Zoë Kravitz was an amiable yet understated host and Rosalía simply owned the stage and the cameras for two remarkable music performances on a fairly strong episode of Saturday Night Live. Here's everything that happened on SNL this week.
The cold open
With some old school social media platforms down in Ukraine, James Austin Johnson's President Joe Biden turned to some TikTok stars for assistance in helping stop the war via memes and viral vids. With Kate McKinnon's harried press secretary Jen Psaki by Biden's side, the president went around the room and received some rather funny ideas, with star turns by Chloe Fineman and Bowen Yang in particular.
The monologue
Actor Zoë Kravitz (who can currently be seen as the Catwoman in The Batman) was barely on stage when Kate McKinnon appeared dressed like Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman from Tim Burton's Batman Returns. After some back and forth, Ego Nwodim also turned up as Eartha Kitt's Catwoman from the 1960s TV series, and bantered a bit before Aidy Bryant showed up as a stranger kind of cat lady. We also learned that Chris Redd does a killer Katt Williams impression but we did not learn much about Kravitz, as she may have got in the fewest words in a monologue than any host in the history of the show.
Matt and Tanya
At a wedding for Matt and Tanya, the bride's friend Sarah (Kravitz) gave a very revealing and character-damaging speech about Tanya. It turned out that Sarah and Tanya were extremely terrible people who have said and done some really awful things, and the speech grew increasingly dark, much to the chagrin of Kyle Mooney's Matt, which was somewhat amusing.
Amazongo
In this remote ad for a new Amazon feature, where you scan in and then "grab and go" anything you want in the grocery store, the trepidation of Black shoppers to simply walk out without paying first was super well-done and amusing. Great work here by all of the participating Black cast members, whose nervous incredulity really sold this.
Josh and Cassie
Kate McKinnon played a nerdy young person named Josh, who was so overwhelmed by Kravitz's Cassie and her romantic intimations that they called their friend Jason, as played by Aidy Bryant, for real-time advice about how to make this encounter work. With McKinnon employing a kind of Jeff Goldblum cadence and Bryant playing up a know-it-all nerd, this was a fine bit of odd physical comedy.
The Princess and the Frog
On Disney-, which is where movies not good enough to be screened on Disney+ can be found, the network presented The Princess and the Frog. Kravitz played the Princess, who is shocked to learn that Chris Redd's Frog does not have a penis at all. Their strained debate about frog genitalia was interrupted by Kenan Thompson's voodoo doctor, who decided all of this was too weird to deal with and exited. But the sketch didn't end there, as Andrew Dismukes played a Cajun firefly for a pointless minute or so.
Please Don't Destroy: We Got Her a Cat
In another great PDD digital short, the boys tried to get Kravitz a cat but things got chaotic when the cat went missing and then her The Batman costar Paul Dano also showed up and this was nutty and good.
Dad from the Dead
Teens played by Kravitz and Chris Redd were watching one of their father's home movies when their mom, played by Ego Nwodim, joined them. The tape took a turn, when their father, played by Kenan Thompson, began addressing them as though he had died, admitting all sorts of surprises and secrets. Thompson got applause breaks for having to pretend he was being fast-forwarded on a VHS tape, which was about the most notable thing about this aimless thing that didn't have a real ending.
Rosalía
Wow, Spanish artist Rosalía owned the stylized stage here, with two backup dancers accentuating her own charismatic presence and making the hip-hop infused "Chicken Teriyaki" pop right through the screen with alluring swagger. This was fantastic.
Returning for "La Fama" and outfitted in a high fashion comforter coat, she sang more of a flamenco ballad, backed by busy music. It was rather gorgeous because of her impassioned and emotive performance, which occasionally recalled the late great Lhasa.
Weekend Update
Colin Jost began Update with a series of jabs at Vladimir Putin, while Michael Che made a gas prices joke about invading Iraq for oil. Jost went in on the news that some fast food companies were ceasing operations in Russia, and later made a funny joke about how offensive Disney cartoons are. Alex Moffat's brilliant creation, film critic Terry Fink, stopped by the desk to provide his Oscar picks but, as it turned out, he pulled an all-nighter to view them while high on acid. Fink's surreal and bizarre reviews were a sight to behold; Moffat's a genius. Later, Che dug in for a rather twisted International Women's Day joke and then implied he peed on a subway.
Kyle Mooney played a muscular social influencer named Dan Bulldozer, who claimed he was writing a book "like Hemingway, but for dudes." With his voice and body modified, Mooney was barely recognizable, as his vapid character told an aimless anecdote to bring Update to a middling close.
Word Crunch
Andrew Dismukes played the host of this game show about a crossword puzzle but was frustrated when Kravitz played a character who kept spotting and guessing the word "momhole." It turned out there was a writers' strike, so Chris (played by a frenetic Sarah Sherman) had taken it upon herself to include a bunch of questionable words in the game. Sort of slight, this actually worked rather well.
Don't Stop Belevin
At a restaurant gathering of friends, Bowen Yang played someone who is obsessed with the Ohio State University marching band's version of Journey's "Don't Stop Believing." He would not stop screaming about it and blared a Spotify typoed version of it, which annoyed most of his friends except for a character played by Kravitz, who also fell under its sway.
