Despite the odd stumble, the Oscar-tipped young actor helps to pull together the best episode of the season so far
A new, spooktacular episode of Saturday Night Live kicks off at a Halloween-themed amusement park, where visitors cross paths with confusing “Halloween guy” David S Pumpkins (Tom Hanks) and his skeleton pals (Mikey Day and Bobby Moynihan).
This seems like a copy-and-paste version of the previous Pumpkins sketches until Donald Trump (James Austin Johnson) jumps out to “[pause] SNL skit yet again.” He needles the live audience: “Aww, are you sad you don’t get to see your third David Pumpkin scene? I’ll save you three minutes; he keeps popping up and confusing people on the ride. The end!”
Trump acknowledges Hanks by noting what a great ass he has. “That’s something I’ve been doing lately, admiring men’s asses … they’re calling it gay dementia. Dementia short for da men should show me their butts.” Between that, the odd monosyllabic noises he has been making (“Probably soul trying to leave body”), and Tuesday’s midterms looking disastrous for Republicans, Trump is losing it even more than usual. He brings out support in the form of self-sabotaging allies, rapper Nicki Minaj (Saidah Belo-Osagie) and former press secretary Katie Zacharia (Veronika Slowikowska), the latter of whom tries to deliver the “Live from New York…” sign-off but ends up “whiff[ing] it”, leading Hanks and co to bring it home.
A much improved cold open, with Trump’s increasing dementia and looming political reckoning giving it much-needed narrative shape.
Inde Navarrette makes her hosting debut. The young breakout star assures the audience that she’s nothing like her character from the horror hit Obsession, even as she starts to slide into that character’s psycho speech patterns. She gets a dig in at preceding host Shane Gillis’s controversial jokes about women, noting that for her upcoming Marvel role she has to get in great shape, so “Every morning I put on my little whore outfit and I hit the gym.” Moving on, she invites the cast to come on stage and show off their Halloween costumes. Marcello Hernández is a (questionably) sexy TSA agent, Kam Patterson is Elizabeth Holmes (or, “the bad lady with the blood”), Jeremy Culhane dons a Wolverine getup in the hopes of being cast alongside Navarrette in the new X-Men film, and Grace Reiter and Slowikowska are a mechanical bird and an angry Kelly Clarkson, respectively.
The first sketch takes place on a Ghosts of the Queen Mary tour. The tour group is visited by the ghost of a wealthy heiress (Sarah Sherman) from the 1930s who is said to have hidden her diamonds somewhere on board. She reveals the treasure’s hiding place, but is interrupted by the spirits of two annoyingly chatty child siblings (Hernández, Navarrette). It’s a thin line between intentionally annoying and just annoying, and this crosses it almost right away.
A commercial for Delta Airlines introduces a new feature: Delta Disruptive, “a new section of the plane exclusively for crazy people”. From inconsiderate A-holes to out-and-out lunatics – including a guy screaming about how the plane is “made out of Israel” and a woman claiming other passengers aren’t real – it’s the perfect solution for domestic flights (especially those traveling within Florida).
The Uninterested Woman Game Show sees a woman be “upfront about not being interested in three bachelors, and they compete to react appropriately.” Said woman is Kelly (Belo-Osagie), a married lesbian who just wants to order a bagel at a deli, while the male contestants are an array of douchebags, including two white trash scumbags (Navarrette and Jane Wickline) and a sleazy gymbro (Sherman). Ashley Padilla steals the too-short sketch as the exasperated host.
The Inventor’s Wife is the latest Midnight Matinees short. Navarrette plays the widow of an eccentric, emotionally distant inventor. Touring his workshop after his funeral, she discovers his final invention, a cute robot helper named PD 44 made specifically for her. Neither she nor it can figure out what its purpose is, but they form a close bond nonetheless. Six years pass before she decides it’s time to start dating again, only to discover, upon bringing her new beau home, that PD 44 actually stands for Penis Destroyer 44, and that her husband did love her, albeit in a very twisted manner. A nice slow-burn story (replete with impressive animation and effects) that pays its tweeness off in gruesome fashion.
Behind the scenes of popular Mexican telenovela El Corazón No Siente, Navarrette and Hernández’s leads have to work a new Sprite drink into their scene as part of a product placement deal. Unfortunately, the sponsors are not pleased when the actors’ improv has them claiming that only perverts drink Sprite and attempting to use it to induce an abortion. Navarrette throws herself into this role with aplomb – literally, as she takes a couple of impressive dives over the set decoration. It’s good to see the show lean into her Mexican-American heritage.
On Weekend Update, Colin Jost picks back up on Trump’s recent obsession with men’s asses, noting that even JD Vance has commented on being jealous that his boss hasn’t complimented his butt, before asking: “What the hell is going on? Your party is about to lose the midterms; stop playing Smash or Pass with each other!” Michael Che earns awkward laughs and some gasps by reporting on Israel’s record election turnout, noting that it’s “Great to see, regardless if you’re on the right side, or the left side, or the geno-side.”
Apropos of the holiday, Update’s first guest is Pennywise the Clown (Ben Marshall). He’s there to discuss Gen Z wellness parties and spread a simple message to kids: “You don’t need to drink to have fun.” Acting more like a try-hard youth pastor than a child-murdering clown, he has moved on from trapping unsuspecting kids in the sewer to promoting his new startup: WeAllFloat.AI. The final moments are an intervention for Che following his recent stand-up special (or, per Pennywise, his latest “cry for help”). There’s a kernel of an idea here, but it’s pulled in too many directions.
We then get treated to the return of Moynihan as Update favorite Drunk Uncle. Ostensibly there to celebrate the Milwaukee Brewers’ first-ever championship victory (“My dream of a beer winning the World Series came true!”), it doesn’t take long for him to rant about everything under the sun: Mrs Met (“There’s only one gender!”), Elizabeth Holmes (“I believe her”), The Odyssey (“Helen of Troy was white!”), and more. Just as he begins breaking down, he’s joined by Brewers’ star players Christian Yelich (whom Moynihan hilariously confuses for Pete Davidson) and Brice Turang, and team manager Pat Murphy, carrying the World Series trophy in tow. It’s a deserved victory lap for all involved.
On Paw Patrol: Special Victims Unit, the furry first responders find themselves out of their depth when they have to investigate the brutal murder and mutilation of one of their own. Navarrette stumbles here, nearly breaking while delivering her lines. Not that it matters much since the cringeworthy sketch can’t end quickly enough.
A cool professor (Padilla) is enjoying a fun dinner out with students when their waiter accidentally drops a tray full of plates right on top of her head. She tries to play it off like nothing, even as she sits awash in broken china and food. Eventually, she admits that she’s in immense pain: “I can smell my blood, and I can feel my bones, and at one point I saw the Ninja Turtles walk in the room.” Things devolve from there, ending in a series of farts. Padilla was far and away the MVP of last season, but she hasn’t been given much standout material this season – until now. This is another showcase for her talents, namely her ability to milk pathetic pathos from the most juvenile of slapstick comedy. Also, good lord, does the knock she takes to the head here look legitimately painful!
Musical guest Gracie Abrams performs her second song of the night, followed by a clip of the late, great Patrick Stewart from when he hosted back in 1994, before the costumed curtain call. Although Navarrette was noticeably green at times, she was far and away the best host of the season thus far. Likewise, this is the best SNL has been since returning to air. One would hope the show can keep up the momentum, but given that next week sees a streamer hosting, that might be too much to hope for …
