Saturday Night Live
Teyana Taylor & Geese
January 24, 2026
Saturday Night Live had a tough task ahead of them this weekend. That Saturday morning in Minneapolis, Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse at the Veterans Administration, was murdered by ICE agents after he stepped in to help some women. By the time we rolled around to 11:30 p.m., EST, we didn’t have all the information about his killing (we still don’t), but we had all seen the videos and the government was already talking out of its ass, and SNL had a show to put on. The result was a show that didn’t address the situation in any meaningful way aside from a throwaway joke on “Weekend Update,” and a sketch that skirted the issue. Viewers, especially those in Minneapolis, felt the lack of acknowledgement was disrespectful, and folks began angrily tearing the entire episode apart online. The result was an episode that, despite actually having a few very funny sketches, will be remembered for all the wrong reasons.
As for the host, Oscar-nominee Teyana Taylor was fine, though she was best used in a sketch that spoofed her film One Battle After Another, which didn’t exactly suggest she has a lot of comedic range. The show tried to play to her singing and dancing strengths, but I genuinely feel she would have been better served had she not been the only woman of color in the episode. She wasn’t a bad host — but she isn’t going to be remembered as being a great host, either.
And then there’s the musical guest controversy which … look … my husband and son are huge fans of Geese, so this was not my first experience with them. That said, I am decidedly not a fan, so I’m just going to stay out of that mess altogether. But good luck if you dare to tread into the discourse.
I’m going to be honest: I thought this week’s deeply controversial cold open was a good idea that was well-executed. It’s The Trump Awards, where President GIMME is nominated in every category and wins nearly every award — and the one he doesn’t win, he just takes because that’s how malignant narcissists be. The problem wasn’t with the content of the sketch itself (although you could argue that continuing to mock President Spite and his administration this way minimizes the actual horrors they’re committing); it was with the tone-deafness of opening the show without some acknowledgement of the extrajudicial killing of Alex Pretti that took place in the streets of Minneapolis that morning. Had this sketch opened any other episode, I don’t think people would have been so pissed off; but the emotional whiplash people felt having spent the day watching and rewatching in disgust and disbelief a video of a good man be executed by government goons to then turn on SNL and have James Austin Johnson’s President Slob clowning around as if something hadn’t seismically shifted in our country … it left a lot of viewers discombobulated and angry. I get it.
Grade: A- But points deducted for tone-deafness: B-
Teyana Taylor’s monologue was one of those “Let Me Introduce Myself to America Even Though I Was Just Nominated For a God Damned Oscar” bits, where she reminds us that she was on My Super Sweet Sixteen and won The Masked Singer, and introduces us to her children. Curiously, she doesn’t mention that she performed on SNL before, with Kanye West. HUH. WONDER WHY.
Grade: B
A pair of airport gate agents sing their delay announcements. That’s the whole sketch. Not sure why the episode is leading with this.
Grade: B-
The commercial spoof of the night is for One Battle After Another action figures, and the children playing with them are recreating some VERY inappropriate scenes. Brilliant, perfect, no notes.
Grade: A++
It’s the Broncos vs. Patriots game and Taylor, as the sideline reporter, completely dismisses the Broncos’ chances before the game even begins. (Turns out she wasn’t wrong.) Meanwhile, the other commentators are constantly interrupting their own coverage by reading promos for a Hulu lesbian cooking drama called Quefs. The real sports announcer community WAS NOT AMUSED.
I actually found the juxtaposition of the NFL announcers with the Quefs drama to be pretty funny, though it’s just a retread of a classic recurring bit starring Jason Sudeikis and Will Forte as Pete Twinkle and Greg Stink, a pair of ESPN announcers for women’s sports who repeatedly interrupt their play-by-play coverage to mention the sponsors, which are always feminine products.
Grade: B-
Ashley Padilla teaches a class in confidence, only to have the students completely crush her by mocking her appearance and her boyfriend. There’s an amusing sight gag in here, when Padilla wordlessly flips through her now uselsess Power Point presentation, but otherwise, this feels meh.
Grade: B-
“Weekend Update” is the first and only time the murder of Alex Pretti is explicitly mentioned when Michael Che refers to ICE as dicks. Otherwise, it’s jokes about the “Board of Peace,” Greenland, and all the other bullshit we were put through last week. It’s been a rough month, guys.
Grade: A-
Marcello Hernandez joins the “Weekend Update” desk to serve as a “Gen Z Translator,” which is mostly used to roast Jost. Interestingly, the best line about the life cycle of Gen Z slang — “Basically, Black people start saying something, young people think it’s cool, so they start saying it, then white people say it. Then once Elon Musk says it, it’s over.” — originally had “Jimmy Fallon” in place of “Elon Musk,” which I happen to think is MUCH funnier, but I suppose in the end SNL didn’t want to insult one of their own.
Grade: B+
Jeremy Culhane joins the “Weekend Update” desk as “Mr. On Blast,” who is not afraid to share his opinions with some accompanying synthesizers. Annoying and seemingly endless, though I’m sure there are some out here who find this hilarious.
Grade: C-
Taylor is an old grandpa in an ill-fitting bald cap who can’t help but get his groove on at his grandson’s wedding. See, the joke is that he’s very old and fragile, but he can dance like Teyana Taylor.
Grade: C+
Many, many years ago, 30 Rock had a brilliant episode in which Jack Donaghy had greenlit a terrible reality show, MILF Island, which allowed them to play on multiple reality show tropes, including the well-worn contestant cliche in which they announce that they aren’t there to “make friends.”
And that should have been the last time anyone made that joke. But SNL decided to dust it off, and subvert it by having a contestant played by Taylor repeatedly announce that, actually, she is on the show to make friends.
It’s not good.
Grade: C-
Though not exactly tied to the Pretti murder, this sketch, in which a pair of Black PBS commentators sigh with exasperation as their white counterparts talk about how the events in Minneapolis are shocking and unprecedented and that this “isn’t America,” is about as close as we’re going to get to real commentary on the day’s events. And it’s not a terrible way to remind folks that this kind of violence has been perpetrated against people of color since the beginning of this country (time), so maybe don’t be so shocked that they are coming after white people now. They probably should have put this one closer to the top of the show, because people were definitely looking for it.
Grade: A-
Finally, “Please Don’t Destroy”‘s Martin Herlihy delivers some relationship advice in this pre-tape bit. I hesitate to say more, because the first joke is so good and surprising. Fortunately, it maintains its momentum and is one of the best bits of the night.
Grade: A+
Cut for Time: For those of you missing Sarah Sherman being weird, here’s a sketch that was cut after dress rehearsal in which she plays a boy traumatized by seeing his father and step-mother having sex.
Final Grade: B.
Saturday Night Live airs at 10:30/11:30 p.m. Saturdays on NBC and streams on Peacock.