Cold Open
Trump calls up various members of his cabinet.
• A dumb meta joke about how all the female members of the cabinet are played by Ashley.
• This is just like that awful Trumpwin cold open where the real Stormy Daniels showed up at the end. But the less said about that one, the better.
• Kenan as Tiger Woods is here to make limp jokes about his recent car accident. All these months later, when said incident has mostly been forgotten, I fail to see the point of his inclusion. It doesn’t help that Kenan looks and sounds nothing like him.
• Chloe’s awful Melania “impression” somehow sounds even worse here. Thankfully, we won’t have to see it again as Chloe’s only got a few episodes left.
• A scene with Jeremy reprising his Tucker Carlson impression was cut after dress rehearsal.
• Colin’s Hegseth routine has completely run its course. And he still goes on to appear in all three remaining episodes of this season! Not even Trumpwin was this overused.
Monologue
Colman talks about his role in Euphoria before setting a good vibe in the studio.
• I’ve never seen Euphoria, but I loved Colman as Joseph Jackson in the Michael Jackson biopic that came out right after this episode.
• While I’m not laughing at a lot of the material, I’m finding him to be a really charming host so far.
• The shot of Leon Pendarvis shrugging was pretty funny.
• It feels so good hearing the audience applaud Jeremy when he shows up, although his scene wasn’t anything special.
• The woman in the audience who Colman charms is Jimmy Fowlie’s partner in crime Ceara O’Sullivan.
• Who are the two people making out? Probably some more writers.
Sketch: Fashion District Robbery
A poorly dressed criminal is wanted by police.
• I liked James’ opening line about how we can experience NYC’s urine smell for ourselves.
• Just from the look of these characters, I can tell I’m gonna hate this sketch.
• “D’artangan Meringue”? Ugh.
• Colman’s lispy voice is also not doing it for me, though props to him for at least trying.
• No comment on Mikey’s weird homosexual stereotype walk-on.
• Colman’s actually starting to sound more like he came from a rejected “Men on Film” sketch.
• The ending with JAJ wearing the same outfit as Colman was pretty stupid, but he did look funny in it.
• I had hoped that all of these poor attempts at camp would disappear once Bowen left, but I guess not. In fact, they’ve only gotten worse.
Fake Ad: Uneek Cutz
A black barbershop is just what you need to get through marital problems.
• Tommy looks a lot like John Mulaney whenever he wears glasses.
• Great concept. I feel like black barbershops are an untapped gold mine that more people should make jokes about. Sure, there was that sketch with Dave Chappelle a few years ago, and that scene in Coming to America, but I want more, damn it!!!!
• The “ghetto” humor is coming off better in this ad, I presume because an actual black person wrote it.
• Colman seems to be going for an Eddie Murphy impression here.
• Great scene where they witness a shooting take place nearby.
• I love the short cut they give to Ben.
• Mikey: “By the way, fellas, I’d smash Pam all day!!!” *barbers cheer* Also, the fact the Mikey is wearing a durag in this scene makes it even funnier.
Sketch: Artemis II
Astronauts interrupt a video log with their antics.
• Getting bad vibes from the text crawl at the beginning…
• I love the attempts to make everyone look weightless.
• This feels like a ripoff of a sketch from the atrocious Steve Carell episode in Season 44 that also involved things going wrong during a space broadcast.
• Ugh, Marcello’s mugging away as usual.
• One thing this has going for it is Colman’s wonderful performance. Very subdued and full of wonder at being in space. If only stupid Marcello would let us enjoy it properly!
• It felt really cathartic seeing him push Sarah out of the way.
• Heh, you can clearly see someone’s hand holding up the hat as it’s “floating”. That’s pretty bad when my favorite part of the sketch is a blooper.
• And we end on a bit of random gross out with Mikey’s boogers? Eeewwww!!!
Sketch: The Knowledge Hour
A TV host breaks out after his furniture gag doesn’t work.
• “You’re watching PBS.” PLEASE. STOP.
• “Henry Debris”? Not the worst name I’ve seen on this show, but still pretty lame.
• I love the filter applied to this to make it look like a retro series.
• Kam sure earned his salary tonight by playing a silent bookcase.
• This is a really fun and absurd sketch so far, and Colman is giving it his all.
• I wonder who the “plant” is.
• Wonderful shot of all the objects in the room leaving.
• Great interplay between Andrew and Colman, which ends with their characters getting married.
• One of the best “everyone dances” endings I’ve ever seen.
• Finally, a sketch that didn’t make me want to hurt someone!
Musical Performance: “Choka Choka”
Weekend Update (featuring Two Kids From The Back Of The Bus and Lindt Greer)
• Colin’s now resorting to making up a fake Trump post just so he can point out how indistinguishable it was from a real one.
• That Strait of Hormuz pun was awful.
• Priests molesting children are so funny, you guys!!! Please laugh!!!!
• I believe this Back Of The Bus commentary was cut from the Gosling episode.
• Why has Kam been on Update so much this year? Meanwhile, Jeremy’s been on twice, while their fellow newbies have only been on once each.
