Saturday Night Live kicks off with an emergency meeting inside the Oval Office, where President Joe Biden (James Austin Johnson) and a team of advisers discuss the standoff between Russia and Ukraine. Almost as dire as the assembly of Russian troops at the Ukrainian border is the former’s disinformation campaign within the latter. Ukraine has been flooded by fake news stories on Facebook (such as “Neil Young to Remove Music from Spotify Unless Ukraine Surrenders”), pro-invasion memes and TikTok videos, and TV commercials featuring Aaron Rodgers (Pete Davidson), who recently “left the Packers to fight for Russia”.
In order to combat this, the White House introduces their new secretary of defense, vicious junior high student Mikala (Chloe Fineman), who nixes Biden’s proposal of a drone strike in order to break Russia down psychologically by sending mean DMs to Putin.
This cold open is SNL at its worst, unoriginal (the show’s continued reliance on social media material is getting more pathetic by the week), annoying (Fineman continues to grate any time she’s not playing the straight man) and nowhere near up to the task of tackling as heavy a subject as impending war.
America’s greatest living actor, Willem Dafoe, hosts for the first time. Despite his long and storied career, he accepts criticism about his acting being over the top, admitting that he’s “not one of those subtle actors like Nicolas Cage or Al Pacino”. He’s interrupted by a vacationing couple from his home town of Appleton, Wisconsin (Aidy Bryant, Mikey Day), who compliment him on being in the Spider-Man movies, while confusing his work in Platoon and The Last Temptation of Christ with Full Metal Jacket and The Passion of the Christ. To his greater dismay, they correctly remember him from Speed 2: Cruise Control.
At a New York apartment meeting, tenants yell about increased maintenance bills, threaten to murder their neighbor’s dogs, demand the banning of teens from the building and, in the case of Dafoe’s grizzled old-timer (his costume being a clear homage to his frequent director and close personal friend Abel Ferrara), reminisce about the dirty, dangerous New York of old: “Back in my day it was all pimps and whores, junkies and perverts … you could go to CBGBs and Iggy Pop would puke on your face! And we all liked it!” This character should have been the center of the whole sketch, but unfortunately, he’s shuffled off almost straight away.
Now I’m Up is an R&B song from Chris Redd, Kenan Thompson and Ego Nwodim about the various causes of insomnia: smartphone interruptions, anxieties over illness and mortality, a partner’s sharp toenail, etc. Dafoe brings his singular sinister energy (and some pretty solid musical chops) to the proceedings, playing a creepy late-night infomercial pitchman who gets in on the singing.
The 29th Annual Badminster Dog Show “celebrates those canine freaks who prevent their owners from having company or intimacy”. Contestants include Luna, deathly afraid of “beeps … plastic bags … men in hats … the sound of spoken Spanish”; Pigeon, a “sexual predator who’s been banned from every dog park in the state of Maryland”; Blueberry, who refuses to walk after being driven insane from sliding on the floor one time; and Gizmo, a “total package” with “bad feet, bad skin, bad teeth, bad anal glands, and a bad brain”, as well as a “weird little penis”. The adorable mutts do a lot of the heavy lifting here, but as far as ensemble character sketches go, it’s superior to the previous example.
A commercial for Nugenix sees retired baseball player Frank Thomas (Keenan Thompson), quarterback Doug Flutee (Kyle Mooney), and Dafoe (as himself) confront a fortysomething stranger over his inability to “get hard”. Despite being best known as a dramatic actor, Dafoe’s comic chops are unmatched, and he shows them off here to great effect, going from 0-to-60 as he torments the poor guy, hits on his wife, pretends to be British, and personally undergoes the horrific process of getting a Nugenix-enhanced erection.
The night’s musical guest is Katy Perry. Against an Alice in Wonderland-inspired backdrop and backed by a troupe of dancing mushrooms, she performs When I’m Gone.
On Weekend Update, Colin Jost notes that in light of the US economy having grown at the fastest rate since Ronald Reagan’s presidency, Biden has “even started using Reagan’s old catchphrase: ‘Where am I?’” Michael Che reports on an auction of personal items from the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s library: “They’ve sold the books and the desk, but to honor Ginsburg’s legacy, they’re gonna hang on to the seat for way longer than they should.” (This joke gets some groaning disapproval from scolds in the audience.)
Jost then invites the Hall of Fame quarterback Peyton Manning to the desk to discuss last week’s NFL playoff games. It turns out Manning missed them because he got sucked-in by the Netflix series Emily in Paris and binge-watched the entire second season. He gives an impassioned gameday-style breakdown of the show’s romantic drama, various subplots and fashion. Manning is the only NFL player who’s ever acquitted himself well on SNL, and his endearing performance here is a season highlight. Particularly funny is his dramatic declaration that his new favorite show offers “a fresh take on feminism – FINALLY!”
Then Davidson and Fineman play the title characters from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. Belle uses a magical mirror to look in on her beloved father (Dafoe, doing a very broad and funny French accent). Unaware that he’s being spied on, he lights a bunch of candles, plays some European dance music, self-flagellates his hindquarters with a leather whip, and speaks dirty talk to a picture of his late wife (“I just wish you were holding me close, kissing my neck, stroking my hair, stomping on my groin, spanking my ass, biting my ass, so many wonderful things with my ASS!”)
A new Please Don’t Destroy short sees the group’s dynamic thrown out of whack by Connor, a smart-ass 10-year-old that Martin has inexplicably started hanging out with it (he assures John and Ben that they’re “not hooking up”). Connor’s presence proves particularly irksome to John, leading to a confrontation that ends with a fight over a porterhouse, a Heimlich maneuver, a Nickelback needle drop and a trip to a nightclub with Colin Jost. The young actor who plays Connor is a real find, displaying a real comic talent and stealing the show.
Perry returns to the stage for a performance of Never Really Over. Then Dafoe plays a self-help author being interviewed on a local morning news show. The show’s anchor mispronounces the title of his new book, Knowing Yourself, as Blowing Yourself, leading to the expected overload of double entendre (“It’s a feelgood book. It’s about learning how to love yourself by going down deep and embracing the part of you you discovered down there”).
The last sketch of the night sees Dafoe play an older office temp named Jeremiah. Attempting to join in on an impromptu musical number with his office mates, he ends up causing “a million dollars-worth of damage” after he throws a chair through a 15-story window. He tries to redeem himself the next day but ends up defenestrating one of his co-workers. As is often the case with the closing sketches, it feels rushed and disjointed.
Despite the roughness that bookended things, the show made good use of Dafoe, even if it did fail to produce any instant classics (given how game he was, it really should have). That said, his strong work, combined with an excellent guest appearance from Manning and a great new Please Don’t Destroy segment made this one of the stronger episodes of the season. Along with last week’s episode, the show is on the upswing again. Hopefully, it can keep the momentum going when it returns in late February.
