‘SNL’ bounces back thanks to Teyana Taylor and Ashley Padilla

Thanks to Teyana Taylor, SNL bounced back in a huge way this weekend. After the absolute dud that we got last week when Finn Wolfhard hosted, the One Battle After Another and The Rip star brought a billion percent more personality to SNL than we got from the show’s Stranger Things heavy episode last weekend.

Taylor was a spark, infusing her roles with vibrance. When she was on screen, SNL pulled itself up to her level. This was her episode, fully in control any time she was in a sketch, no matter what her role was. It was a heavy night to air a new episode, but Taylor nailed everything the show asked her to do.

This was also the first time I’ve heard any songs from Geese, the episode’s musical guest, but as a longtime listener of The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast, it felt like a huge missed opportunity to not have Andy Samberg or someone else on the podcast not show up to introduce one of the band’s performances and note that they’re not a gonk.

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COLD OPEN

Trump Awards Cold Open

There was no way you could watch this episode’s cold open and not wonder if the show had scrambled whatever plans it previously had going into Saturday and replaced them with “Trump Awards Cold Open.” After federal agents killed a man in Minnesota early Saturday, I strongly believe that SNL came up with this cold open in hopes of delivering an opener that the show thought could avoid the news of the day.

So yeah, The 1st Annual Trumps. I guess because we got Oscar nominations this week, we got to see James Austin Johnson’s take on Donald Trump launch his own awards show.

The most egregious part of this cold open was the return of Mike Myers as Elon Musk. SNL thankfully abandoned this portrayal partway through Season 50, but for some reason we were subjected to it again during this episode.

If I was in charge of SNL, I would’ve scuttled the political cold open for this episode.

• “Doctors say I could live to 120 or current age”: Nice touch by the SNL makeup department when it comes to Trump’s hands.
• “Honored and no way dead inside”: We’ve now seen the Jeremy Culhane version of JD Vance and Ashley Padilla version of Kristi Noem in back-to-back episodes.

THE MONOLOGUE

Taylor’s monologue was short and to the point. No songs. No questions. Just a few jokes about how her kids won’t look up from their phones. I do appreciate that Taylor wore what looks like the arms from an adult Elmo.