. “My mother won’t be here for another three quarters of an hour,” McKinnon’s Josh said to Mulligan’s cutie pie, who was apparently the Beyoncé of the boys’ science class. “I could wait by the door or clean something.” That display of swagger earned him a spot on a papasan for two, and then he called Aidy Bryant’s Jason to walk him through the moment.
In a trailer for “Lesbian Period Drama,” Mulligan and Heidi Gardner played two women who walk on the beach and have soft lighting in their bedrooms. Besides an Oscar-nominated supporting turn by “the wind,” McKinnon was on hand playing the stock knowing ex. The buzz on the film was amazing, with Lesbian Monthly writing “Sure, I’m going to see it.”
Mulligan’s finest moment of the night was during the “Starcharter Andromeda” sketch, in which she played a Gen Z low-level operator freaking out that the captain and crew were paying more attention to their ship being sucked into a black hole than they were her emotional needs. “Stop gaslighting me!” she screamed at one point, as her best friend, played by Mikey Day, spun out in defense of her. “McKenna is dealing with a lot right now, you have noooooooo idea…. Her parents might be selling her childhood home.” When McKinnon later removed his petulant finger from her face, Chloe Fineman whipped out her phone, warning “You’re on videotape, ma’am, assaulting my friend.”
Youth is wasted on the ridiculous. The sublime leave us too soon. Here’s to DMX. To Kurt Cobain. To Chris Farley. To Anne Beatts. Heroes, all of them.
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