Saturday Night Live
Josh Brolin & Ariana Grande
March 9, 2024
I never think of Josh Brolin as being a particularly funny actor. Which is strange, because he stars in one of my all-time favorite comedies, Flirting with Disaster, and is genuinely delightful in it. (You’ll never look at armpits the same way again.)
But here he is, hosting SNL for the third time in sixteen years, and he is as engaged, game, and hilarious as he was in Flirting with Disaster 28 years ago. You can’t accuse Brolin of not being enthusiastic: he readily strips down twice in the episode, seemingly unprompted at least one of the times; plays against a cat puppet; and finds himself unable to hold it together against the likes of one recurring character. Brolin is a solid host who appears to be enjoying himself — it’s no wonder why he was invited back, I’m just surprised it hasn’t happened more often.
President Joe Biden gave the State of the Union address last Thursday, and delivered a powerful and energetic speech to many people’s surprise, defying the criticisms hurled at him about his age. But it was the response from the Republican side that everyone was talking about the next day. Alabama’s junior senator Katie Britt gave a response that was alternatively breathy, weepy, near hysterical, kinda spooky, and definitely kooky, and I can not tell you the number of times I saw something along the lines of “SNL is going to have a field day with this.”
And indeed, they did. After a brief celebratory SOTU bit, SNL enlisted Scarlett Johannson to spoof Britt, and she was spot-on, portraying the “wife, mother, and craziest bitch in the Target parking lot.” I rarely say this about the cold opens, but if you’re going to watch one sketch from this episode, this is probably the one.
Grade: A
Josh Brolin’s monologue recalls his previous hosting visits, back when Adele and Goyte were the musical guests. He then mocks the weirdo poem he wrote for his Dune co-star Timothee Chalamet by reciting one he wrote for Kenan before climbing into an ice bath? This whole thing is all over the place but sure. Fine. Whatever.
Grade: B
Here, Brolin and Heidi Gardner are a married couple who find themselves caught up in a bank robbery, which makes them aggressively horny. Props to both Gardner and Brolin for fully going there.
Grade: A-
In a pretape, Andrew Dismukes is a dude on a plane who has forgotten his charger, and is forced to watch Ad Astra over the shoulder of one of his fellow passengers. This turns into a whole music video including cheesy late 80s wigs. It’s giving Mr. Show with Bob and David‘s “Three Times One Minus One” …. but not as funny.
Grade: B-
It’s a support group — but for people pleasers. This is another one of those sketches that seems like a good idea on paper, but in practice, falls flat. The best character in the entire bit is Molly Kearney’s Sam, but they get the least to do overall.
Grade: B-
At a wine and cheese night amongst friends, the hosts’ usually shy cat climbs into a guest’s lap, played by Brolin. He’s thrilled to be special, until the cat climbs into someone else’s lap, at which point Brolin turns on the “slut” cat and all hell breaks loose. This is just one of those perfectly serviceable SNL sketches that could have been on the show at any point in the past 49 years. It won’t be remembered, but it also wasn’t distractingly terrible … and with this show, that is sometimes a win.
Grade: B+
In this taped piece, Brolin is a Viennese nobleman who, in his attempt to impress a Duchess, creates the world’s first shrimp tower … which he becomes dangerously protective of. Weird, unexpected, and a little unhinged, this feels like it has Sarah Squirm’s hands all over it. And I’m not mad about it.
Grade: A-
On “Shonda,” a Maury Povich-like talk show, a young wife laments that she thinks her husband is cheating, and accuses him of not keeping her satisfied. The crowd is entirely with her until her husband shows up to tell his side of the story. The saved image on the video below gives the broader strokes of the punchline away, but this is one of the few times that the sketch is actually better in toto.
Grade: A
There are zero guests at the “Weekend Update” update this week, just one uninterrupted “news” bits back and forth between Jost and Che. They cover the SOTU, Kristen Sinema leaving the Senate, Mike Tyson and Jake Paul’s upcoming boxing match, and the rumored bedbugs at 30 Rock. Che loses the audience early, and never wins them back, and his discomfort — especially after the particularly egregious tampon joke — is well-earned.
Grade: A-
Here, we are shown an extended cut of Moulin Rouge, in which the songwriters, unsure which songs they would be granted the rights to, wrote every possible song into the love song montage, including “Happy Birthday.” Bowen Yang and Ariana Grande sing their hearts out, everything from “Jesus Take the Wheel” to “The Wheels on the Bus,” to, yes, “Happy Birthday,” several times. Yang can’t stop breaking but manages to not lose the thread of the ridiculous song. It’s not for me, but I’m sure others will enjoy it.
Grade: B
Here, the sandwich guy at an office building is bummed when his usual customers don’t want to buy his sandwiches, having ordered a pizza instead. This causes him to experience sad flashbacks to Barbie‘s “What Was I Made For.” It’s nearly five minutes long, but feels a lot longer.
Grade: B-
Finally, crowd favorite Lisa from Temecula and her unstable table are back, this time to dispute a dinner check, spill beverages, and accuse Brolin’s character of trying to seduce her. The cast can’t keep it together. It’s fine? I’m not a huge fan of recurring characters, but I don’t begrudge SNL this one, as it’s one of the few that they drag out these days. And hey, the audience seems to love her, so.
Grade: B
Final Grade: A solid B+.
Saturday Night Live airs at 10:30/11:30 p.m. Saturdays on NBC and streams on Peacock.