• I think I can see why this was cut before…because it absolutely blows.
• Ah, now we have another Jane commentary where she plays a character instead of herself. I loved the last one she did, can she impress me again?
• Jane: “There are only two rules of sex. 1. Have fun. 2. No raping.”
• “I can’t define sex, but I know I’m having it.” There’s some really good lines in this!
• I’m glad they paired her up with Che again instead of Colin, because I’m sure he would have ruined this.
• This might sound crazy, but Jane is slowly becoming one of my favorite cast members.
Sketch: Grandpa’s Wake
Two people find out what their deceased grandfather’s lifestyle was like at his funeral.
• Someone in the comments claims that the old man who’s picture is seen in this sketch was their grandfather, who wanted his picture to appear in an SNL episode as his dying wish.
• Already a bad omen when Kenan arrives as a pimp. He must have played more pimps in his career than Rudy Ray Moore!
• I had to laugh at Veronika’s odd raspy voice. It reminds of that wrinkly old lady from the SpongeBob episode where they sell chocolate bars.
• When the camera gets closer, it becomes apparent that the person in the coffin is just a dummy.
• I definitely don’t need Marcello and Jeremy commenting on everything.
• Now we’re getting Colman complimenting Marcello’s looks while disparaging Jeremy? Could it be any more obvious that there’s some kind of weird caste system going on behind the scenes?
• The bit with Mikey coming out of the coffin is so desperate. It feels like an old man trying to be “hip”. Even worse, in dress it was Chloe who came out of the coffin. I can’t imagine how much more terrible that would have been!
• As usual, good ol’ JAJ tries to save things, but it’s too late. The sketch is almost over.
• UGH, enough with the Colin cameos!!!!! He’s had more screen time in sketches than poor Tommy Brennan!
• Aaaand the sketch ends with a newspaper headline announcing that Jeremy has been hit by a bus. What an atrocious sketch.
Musical Performance: “Várias Quejas”
Sketch: Prep School
In a Dead Poets’ Society parody, a math teacher advocates an alternative teaching method.
• Andrew has surprisingly gotten quite a bit of airtime tonight.
• I’m loving all the faux “deep” dialogue, such as “But the floor is where the dirt is” when the students are told to throw their pencils on the ground.
• Am I the only one who thinks it’s kinda stereotypical that they made Colman eat a banana in this sketch?
• Great fake number from Ben: “buhleventy”.
• Marcello’s antics are kind of out of place here, but he’s not doing too bad.
• Jeremy: “Why does Spanish math have ‘cuatro’, but not English?”
• Sorry to sound like a broken record, but Colman is really good in this sketch.
• Kenan plays his 1,225,387th janitor role.
• I love Ben trying to count every number at once before giving up.
• Tommy: “Why can you divide two numbers but not unite two numbers?” Andrew: “It’s called ADDITION!!!”
• Kam declaring his sexual attraction to the number 8 was also pretty good.
• I think Andrew messed something up when he fell out of the window. The sound effect of his landing is delayed and he appears to bounce off a bush. I hope he didn’t hurt himself!
• Definitely the best sketch of the episode. Is it no coincidence that Andrew has been in both sketches that I actually like?
Film: Beastomorphs
Transformation mix-ups mar a teenage action show.
• SNL takes on Animorphs!!! In 2026, for some reason. I’ve never seen the Animorphs TV series (apparently it aired on Nickelodeon at 6 in the morning), but I did read some of the books…just to look at the characters morph at the bottom of each page. And you can’t deny that the covers are still pretty distinctive all these years later.
• I noticed a strange lack of audience response during the intro. What, are there no 90s kids in the audience?
• I love Colman’s performance as the villain.
• The morphing effects are pretty good for SNL’s standards.
• Great cheesy one-liners from each character after they morph back into humans. (“This little piggy kicked some alien butt!”)
• Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand we suddenly have to ruin this with a lame fart gag. That’s what all of this was building up to???
• There’s a lot to like about this film, such as the corny dialogue and the “halfway” makeup on Sarah, but then they just keep going back to the farts. I refuse to believe that Dan Bulla was one of the writers of this.
• Ooh, now they’re mixing it up with burp jokes!
• I love how the villain’s name is “Chumongous”.
• Can I also add how sick I am of the word “thang” on this show??? Surely they’re allowed to say “penis”, right?
• Overall, a huge disappointment. Animorphs is so easy to make fun of, and they certainly tried their best, but the gross out humor just killed it for me.
Final thoughts: Colman Domingo was easily one of the best hosts we’ve had this year. Always professional, always gave it his all despite the atrocious material. But the writing, on the other hand, was just as stale as ever. There’s only three to go, and, from what I’ve heard, they only get worse…
MVP: Colman Domingo/Andrew Dismukes
Best sketches: Uneek Cuts, The Knowledge Hour, Prep School
Worst sketches: Cold Open, Fashion District Robbery, Artemis II, Marcello and Kam’s commentary, Grandpa’s Wake
Next review: Olivia Rodrigo