It’s three times now that actress Dakota Johnson has hosted Saturday Night Live. She’s a frequent visitor to Studio 8H at Rockefeller Center, and while she may not scratch the exact itch that Gen Z comedy fans want, Johnson is a pro at this task. No one has ever had more epic bangs on SNL.
Cold Open: Marco Rubio
Marcello Hernandez appears as Marco Rubio taping an endorsement for the GOP. We also see Andrew Dismukes and Ashley Padilla as GOP operatives.
Next we get a (very) brief appearance by Jeremy Culhane as JD Vance, then XX as Senator Mitch McConnell, barely being alive.
Predictably, Colin Jost appears as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, chugging a beer and doing his bro-best as head of the war machine. Jost: “I’m putting God back in war, and it’s working,” and “vote by mail is the only by mail I’m ok with.”
James Austin Johnson finally strides on stage as Trump, repeating his offer to give voters money if the Republicans win the midterm elections.
“Nobody has ever won as much as we did,” JAJ’s Trump says as he tapes a statement for whether the GOP wins or loses the midterms.Followed quickly we get the LFNY line.
Monologue by Dakota Johnson
Few hots have ever been as lovely as Johnson, who looked amazing in a tight red dress on stage to deliver her monologue. I’ve been critical of the writing for monologues the last few seasons. It’s usually obvious that the writers draw straws to perform the task of coming up with a monologue. That’s always been puzzling to me: it’s the top of the show when you have the most viewers. That segment should be item number one on their list.
This week, the writers did a good job, pointing Johnson on a rant about her unsuccessful relationships with musicians. That led to a surprising cameo from her pal Taylor Swift, who explains to the audience that she holds Dakota’s hands to give her advice on men. For the first time in Season 52, SNL felt special and like the place to be. The show should feel like something amazing could happen, and a cameo from the world’s most famous pop star is a great way to show that.
First Sketch: Press Your Luck
It’s the first game show of Season 52: Press Your Luck hosted by actress Elizabeth Banks, played by Johnson. The contestants are Padilla as an annoyingly enthusiastic woman, Hernandez, and Kenan Thompson.
“Listen to me, you big dummy. Just walk away,” Thompson says, in the best part of this silly sketch.
SNL is playing it safe with sketches like this at the top of episodes. It’s fine, but forgettable.
Pretape: Mean Scary Girlfriend
Host Johnson appears in a pretape sketch as a girlfriend who controls her man in the worst possible way. We get Ben Marshall, Tommy Brennan, and Hernandez as the boyfriends who get she-handled by a hot GF who isn’t afraid to say what she thinks.
Johnson’s Mean Scary GF delivers lines like, “You look like a pedophile on vacation,” and has a dog who hates you. This is the type of segment made for Johnson. It works very well.
The quality of pretapes continues to be strong on SNL. Basically, the batting average of pretapes the last few seasons has been about .650, while live sketches come in at about .250.
Sketch: Breakroom Gossip
Dakota Johnson, Padilla, and Sarah Sherman are hospital employees dishing gossip in the breakroom. Jeremy Culhane sidles in as “Eric from Legal,” who shares cringe gossip about himself. Kenan enters as “Jermaine,” a colorful employee with juicy gossip.
This sketch works nicely as an ensemble. Nothing too hard-hitting here, but nice attitude from Culhane and Thompson.
Sketch: Guns for Women
Dakota Johnson, Sherman, Padilla, and Slowikowska in a pretape about a firearm made to satisfy the unique needs of a female customer. Johnson shows off what she calls alternately the “Va-Gun” and a “Glunt.” The device is a pink, vagina-shaped gun that Johnson explains makes a noise like a casual female pick up line, “Hey there.”
“Where’s the trigger?”
“It’s really hard to find.”
Sketch: Throne of the Dragonborn
Our host is featured as the alluring queen in a medieval drama. She entices a knight played by Marshall. As the two get comfortable in the royal bed, Marshall is unnerved by a voyeur dragon.
Kenan also appears as the royal eunuch, Johgo, who is also standing in the room watching.
Musical Performance: Turnstile
Well, if you still had any bad taste in your mouth about the terrible performance by KATSEYE last week, it was washed away with ferocity by Turnstile. This is a hard-rocking band that doesn’t give any fucks. Their first number was brief, but powerful. Everything about the performance: the set, the costumes, the light show, was bare and raw. Screaming rock and roll may not be your thing (it’s not for me), but you can’t help but admire the brash, balls-out performance from this youthful quintet from Baltimore, which is basically the epicenter of great American rock bands now.
