Saturday Night Live
Shane Gillis & Rosalía
October 10, 2026
What more can I say about Shane Gillis being invited back a third time to host this show after bombing the previous two times, and then using that third, undeserved opportunity to spew some misogynistic and homophobic bullshit in his monologue, other than …
I mean, really, though: what are we doing here, Lorne?
Colin Jost is back with his Pete Hegseth, armed with Fireball and addressing the exhausted sailors of the USS Lincoln upon their return to the United States. He’s happy to show off his new Nazi logo and tell them about the upcoming public execution. There’s no President Assman this week, as Jason Austin Johnson’s talents are put to use in an RFK Jr. impersonation instead. And while it’s a good RFK Jr., I’m distracted by his arm prosthetics, which, like everything about RFK Jr., gross me out.
Grade: B+
And then there’s the infamous Shane Gillis monologue, which has been a topic of conversation for almost two weeks now.
Gillis begins his set ostensibly in a self-deprecating way, talking about how he needs to lose weight, only to then claim he looks “like a lesbian,” which is just the opening salvo in a lazily misogynistic set. And when he’s not attacking women at the gym for “dress[ing] like whores,” or attacking his sisters as “big fat bitch[es],” he’s humble-bragging about hanging out with the super cool, completely unproblematic Theo Von and Joe Rogan. Oh, and then he somehow manages to end the set with the line, “you’re either gay or you’re Hitler, isn’t that where we’re at as a country?”
Dan Levy was the first celebrity to speak out against Gillis’ monologue, noting, “Women wearing short shorts at the gym does not make them whores. It makes the men calling them whores misogynists.”
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And soon, plenty of people were taking sides, with the former women of SNL speaking out against Gillis, including Ego Nwodim, Cecily Strong, and Paula Pell:
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And Kenan Thompson, SNL‘s elder statesman, says he would want to take a more paternal approach with Gillis if he were to return to the show: “But if he were to come back [to ‘SNL’], I’m sure we would have a conversation of like, ‘How do you think that went?’ You know what I mean? And, ‘What do you think you could have done?’ Like a little kid, you know? I would just sit him down and be like, ‘So what do you think we could change there, pal?'”
Saturday Night Live‘s sister program across the pond also took shots at Gillis:
US SNL FOUND DEAD IN A DITCH! #snluk https://t.co/Yf2SCYmHOx
— beth (@alltoomaroon) October 17, 2026
Martha Plimpton, Maren Morris, Sarah Haines, Jenna Bush Hager and Kathy Griffin also had thoughts — not good ones — about Gillis’ “jokes.”
Meanwhile, the usual suspects — dudes — didn’t see anything wrong with the set, specifically the “whore” joke, including Michael Che, Dana Carvey, David Spade, Boby Bones, and (checks notes), Travis Kelce.
TAYLOR, COME GET YOUR MAN.
Look, there’s nothing original I can add to this conversation, especially this late in the game. I think the whole thing is cynical; these guys have learned that they can perform lazy, punching-down “humor” that will inflame a segment of the audience, and generate a certain amount of cultural noise for a while. And then when they get called out for being misogynistic or homophobic or racist or whatever, there will always be another segment of the population (men) who will rush to their defense, insisting that it’s just a “joke,” that the offended are “too sensitive,” that men are being “censored,” and “cancel culture” is ruining comedy. It’s a tedious cycle we’ve seen play out countless times in the past decade or so, and frankly, I’m almost more offended that we’re still falling for it and, as a consequence, giving oxygen to and elevating dumb, hackneyed comedians like Gillis, who has NO BUSINESS HOSTING SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Ugh.
Grade: F
Alright. I’m going to do my best to try to judge the rest of the show as if Gillis is just a regular host who did not just go out of his way to insult half of the audience.
Here, Gillis plays a cop hosting a talk show called “Cop Talk,” which ostensibly is meant to demonstrate to people that talking to the police shouldn’t be stressful. Instead, he and his co-hosts treat each guest like they’ve pulled them over for a DUI, and proceed to interrogate them. All except for a clearly inebriated actress, whom he flirts with, and a comedian played by Kam Peterson, who quickly assesses the situation and removes himself from it.
Grade: B
This is a sentimental country song from the perspective of a father who is at his daughter’s wedding, fantasizing about how he’s going to turn her bedroom into his man cave. Things take a surreal turn.
Grade: B
The other much-discussed moment of the show came in this sketch filled with Dr. Seuss characters, with Gillis playing the son of the character in Green Eggs and Ham who is harassed by Sam I Am. Gillis managed to drop an F-bomb during the sketch — a sin that got the brilliant Jenny Slate fired from SNL many years ago, but which won’t be held against Gillis BECAUSE NOTHING, APPARENTLY, WILL BE HELD AGAINST GILLIS.
SERENITY NOW.
Anyway, Mikey Day, an actually funny comedian, is able to use the moment to improvise what turns out to be the funniest moment in the entire bit.
Grade: B+
A History Channel show covers the invention of sneakers in the 1920s, so called because Gillis’ character notes that they’re good for “sneaking,” and “she’ll never hear you and never catch you.” He also refers to his wife as a “murderous cow.”
No.
Grade: D
And now I have to begrudgingly admit that there is a funny bit in the episode, AND I DON’T WANT TO.
In this commercial spoof, Gillis is the owner of “Upfront Heating and Air Conditioning,” promising that his company will always be “upfront” with their customers. And by that he means he will be honest about hiring the “weirdest guys you’ve ever seen.” The employees are promised to hurt themselves on the job, get into domestic disputes, wear shirts that don’t cover their bellies, and openly smoke in front of your kids. It’s genuinely very funny.
Grade: A
“Weekend Update” takes on ICE; President Petty’s petulance that he didn’t win the Nobel Prize; the (now canceled) public execution; and the Defense Department’s new logo. It’s all pretty solid.
Grade: A-
Kevin O’Leary, also known for some reason as “Mr. Wonderful,” stops by the Weekend Update desk to defend his building a data center in Utah, explaining that the people affected by the data center aren’t real to him and that he doesn’t care because those people are poor.
Grade: A-
Also visiting the Weekend Update desk, Ashley Padilla is a mother whose babysitter canceled with her evil (?) daughter Coco, played by Grace Reiter, with some tips for fun fall family activities. Mom, pushed by Coco’s shenanigans, ends up dissolving into a hysterical mess.
Grade: B
A man has to decide whether to stay at the bedside of his dying mother or go see Jelly Roll at the Sphere. Somehow this one-joke sketch is over five minutes long. It has no business being five minutes long.
Grade: C-
Finally, a middle schooler is humiliated by his horny, divorced, white trash parents at a chess tournament. Grace Reiter, who is clearly being pushed as the new star of this season, does all the heavy lifting here.
Grade: B-
Final Grade: Woof. I mean, C+. (It probably should be an F for that monologue, though.)
Saturday Night Live airs at 10:30/11:30 p.m. Saturdays on NBC and streams on Peacock.