Saturday Night Live
Adam Driver & Olivia Rodrigo
December 9, 2023
This is Adam Driver’s fourth time to host Saturday Night Live, and honestly, I don’t know that I can think of a recent host who deserves the Five-Timer’s smoking jacket more. With his intensity and bone-dry delivery, Driver was the highlight of every sketch he was in and single-handedly carried the episode.
It wasn’t a perfect episode by any stretch — in fact, the cold open was one of the worst-received cold opens I have seen in many years. But it is worth noting that aside from ‘Weekend Update’ (which was also just so-so despite the surprise cameo) the cold open was the only sketch that Driver didn’t appear in. Maybe had they given him a role, he could have kept it from completely bombing. (But to be completely honest with you, I’m not sure that even Driver is that good.)
Hoo boy. I’m not sure where to begin with this cold open — to steal a punchline from the sketch itself, it’s “the Hannukah gift no one wanted.” The sketch is a spoof of the recent Congressional hearings on the protests on college campuses in response to the war in Gaza. At the hearing, Republican representative from New York, Elise Stefanik, railed against college presidents for not doing enough to prevent hate speech against Jewish students.
New cast member Chloe Troast portrayed Stefanik, and did her best. But the sketch was met with uncomfortable silence presumably for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that the entire situation in Israel and the response here in the States is SO SENSITIVE on both sides that people are not ready to laugh about it. But there’s also the issue that Stefanik is not exactly a household name — she’s a full-throated MAGA acolyte, but she’s not as looney as a Marjorie Taylor Greene or Lauren Boebert or a Jeannine Pirro, and therefore makes for a less broad and obvious caricature.
It’s been reported that former SNL cast member Cecily Strong was originally set to play Stefanik, marking her first time back on the show since she left, but that she bowed out of the sketch because she was uncomfortable with it. I would note that Kate McKinnon is this week’s guest, so maybe Strong will make her appearance then. We can certainly hope.
Grade: C
Adam Driver uses his monologue to sing a song to Santa outlining his Christmas list. AND! He can play piano! For real! I usually hate the song monologues, but this one works thanks to Driver.
Grade: A
A group of friends vacation at a ski lodge where Bowen Yang and Driver’s couple announces that they are trying to have a baby. No, they aren’t using a surrogate, they are TRYING. Part of the joy of this sketch is how uncomfortable this preposterous suggestion makes the couple’s straight friends; but a larger part of the joy of this sketch is watching Adam Driver try to use gay slang.
Grade: A-
In this pre-taped piece, Mikey Day reaches out to an old childhood friend only to discover that he’s a weird creep. It doesn’t sound like much, but it does escalate pretty quickly, ending with an unexpected punchline.
Grade: A-
At a holiday party, two mild-mannered men get into a standoff over who will put a dish down on the table first after they each try to make room by saying “beep beep.” Again, it sounds dumb, and it kinda is, and I’m not sure that I love the way it ends, but I also don’t hate it.
Grade: B+
In what is now a recurring sketch, a naive chocolatier played by Driver goes on Shop TV to sell his chocolate Santa Clauses, which, unwrapped, look VERY MUCH like something else entirely inappropriate.
A few things about this sketch:
1. It reminds me of the classic Alec Baldwin Schwetty Balls sketch, with the innocent chocolate maker not realizing that his product is inadvertently hilarious.
2. Mikey Day’s character keeps yelling at their producer, “Odell,” which obviously made me giggle every time.
3. As I mentioned, this is officially a recurring sketch, though you might not remember it. “Shop TV” first aired on the Jerrod Carmichael episode in April 2022. In that sketch, Carmichael was selling a doll, “Rhylee Rainbowlocks,” who grows hair EVERYWHERE. It was outrageous — and funny — but so outrageous that they pulled it from YouTube. So be sure to watch this sketch now before it’s pulled, too.
Grade: A
“Weekend Update” is a full “eh” tonight. Jokes about Hunter Biden, President Biden be old; Eric Adams; and Nick Cannon. It’s fine.
Grade: B-
Marcello Hernandez joins the desk to discuss depression in men, mostly to make the point that women are more emotionally available and supportive of one another. Where’s the lie?
Grade: B+
Chloe Fineman also joins the desk (technically, in front of it) to argue that the sexiest gift idea is to perform Julia Stiles’ dance in the film Save the Last Dance, which is a mix of ballet and hip-hop and decidedly not sexy. And, as I’m sure you’ve heard by now, Julia Stiles joins her to dance along. There was a lot of freaking out about this online, and maybe I’m just an old Gen X fogey, but … I don’t get it? I mean I get “Julia Stiles made a surprise appearance on SNL” but I don’t get all the takes that I’ve seen that said she stole the show out from under Driver. Because she absolutely did not.
Grade: B
Here, Driver plays a hyper-articulate — and creepy — 11-month-old baby flying on an airplane for the first time, narrating all of the reasons why he’s screaming and crying. Weird and unexpected — it’s not surprising to learn that Sarah Sherman is one of the writers — it’s just a shame they felt compelled to try to end it the way they did.
Grade: A
In this PSA, old folks express how much they hate being the subjects of TikTok pranks. Apparently, I’m not on Prank Old People Tok, but it must be a thing.
Grade: B
The final sketch of the night is an advertisement for “Tiny Ass Bags,” the joke being that they are teeny tiny worthless bags. Also, Olivia Rodrigo joins in.
Unrelated: Has SNL considered asking her to host?
Grade: B
Cut for time:
Actor’s Journey
Court Case
BONUS: I love Olivia Rodrigo.
Saturday Night Live airs at 10:30/11:30 p.m. Saturdays on NBC and streams on Peacock.
One thought on “Adam Driver returns to host the season’s best ‘Saturday Night Live’ so far”