Dangerous Bunny is the proper host to introduce SNL’s new take care of all the offseason turnover.
Photograph: Will Heath/NBC
The final time musician Dangerous Bunny hosted Saturday Evening Dwell, he was dressed as Shrek, requesting Please Don’t Destroy to put in writing a Shrek sketch for him. That was two years in the past, and as a humorous and charismatic performer, it is sensible that he crushed. For the premiere of season 51, he’s internet hosting for a second time, constant as ever, even when the present’s gone by way of large adjustments through the hiatus. For one factor, no extra Please Don’t Destroy on the present (although they’ll nonetheless carry out as a sketch group), with Ben Marshall bumped to featured participant, Martin Herlihy as author, and John Higgins gone to a hopefully much less grueling office. A bit of final season’s solid is gone, together with heavy hitters Heidi Gardner and Ego Nwodim. Primarily based on this primary episode, it looks like Marcello Hernandez, Sarah Sherman, and Chloe Fineman are poised to fill the hole left by Heidi and Ego’s departure. (Hopefully, so will Bowen Yang in future episodes.) The 4 new featured gamers, along with Marshall, embrace TikTok favourite Veronika Slowikowska, Dropout’s Jeremy Culhane, Kill Tony’s Kam Patterson, and humorist Tommy Brennan.
Much less talked about however genuinely thrilling are the brand new writers: Jack Bensinger, Maddie Wiener, Rachel Pegram, Jo Sunday, and Claire McFadden are so, so humorous. Bensinger’s absurdity, Wiener’s reducing joke writing, and McFadden’s sketches have been making me chuckle since they had been all in Chicago almost a decade in the past. Sunday’s Brooklyn alt whimsy is charming, and Pegram is equally gifted as a performer and author. I don’t know the 2 Lampoon hires, however you already know what? Positive. If the present molds to their youthful, alt-ier sensibilities, relatively than the opposite manner round, this season could possibly be actually, actually good.
Even with the current adjustments to the present, Dangerous Bunny is a continuing. With Doja Cat as musical visitor, he wasn’t doing double obligation this time, and he additionally has extra performing expertise underneath his belt now. He was in Comfortable Gilmore 2 this summer time alongside Marcello Hernandez, and also you see that chemistry when the 2 are onscreen right here, too. The premiere’s finest moments had been when Dangerous Bunny and Marcello Hernandez labored collectively as a dynamic crew, as evidenced within the standout sketches of the night time, together with ChatGPTío and Guardian-Trainer Conferences. I want we had seen them in a Sabado Gigante sketch.
As for the premiere general, it felt on par with the common SNL episode, which was up and down. The chilly open featured a too-convincing Colin Jost as Pete Hegseth, parodying his anti-DEI speech-slash-Ted-Speak to troopers, with James Austin Johnson’s Trump approaching quickly after to recap his summer time. The Jeopardy sketch felt one-note, and the Inventing Spanish sketch, which occupied the identical universe as Nate Bargatze’s Washington’s Dream collection, didn’t attain the extent of silliness that it might have (even when it did have many sharp strains). The El Chavo de Ocho sketch didn’t fairly hit if you happen to weren’t already conversant in the unique.
When the writing wasn’t its sharpest, Dangerous Bunny’s efficiency nonetheless carried by way of each sketch. Being a superb comedic actor takes him far, however he’s additionally so intentional about taking part in every character with such an earnest conviction. You’re laughing, however you additionally really need his characters to win. On the core, his characters are all sweeties. And to make the viewers consider that even a creepy aspiring sperm donor is a sweetie? That’s a present. With how regularly he’s been at 30 Rock for a newcomer, maybe we’ll see him are available in as a extra common drop-in?
