Saturday Night Live
Shane Gilis & Tate McRae
March 1, 2025
Because 2025 is one big experiment to test my patience, Lorne Michaels decided that he needed to bring Shane Gillis, failed SNL cast member, back to host again even though he bombed spectacularly when he hosted for first time last year. And let me tell you, Gillis didn’t do better this go-round. If anything, somehow it was worse. Though he was a serviceable sketch player in a couple of pieces, for the most part, the episode allowed Gillis’ dumb middle-school-level humor to take the lead, and his monologue, once again, completely flopped.
I blame the 6 million Joe Biden voters who couldn’t be fucked to show up to the polls in November. You did this to us. You did this to me.
The cold open tackles the absurdist scene from this weekend: President Spraytan and J.D. Vance shouting down President Zelenskyy in the White House, demanding that he take a shitty unsecured deal with Russia and thank them more. But the sketch is stolen by something that didn’t actually happen on Friday: the inclusion of Elon Musk who is brought to weird, glitching life by SNL great Mike Myers.
Since the White House meeting with Zelenskyy took place on Friday afternoon, I assume the cold open plan had originally been to do something with President Shoe Lifts and Elon, but that they shifted gears after Friday’s meeting because how are you not going to address that? No matter: Myers’ Musk still managed to successfully crash the meeting and it wouldn’t have surprised anyone had it actually happened. Weirder shit’s gone down in the past few weeks, after all.
Grade: A-
The last time Shane Gillis hosted I went on a rant about his monologue and how he pulls this cheap trick where he includes offensive material and language while couching it in self-deprecating humor, pretending to be the butt of the joke while actually creating a permission structure for his audience to laugh at jokes about the less powerful. Well kids, I’m here to tell you he’s doing it again, but this time instead of jokes about people with Down Syndrome and throwing around gay slurs, he’s softening our fascist President, comparing liberals to Sith lords and cracking jokes about date rape and women sleeping with Black men.
What is interesting is that like last time, Gillis loses the Saturday Night Live studio audience, though they do seem to try to laugh along with him in the beginning. And Gillis goes out of his way to acknowledge the antagonism of the audience a couple of times, as he did the first time he hosted. This suggests to me that this is also a part of his schtick — and maybe the more important part: he’s sending a message to his actual audience rooting him on from home that he’s up here fighting the good fight for them, the edgelords, the guys who aren’t offended by the N-word or calling women “bitches” or throwing around “retard,” telling dangerous jokes in front of a hostile, prissy New York audience who wants to make “comedy illegal,” or whatever bullshit these not-funny idiots tell themselves to justify their bigotry. However, by pulling the same sleight of hand twice in a row, he’s showing us how he does the trick … not that his mouth-breathing audience will notice or care.
Grade: F
And now, a defense of Shane Gillis: he’s not a terrible sketch comedian. Here he plays the amiable boyfriend of a nightmare of a girlfriend who is obsessed with taking selfies, ruining their afternoon with his parents. Gillis is a natural as the easy-going everydude, an affable foil to Heidi Gardner’s scene stealer, a role that had he stayed on SNL, I’m sure he would have played often.
Grade: B+
The first taped bit is a commercial for a new medication to help people (men) deal with their social anxieties: CouplaBeers. Get it? It’s booze.
Grade: B-
Bringing back a sketch first performed on Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s 2019 episode, a team of local news anchors keep score of which crimes are committed by which races. It’s a good fit not just for Gillis who seems VERY genuinely into the bit, but for his fan base as well. I’m not mad at it — in fact, it’s probably the best bit of the night — but it does hit a little different when it’s a problematic white guy hosting.
Grade: A
Here, Gillis is the host of a sad kids’s show, “Dad’s House,” in which a divorced father has his kids for the weekend and struggles to feed and entertain them. What’s frustrating about this sketch is that it had potential: it’s not a terrible idea for a bit, and Gillis is definitely the guy for the role. But ultimately it reads more sad than funny (though I kinda loved the puppet).
Grade: B-
The Please Don’t Destroy guys are back with a spoof of The Voice in which the celebrity judges immediately regret their votes for the mystery singer when it’s revealed that he’s an unattractive weirdo with bad vibes. Again, Gillis proves his sketch skills and is a good fit in this very specific role.
Grade: A-
“Weekend Update” came back strong with jokes about the Zelenskyy meeting, the disgusting Gaza AI video, Elon Musk’s insulting emails to federal workers, Robert Kennedy Jr. and some dead birds, and the Emilia Perez Oscar scandal.
Grade: A
Not so strong: Marcello Hernandez as “The Movie Guy” — a movie reviewer here to share his opinions on the Oscar nominees, none of which he’s seen.
Grade: C+
Also visiting the “Weekend Update” desk is Jane Wickline with another song: this one a love ballad about The Trolley Experiment. This is not going to be for everyone, and it does go on a bit too long, but I kinda adore her.
Grade: A-
An ex-boyfriend appears at his former girlfriend’s wedding to cash in a coupon she once gave him for “One Hand Job” to be honored “anytime, anywhere.” 16-year-old guy humor at its finest, ladies and gentlemen.
Grade: D
Finally, a man goes to the doctor and recognizes him as the kid who in middle school claimed to be able to blow himself. This is the level of humor the show devolved to in the back half of the episode.
Grade: D
Final Grade: C+.
Saturday Night Live airs at 10:30/11:30 p.m. Saturdays on NBC and streams on Peacock.
If you ask the Twitter Chuds this was, and I quote, “the funniest episode of SNL in over a decade”.