As expected, the new Saturday Night Live opens with Donald Trump (James Austin Johnson) addressing his recent indictment and forthcoming arraignment over alleged financial fraud. The former president decides it’s time to “come clean, admit that I broke the law, and go quietly to prison – April Fools!” Trump denies accusations that he’s planning to use this latest legal battle to further bilk his riled-up base out of their money, saying: “I don’t want anything from my base except their love, their votes, perhaps their money. And I need their money more than ever.”
Inspired by the success of a new rally song he recorded with a choir comprised of jailed January 6 insurgents (“Very real thing, very disturbing, very disturbing”), he’s decided to put out an entire album: Now That’s What I Call My Legal Defense Fund (AKA Trump Bopz). He performs a medley of songs from the record (“30 covers, all horrible”) including duets with the likes of Don King (“Killed a guy, can you believe it?”), Afroman (“We should execute all drug dealers”), and son Don Jr (“Very strange energy, my son, don’t like it”).
It feels like Saturday Night Live should have come up with something a little more substantive for such a seismic occasion, but failing that, at least they gave the entire cold open over to the always reliable, always entertaining Johnson.
Quinta Brunson hosts for the first time. The creator and star of Abbott Elementary speaks proudly of her hit network sitcom, which is “like, say, Friends, except instead of being about a group of friends it’s about a group of teachers, and instead of New York it’s in Philadelphia, and instead of not having black people, it does.” But she acknowledges that popularity can be a double-edged sword, since “every time there’s a problem with the public school system people expect me to solve it.” Equally frustrating is how those same people expect her to be as caring and wholesome as her onscreen character: “I mean, I’m not a filthy whore, but I like to have fun.” A bit of bragging about her famous friends Oprah and Obama leads to a plea for better pay for public school teachers and then we’re off to the races.
Things start off hot with a sketch about cocaine. Two clubgoers (Andrew Dismukes, Devon Walker) looking to score some blow field offers from an eavesdropping bathroom attendant (Marcello Hernandez), janitor (Punkie Johnson), and pair of pro dealers (Brunson and Kenan Thompson). Each one attempts to sell their product on its purity, comparing it to the whitest thing imaginable: Gwyneth Paltrow’s ski-accident trial, season two of The Wire, early and mid-aughts alternative rock, and Noah Baumbach movies. Things take a bizarre turn when Michael Longfellow’s strange pusher comes out of the wallpaper and tries to sling some black tar heroin (he starts naming some comparisons before thinking better of it).
I Was a Bridesmaid is Netflix’s latest “harrowing new cult story”. A group of traumatized women (plus Bowen Yang’s token gay member) chronicle their experience as part of a wedding party, where they suffered ritual mental, physical and financial abuse at the hands of a manipulative bridezilla and her right-hand maid of honor. Netflix’s endless rotation of true crime docs make for easy satire, but this is a solid send-up of our monstrous wedding culture.
Couple Goals is a gameshow where contestants must guess how their spouse would answer questions about themselves. Things start off predictably frothy, until one seemingly harmless question causes Thompson’s happy hubby to divulge his greatest fear to his wife: “That you’ll fall down the stairs and get hurt so bad that I have to give up my dreams and spend the rest of my life caring for you.” Each subsequent question and answer combo peel back further layers that lay bare his troubled psyche. A particularly dark revelation involving his parents makes for one of the best and smartest jokes of the season.
Next, Brunson and Mikey Day play angry drivers arguing with each other while stuck in a traffic jam. Because they’re yelling at one another through closed windows, they mime everything they’re saying. Things get graphic when their respective passengers – a sullen teenage daughter and sassy elderly mother – get involved. An impressive display of physical comedy from all parties, especially Chloe Fineman.
On Weekend Update, Colin Jost and Michael Che run down the latest headlines about Trump’s indictment. Jost’s jokes are met with dead silence and even heckling from the live audience, both of which turn out to be part of an April Fool’s prank masterminded by Che. Jost is utterly decimated, spending the remainder of the segment bowled over in both laughter and relief (“I was like, ‘Am I not mic’d?’ And then I was like, ‘Oh, I just suck!’), while Che basks in his evil glory. It’s the most endearing Jost has ever been on the show.
Che then invites on Michelangelo’s David (Longfellow, shirtless and covered in grey paint) to discuss the recent parental outrage caused by a picture of him being shown during an art lesson at a Florida school. The living statue basks in his beauty, attempting to show off his goods while chiding the “ignorant prudes” not just in Florida, but all of America: “Did you know on the Italian version of SNL you can show full penetration?” Longfellow’s best outing yet.
Later, 5ft 7in Marcello Hernandez drops by to talk about “short king spring”. Although “short king” is meant as a compliment, he finds it condescending – “you wouldn’t call someone a snaggle-tooth genius”– while still celebrating the heritage of fellow “petite princes”. Hernandez’s corny style clashes with the uber-ironic Jost, but it ends with an excellent punchline involving the latter’s height.
Things take a slight downturn during the next two sketches – the first a convoluted time-hopping feud between Brunson’s OB-GYN and Yang’s midwife, who she met years before but doesn’t remember.
And the other a muggy and pointless sketch that sees Sarah Sherman and Brunson’s wackily horny office salesman sexually harass Fineman’s new hire.
But it picks back up for the closing segment, a new Please Don’t Destroy in which Ben, Martin and John play a trio of obnoxious New York transplants who host a local travelogue show called Street Eats. Their latest episode takes them to a Jamaican-Queens restaurant and bodega, where their loud, spoiled ways quickly earn them the ire of native New Yorkers, as well as a well-deserved ass-kicking. It’s good to see the PDD guys veer from the standard template and try something new, although this installment peters out a little too quickly.
Even if the quality dipped a bit in the back half, Brunson’s solid hosting, combined with an excellent Update, a handful of memorable punchlines, and some standout performances from Diana Gordon (who joined musical guest Lil Yachty’s for both of his sets) made this one of the strongest episodes of the season.