Listed here are the highlights:
Dangerous Bunny solidifies why he’s the proper first host to start out the season along with his monologue, the place he’s so humorous, charismatic, and comfy on that stage. (The week’s promo about him being supremely snug at SNL wasn’t a joke, and good.) Throughout the monologue, he gave us a rundown of his Puerto Rico residency, making enjoyable of himself with a clip of his “sophisticated choreography” and Jon Hamm (or Juan Jamón) allegedly in attendance. (And you already know he was within the SNL viewers too, bucket hat and all.) Dangerous Bunny joked in regards to the MAGA backlash, saying that Fox Information was enthusiastic about him internet hosting the Tremendous Bowl, adopted by clips of Fox Information speaking heads minimize collectively to say, “Dangerous Bunny is my favourite musician, and he must be our subsequent president.” He switches to Spanish in the direction of the top, and ends by reminding us that if we didn’t perceive, we’ve 4 months to be taught. Hosts are likely to have extra room to be political (at the least for the requirements of this present), and it was refreshing to see Dangerous Bunny so seamlessly stand in his personal factor, each defiant and unbothered by the bad-faith conservative speaking factors à la Fox Information. I hope that having him on as an inherently political visitor isn’t a quid professional quo for doubtlessly having, like, Tony Hinchcliffe on later.
A lesbian couple (Sarah Sherman and Chloe Fineman) asks their good pal (Mikey Day) to be a sperm donor, however he has to consider it. But it surely’s not an issue; there’s one other restaurant patron named Elviro (Dangerous Bunny), a bizarre man with a bowl minimize who’s extraordinarily desperate to be a father. Kenan Thompson can also be randomly there as a restaurant patron who desires free semen. The logic doesn’t fairly work for me, however I admire the silliness. The entire sketch is value it for the digital camera pan to see Dangerous Bunny comically exaggerate his intro line: “Uuuuuuuuuh … I’ll do it!”
A robust, easy premise that solutions the query: what if ChatGPT had been your Latino uncle? Nicely, its tagline could be, “Name your abuela. She’s lacking you and she or he has nothing to do.” Marcello Hernandez leads this digital brief because the titular tío, assisted by Dangerous Bunny in a dressing up that’s sort of Walter Goggins coded. I like them collectively, and I hope Dangerous Bunny will seem extra regularly through the season. SNL is enjoyable when it’s culturally particular, which, primarily based on how white the solid has gotten, appears like one thing to savor when it does occur. An added bonus is that we get a glimpse of 4 of the 5 new featured gamers on this one.
When a bunch of mates is at brunch, catching up about current media they’ve favored, Thomas (Dangerous Bunny) will get actually defensive about loving KPop Demon Hunter, which is technically a film for kids. When the remainder of the group strikes on from the dialog, Thomas remains to be pissed off; he sits sideways, poised and cross-armed, his inside monologue each indignant at his friends and likewise bopping to the film’s songs in his head. To be humorous whereas taking part in a personality who’s candy and endearing (even when calling his mates idiots) is a ability, and Dangerous Bunny has it. I additionally love that this sketch felt prefer it had three acts, with Bowen coming in as a demon, earlier than an precise Huntr/x efficiency. Bonus factors for Sarah Sherman’s dowdy character, who by accident bought on the Epstein checklist.
Simply the perfect sketch of the night time. When a college principal (Ashley Padilla) and a trainer (Andrew Dismukes) reprimand a scholar (Hernandez) for disturbing drawings of him attacking the principal, the coed’s father (Dangerous Bunny) is available in, and Padilla’s principal, instantly smitten, adjustments course to hitting on the coed’s father. It’s pleasant to see her change to what her character believes is a full-blown rom-com heroine, solely to elicit no response from Dangerous Bunny and frustration from the coed’s trainer, who’s really in love together with her. After Dangerous Bunny’s character tells her to name him by his first identify, she marvels, “Have you ever ever let anybody name you that earlier than?” Dangerous Bunny merely says, “Sure.” When Padilla calls his late spouse a bitch earlier than realizing she died after which doing a tough pivot to “Then the bitch is I,” was my favourite line learn of the episode.
• Doja Cat … that girl is a performer performer. I’m stunned she wasn’t in any sketches.
• In the long run credit, I cherished seeing Bowen dancing with the Huntr/X women. As a result of I’ve lastly aged into SNL’s demographic, I can’t inform the extent to which they’re an actual band or simply within the film, however I assumed it was cute!
• I did miss having a Please Don’t Destroy sketch.
• Slime popping out of Sarah Sherman’s mouth Within the KPop Demon Hunters sketch … I do love when that woman will get to return to her physique horror roots.
• Pre-emptively wanting ahead to extra Veronika Slowikowska and Jeremy Culhane this season. I don’t know lots about both of them, aside from that they’ve fanbases from TikTok and Dropout, respectively. Seeing their followers buzz with pleasure feels actually tender.
• Benicio del Toro cameo? Is everybody simply free?
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