With Druski hosting, ‘SNL’ admits it has a Trump problem

We’re five episodes into SNL Season 52, and the show is still searching for a breakout episode. By this point last season, we had already gotten episodes hosted by Bad Bunny, Amy Poehler and Sabrina Carpenter.

A quarter of this season is already gone, and there has yet to be a single episode that makes a mark.

Druski did his best. He threw himself into sketches. He wore so many wigs.

But that wasn’t enough to snap SNL out of its funk.

I thought this was going to be the episode. The episode showed signs of life going into Weekend Update, and then we got Jeremy Culhane as Elon Musk and Andrew Dismukes and Ashley Padilla again as their “Two People Who Just Hooked Up” characters.

Whatever zing this episode had was lost after Update. The show puttered out. When Druski took the stage for goodnights, he was joined by Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle. (And Michael B. Jordan and Austin Butler?) You wanna guess if Chappelle was smoking a cigarette?

If John Mulaney can’t rescue SNL next weekend, NBC might as well cancel the rest of the season.

COLD OPEN

Post-Midterm Cold Open

Was this the first step of SNL admitting that it has a problem? When Senator-elect James Talarico appeared at the end of yet another “James Austin Johnson as Donald Trump freezes the sketch” moment, he addressed the fact that we’re all very, very tired of this bit.

“It’s clear people want something new, they want something different,” Talarico said. “I’m talking, of course, about SNL’s cold opens. How many of these Trump freezers are they going to do?”

The people crave something different, SNL. It’s time.

• “And as a show of respect, they begged me to not appear at their campaign events”: The cold open kicked off with Sarah Sherman as Chuck Schumer and Kenan Thompson as Hakeem Jeffires.
• “Ohmigod, I hate my life”: Yeah, we all want to move on from Trump too.
• “Do I look like a person who gets less crazy when backed into a corner?” I’m sorry, Colin Jost, but this Pete Hegseth bit has reached its end too. Maybe more of Culhane as JD Vance?

also from the omnicosm

Love what you’re reading? You might also enjoy Snackology, a deep-dive into the world of snacks, fast food and limited-edition treats. Already a subscriber? Update your settings to add Snackology to your inbox.

Read the latest from Snackology

THE MONOLOGUE

This was a quick monologue. Druski almost immediately laid out the rules that SNL gave him for this episode: No cussin’. No white face. (He’d break one of these rules very soon after the monologue.)