Saturday Night Live
Lady Gaga
March 8, 2024
This is Lady Gaga’s second time to serve as both host and musical guest on Saturday Night Live — the first time being back in 2013 (with an unfortunate duet with R. Kelly that she’d rather not talk about … except in the monologue), and the question that must be asked is, what took so long? I mean, besides simply not having time for it between her TV appearances, feature films, campaigning for Oscars, being the Super Bowl halftime act, dueting with Tony Bennet, leading a Las Vegas residency, performing in the Olympics opening ceremonies, and getting engaged, what else better did she have to do?
Fortunately, her schedule allowed her to swing by Studio 8H this week, and she gave her all, both in the sketches and in her musical performances. Gaga, who has become a respected actress since her last time hosting SNL, was clearly happy to be there: relaxed, funny, and game for whatever SNL threw at her. And they threw a lot of strange stuff at her: weight-lifting mice, ritual sacrifice, flapper funerals. Still, whatever material they gave her, Lady Gaga leaned into it — in fact, the stranger the better, it would seem. It wasn’t a uniformly great episode, but it wasn’t for lack of enthusiasm from Gaga.
Hey, SNL casting director? Make sure it’s not another 12 years before she hosts again.
Mike Myers is back to mock (and infuriate) Elon Musk in the cold open, this time recreating the fight between the car Nazi and some of the new cabinet members, notably Marco Rubio and Sean Duffy, the transportation secretary who was furious that Musk has been firing air traffic controllers while planes are falling out of the sky. President Dumbass’s real suggestion? “[H]ire people from M.I.T. as air traffic controllers. These air traffic controllers need to be ‘geniuses,’ he said.”
And here’s the inherent problem with this week’s cold open is that nothing SNL can write is going to be stupider or funnier than that. They try their best, and Myers conflating Musk with Dr. Evil is the PERFECT use of this particular alum, but it’s never going to be as insane as what actually happened.
Grade: B+
Lady Gaga delivers a strong monologue this week, making fun of her first appearance hosting the show, making fun of Joker 2 and winning a Razzie for the performance, and her own age as a female pop star. She’s charming and clearly enjoying herself, and I just wish the show had known what to do with all this energy.
Grade: A-
In the first Gaga sketch of the night, she is a young chef leaving her boyfriend for Paris and the gag is that she’s riding her rideable suitcase to the airport. She and Marcello completely commit to the bit, there’s a dog involved — along with a ridiculous fake dog — the whole thing is fairly absurd, but it’s also both just way too long while still coming in under five minutes. (And yes, rideable luggage is a real thing.)
Grade: B
In a digital piece, “Pip,” a mouse is encouraged by one of his fellow high school classmates to participate in a weight-lifting competition in the face of the teasing of the other students. Lady Gaga sings her encouragement and things turn … dark. It’s not terrible, but it goes on too long and it was a bit too obvious that it was going to end on a “shocking” note.
Grade: B-
I worry that I’m going to be an outlier on this one but I haaaaated the sketch in which Gaga and Bowen Yang are a couple on a first date, singing “You Look Wonderful Tonight” while making jokes between verses. The jokes weren’t funny, they don’t know how to end it … just not my favorite. I understand that Bowen Yang is a superfan who was desperate to be in a sketch with her, but this doesn’t feel like the one.
Grade: C+
Lady Gaga and Heidi Gardner are funeral planners who push a “Roaring 20s murder-mystery” theme funeral for a woman’s father’s service. It’s a one-joke sketch, it’s not going to be remembered by next week, but it’s also not terrible.
Grade: B
The best sketch so far — and maybe of the night — is an ad spoof for L’Oreal’s Easy Run Mascara for when you WANT people to know you’ve been crying. Having known my share of drama queens (and possibly having been one myself back in the day) this is all too real.
Grade: A
“Weekend Update” pokes fun at the State of the Union, Canadians stealing jokes on sketch comedy shows (~ahem~ Mike Myers), the tariffs, and the layoffs at Sesame Street. Another solid outing, but I sure wish they didn’t have so much goddamned material to work with.
Grade: A-
The only reason I have even heard of Kendrick Perkins is that I saw that Charles Barkley was talking some shit about him — so I guess he’s a basketball person? Anyway, here Kenan as Kendrick makes a bunch of basketball jokes and calls Lebron James old. It’s fine — but I’m willing to admit that it’s just not for me and that maybe it’s funnier if I cared about sports.
Grade: B
Also visiting the “Weekend Update” desk is Lady Gaga’s husband, Lord Gaga. It begins as a joke about Lady Gaga having a foppish husband who doesn’t understand that he’s married to a superstar, while taking credit for her station in life. And that’s a funny bit! But the real stinger is how the whole thing turns into a prolonged roast of Colin Jost for being married to a movie star.
Grade: A
A group of friends go to Friendly’s where they lie that it’s one of their birthdays for a free sundae. However, the nightmare of every socially anxious person comes true: the staff knows it is not her birthday and things go poorly. Very poorly, and the not-birthday girl pays “the ultimate price.” Again, it’s over-the-top, absurdist, and kinda dumb, but to its credit, it leans into the crazy so hard that it actually pulls it off.
Grade: A-
The only sketch that competes with “Easy Run Mascara” for me this week is this one mocking women of a certain age who wear “little red glasses” to signal that they are still cool and interesting. It goes a little long, but I thought it was spot-on while also feeling personally attacked.
(I do not wear little red glasses, just for the record.)
Grade: A
Bowen has a second shot at a singing sketch with Lady Gaga, this time as a pair of friends who sing a song to the rest of their group that demands they retire the word “slay” along with some other key slang, like “bop,” “sus” and “Mother,” noting that they took these words from other communities, and now it’s time to return them. Again: personally attacked. As for the bit itself, this is a much better and successful use of a Bowen and Gaga team-up.
Grade: A–
A final note: Lady Gaga was FANTASTIC in her musical performances last night. I’m not a superfan by any stretch, but I couldn’t help but love her full commitment to each song and the performances themselves — they might have even been the best parts of the entire episode. Bless Lady Gaga and her little monsters.
Final Grade: B+. (The plus comes from the musical performances, FYI.)
Saturday Night Live airs at 10:30/11:30 p.m. Saturdays on NBC and streams on Peacock.