Saturday Night Live
Molly Shannon & The Jonas Brothers
April 8, 2023
Molly Shannon was on Saturday Night Live for only 6 1/2 seasons*, from 1995 until 2001, but she left a remarkable imprint on the series, creating a number of memorable characters, including Mary Katherine Gallagher who had her own feature film, Superstar. Shannon has a very specific comedic personality: sweet, awkward, and with a feralness burbling under the surface. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that her two most famous characters, Mary Katherine and Sally O’Malley are women on the opposite ends of the age spectrum, who are discovering and celebrating their own sexuality and power. And Shannon manages to get away with all of it, the armpit sniffing and the cameltoe brandishing, because she radiates an innocence and gentleness that you just can’t be offended by.
Shannon brought all of this goofy energy to this week’s Saturday Night Live — her second time hosting the series (the first was in 2007). It wasn’t a great episode like last week’s hosted by Quinta Brunson, but it was a comfortable and familiar blanket of an episode, and Shannon is welcome to come home anytime.
*Fun fact: Shannon replaced Janeane Garofalo in February of 1995 when Garofalo left the show over creative differences.
The cold open finds Former President Constant Loser comparing himself to Jesus on Easter. And it’s fine, though I have two problems with it.
1. It makes me nervous when the media starts giving this man so much attention; I just wish we would collectively ignore him and deprive him of the oxygen of the national conversation.
And 2. There’s no exaggeration here. Comedy relies on exaggeration and he genuinely thinks this way.
Grade: B
Molly Shannon’s opening monologue is a tribute to her dad in which she sings “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” while the cast share their problems. I usually hate the musical monologues, but this one comes off as sweet as Shannon herself, and I can’t be mad at it.
Grade: B
In this bit, a trio of new valet drivers learns the three rules of being a good valet: “Lil’ joke; lil’ bow; lil’ jog,” except they are all terrible at them and end up insulting the customers. It’s a goofy bit that plays well with Shannon’s brand of awkward comedy.
Grade: A-
Jeannie Darcy was a character that Shannon created during her Saturday Night Live run that might not have been as popular as Mary Katherine Gallagher or Sally O’Malley, but she’s clearly a favorite of Shannon’s. This Netflix promo for Darcy’s very 90s-style stand-up, with deadpan delivery and a terrible catchline didn’t really seem to land with the audience. But as someone who was there in the 90s and watched a lot of bad stand-up, don’t even get me started.
Grade: A
This sketch, in which a company celebrates a pregnant co-worker before she heads off to maternity leave is one big fart joke. It’s a five-minute fart joke.
Grade: C+
The Please Don’t Destroy sketch this week imagines the boys playing Molly Shannon, the video game, to Shannon’s horror. Technically, the game is Molly Shannon 2K23. I liked the concept more than the execution with this one: the idea of a Molly Shannon video game is delightful. 10 out of 10/would play.
Grade: B
I assume this sketch in which a playwright and her boyfriend watch a performance of her play based on her life — specifically the year that she banged one thousand men — is based on the Oscar-nominated short film, My Year of Dicks. The entire sketch centers on the boyfriend’s discomfort as he realizes that she not only slept with a lot of men, but that she might also still be hung up on her ex-boyfriend. It feels a little slut-shamey and I will add that it did not surprise me that this sketch was written by four men and one woman.
Grade: C
“Weekend Update” tackles Former President Disgraced’s arrest; Harlon Crow, the billionaire patron of Justice Clarence Thomas; and King Charles’ upcoming coronation among other things. It’s fine.
Grade: B
Bowen Yang comes to the Weekend Update desk as Jafar from Aladdin to take on Ron DeSantis and his war on Disney. Apparently, DeSantis got married at Disney?! Huh!
Grade: A
Punkie Johnson is fellow Louisianan Angel Reese who talks about her recent NCAA win and her upcoming endorsement deals. It’s fine!
Grade: B
Heidi Gardner is Your Co-worker Who’s Extremely Busy Doing Seemingly Nothing. It’s specific, and accurate.
Grade: B+
Shannon is the star of a commercial for a menopause drug, “Vagerted.” For the first half of the sketch, the joke is just the cast saying the word “Vagerted,” and it falls fairly flat. But then Kenan Thompson gets involved and improves the joke tenfold. Still not a great sketch, but it does get better as it goes along.
Grade: B
The question when Molly Shannon was announced as host was whether she was going to do Sally O’Malley or Mary Katherine Gallagher — or both. It turns out Mary Katherine would only get a passing reference in the monologue, but Ms. Sally O’Malley would be bringing back her red pants and cameltoe to kick and stretch as the Jonas Brothers’ new choreographer. I do love me some Sally O’Malley, especially as I close in on 50 myself.
Grade: A-
Finally, CNZen: it’s a CNN app designed to placate Former President Insurrectionist-haters, in which CNN personalities soothingly read about terrible things happening to him. Not going to lie, I would download this.
Grade: A-
Saturday Night Live airs at 10:30/11:30 p.m. Saturdays on NBC and streams on Peacock.
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