‘I’M BACK!’: After 20 years, Jack Black is unleashed on ‘SNL’

There was no question who the star of this week’s episode was. After Mikey Madison repeatedly faded into background status when she hosted last weekend, Jack Black came roaring onto the SNL stage. Hosting for the first time in two decades, Black was the focus of every sketch he was in.

A game show contestant dressed as Indiana Jones? The spokesperson for Flamin’ Hot Preparation H? A guy who drew excessively racist cartoons during World War II? Yeah, this episode was all Black. Not even partway through the first sketch after his monologue, Black had already done more than SNL let Madison do the preceding week.

The bar this week was high. Black arguably anchored the greatest episode in SNL history when he last hosted in 2005. The folks over at The SNL Network highlighted that episode this past week, running through the iconic sketches from the last time he hosted the show: “Lazy Sunday,” “Chistmastime for the Jews,” “Spelling Bee,” the first “Two A-Holes” sketch and more.

That’s an impossibly high standard for any returning host, but Black poured himself into this episode of SNL, allowing the show to easily bounce back from last week’s effort.

COLD OPEN

Trump Tariff Cold Open

No surprise that SNL kicked the show off with James Austin Johnson working through Donald Trump’s big tariffs announcement from the past week. Johnson as Trump has become a tricky thing for the show. On one hand, he’s the best Trump the show has ever had, effortlessly nailing the cadence and tone of Trump’s speaking style. On the other hand, I don’t think people want to see Trump stuff on SNL anymore. Especially not when the jokes are about things with real-life consequences like their 401(k)s disappearing.

• “I’m an idiot, I should’ve just bought Wisconsin”: Oh, Mike Myers was back as Elon Musk. He’s a better Musk than Dana Carvey, but I just don’t think the whole glitch bit works. Yelling “pinwheel” is just as bad as Carvey repeating Joe Biden catchphrases for eight weeks.
• “Get me to God’s country, right?” SNL didn’t let Morgan Wallen’s diss against the show and New York City go unnoticed. (Colin Jost also got a dig in at Wallen during Weekend Update. The warmth at goodnights couldn’t have been any more different from last week either.)

THE MONOLOGUE

This is how you do a monologue musical number. Jack Black brought the house down singing about how HE’S BACK! This number is what SNL thought they had when Maya Rudolph boasted about being “mother” to open her episode last season.