Weekend Update
Best joke of the week came from Che referring to J.D. Vance’s comment on how Republicans faced an “uphill climb” in the midterms. “Well, they’ve done that before,” Che said, as a photo of the Jan. 6 riots depicted Trump radicals scaling the capitol building.
The time to stop the “Colin Jost is a racist or rapist or…FILL IN TERRIBLE THING HERE” jokes is long past. It’s lazy and not funny. But we get another joke like that this week. Exhibit 478 that we need new WU anchors.
Marcello and Mikey appear as Jason from GTA6 and a character from Legend of Zelda video games. At this point, Mikey Day is relying way too much on SCREAMING EVERY LINE HE HAS. We also get (surprise) plenty of breaking and trying-to-break, as well as ad-libbing. I’m pretty much over Mikey Day. Time to move aside.
We also got Kam Patterson behind the desk to talk about the new season of Glee. His segment was a device to explain that it’s hard for a black cast member to get airtime with a mostly white writers room. It worked just fine: at least we got to see some of the real (apparently) Kam Patterson.
Lastly, Sherman appeared as Debbie Mush, a very-New York dating expert, in a throwaway segment. I can’t quite understand why a matchmaker for Michael Che would be on a Weekend Update segment. That torpedoed this very weak segment for me. Apparently, the writers think it’s funny to write segments where characters say any line (loudly) and add the name “CHE” at the end, as in “Look at me, Che!” or “Isn’t that right, Che?!”
Overall, this was a rather long Update segment (not helped by ad-libs from Day, Hernandez, and Che) that didn’t need the Sherman segment. Weaker than Week 1. If the show is going to devote about 1/3 of the airtime in Update, it has to be consistently stronger. The best fix: new anchors. But I’m yelling into a vacuum with that one.
RUNNING TIME: 20 minutes
Sketch: Slumber Party
Jane Wickline, Sherman, and Slowikowska as three girls on a slumber party watching TikTok videos. It’s a clever sketch that allows newcomers (and social media stars) Saidah Belo-Osagie and Grace Reiter appear. But it proves to be a showcase for Dakota Johnson as “ColoradoVicky1,” a bizarre female content creator with offbeat videos, including a self-lobotomy sponsored by L’Oreal.
JAJ appears as the despondent father in this sketch, who does his best here, but isn’t funny enough to justify the breaking by Sherman (again).
Music Performance No. 2: Turnstile
In more of a ballad, Turnstile is arguably even better than their first effort. Still edgy, energetic, defiant, but catchier with a pop-infused number. This is a band that should be back in Studio 8H again, and again, and again…and…you get it.
10-to-1 Sketch: Amazing Tales of Truth
Dakota Johnson appears in about her fifth wig of the show (and looks great in all of them) as a nurse attending to a man in a coma (JAJ). This is a very hit-and-run sketch: basically a one-off, but it’s just fine for the 10-to-1. The deadpan performance by the host is perfect, and Slowikowska as the family member at bedside steals it.
The meat in this BLT of a sketch is Slowikowska singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” She has a fantastic voice. If this was the 1970s she’d have her own variety show.
Episode Grade: B
Dakota Johnson is this generation’s Candice Bergen: a beautiful, beloved, professional actress who can helm a show and disappear when needed to let cast members shine. She can also be the central piece in a sketch and shine, like she did tonight.
Episode 2 of Season 52 rights the ship after a mediocre season premier with Jalen Brunson. It should be noted that Turnstile crushed it in both its numbers, and the music helps lift the episode to a solid B.
This episode of SNL feels like it will fit very nicely in the pantheon of the show: we get enough funny sketches, a good, young band with a counter sound that challenges the current pop diva vibe, and the beautiful host. Even the goodnights were classic celebrity “snapshot of the pop culture moment” with Taylor Swift there to present her gal pal Dakota Johnson with a birthday cake.
It’s not popular among some SNL fans to love Dakota Johnson. But if loving Dakota is wrong, being right isn’t what I care about. She can come back two more times and get a much-deserved 5-Timers jacket. I’m Team Dakota 100%.
