Saturday Night Live: Molly Shannon Superstar makes her return – The Guardian

StSaturday Night Live celebrates Easter with the announcement of the Last Supper, which is interrupted by the recently revealed/accused Donald Trump (James Austin Johnson), who immediately likens himself to the Messiah: “Lord Jesus, man! But now people say maybe, I’m even better than Jesus because I became a billionaire and Christ was, let’s call him what he is, a baby nephew, okay?”

Conjurer and potential future ex-convict around Florida governor Ron DeSantis (“I very liberally pretended to be like him, then he did Judas … now he can’t even have gays at Disneyworld”), Friday in Parasceve. (“We want to do a Good Friday with me, maybe even a TGI Friday, with stuff on the walls…”), and an egg hunt (“I have a lot of beautiful eggs from my time in the White House, now the Justice Department says, where are the eggs, we need eggs again “). Since the last few weeks of the Trumpet-centric cold open, there’s not much meat on the bone, but Johnson’s impression remains a winner.

Former cast member Molly Shannon makes her long-awaited return to the host for the second time. The actor, comedian and new author briefly discusses his problems before coming to the solution Everything is Rose with the help of a neurotic cast, a smugly content Lorne Michaels, and a rabid Martin Short in Ozempic’s retirement. , before closing things out with the signature “Superstar!” pose Shannon’s nice to see her letters rose, even though it’s short, the only real monologue that gets a laugh.

During the orientation office, seasoned roommate Andrew Dismukes points out the keys to success for a trio of new hires: “A lil joke, a lil bow, a lil jog.” Things immediately go off the rails as the trainees insult, beat, and threaten the hotel guests. As with many SNL sketches, there’s no forward narrative development, just a lot of gormless mugging that’s fast Peters.

Shannon is bringing back her “fictional” stand-up comic character Jeannie Darcy for a new Netflix special. Despite the show’s “take no prisoners” promises, Darcy’s joking material (“Have you guys heard of this TikTok thing? The only tick that ticks my head is the biological clock. Don’t get me started…”) and the wooden delivery leave the audience cold. Outside of the nostalgia thread, the sketch likely falls flat, especially since it initially promises to be a parody of Netflix’s recent spin-off Chris Rock special but then fails to deliver. He was also kissed by yet another in Chloe Fineman’s long line of bad celebrity impressions (in this case, Sarah Silverman).

At a baby shower job, soon-to-be mom Shannon finds her baby bump just gassed after she “tears off a big old banger.” It’s juvenile fun, if it’s noticeably obsessed with something off-putting.

Then, in the novel Please Don’t Lose, Ben, Martin and John introduce Shannon to their favorite video game, which just so happens to be based on his life. Molly Shannon 2k23 lets you play as Shannon, “balancing your life as a player by raising your family.” Although initially stunned, he soon becomes addicted to it, turning into a hunting clause that faces Gatorade bottles.

Then a novelist (Heidi Gardener) and her new beau (Devon Walker) at the opening night performance of their new autobiographical play, The Year of a Thousand Men. He is forced to sit in horror and humiliation as the story shows how he got through 999 men – including the hunky guest musician Nick Jonas and the entire Los Angeles Lakers – before he considered them jealous. To twist things further, the script ends abruptly.

In Weekend Update, Michael Che introduces the Aladdin villain Jafar (Bowen Yang) as Ron DeSantis’ war on Disney after the company’s controversial opposition to its Don’t Say Gay bill. Iafar acknowledges that DeSantis is legitimately evil (“I mean, banning Rosa Parks from schools? I’m a dark witch and I’m also like, Jesus, Dude, its Rosa Parks”), but pokes fun at Disney World’s efforts. gay-free: “If it’s not gay, it’s not Disney. And everyone loves Disney, including you, because I married your dumbass there. And it’s the happiest you can do it!” It makes for a nice change of pace watching Yang lend her actual character (as opposed to just a more attentive version of herself as usual). It’s also around the time SNL started going hard after DeSantis.

Later in the segment, Gardner shows up as your very busy co-worker, a crystal-clear, uber-excited, hyper-manic white-collar professional who makes a huge mess of papers and salad all over the shelf and Colin Jost. This kind of energy and great work has been sorely missed in Update since Cecilia Fortis said goodbye earlier this season.

Next, Shannon plays an actor in a commercial for a new menopause drug called Vagerted. There are several threads playing together – the terrible name of the witch, Shannon the actor turning viciously on his co-stars, Kenan Thompson’s script going off the rails – none of which are given enough time to unfold.

Just in time for the Easter holidays, Shannon resurrects another of her popular characters, this time from sassy 50-year-old show woman Sally O’Malley, a newly hired choreographer for the Jonas Brothers. When the group is in tow, he shows off his signature move (“kick! stretch!”), with some heavy camel’s leg.

The event concludes, the matter is to bring back Trump’s impeachment by CNZen, a new reflection for people whose “whole personality hates Donald Trump”. The app features news anchors, political reporters, and elected officials — including Wolf Blitzer (Sarah Sherman), Maggie Haberman (Shannon), and a tearful Lindsey Graham (Johnson) — delivering ASMR-loving stories about Trump’s pussyhat-wearing support. Liberals relax and take away the rocks. Credit to SNL for finding a clever new angle from which to tackle this story, while also taking a much-needed shakedown for the change.

If not quite as good as last week’s episode, this edition of Saturday Night Live still had a lot going for it, including some hopefully solid hosting by veteran Shannon, another fun edition of The Revival – which shows an all-time long marked improvement. – and a particularly strong closer.