The final episode of Saturday Night Live’s 50th season kicks off – as so many recent ones have – with President Trump (James Austin Johnson) front and center. Trump is in Saudi Arabia, standing alongside his new “habibi”, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (Emil Wakim). Trump is a big fan of everything Saudi Arabia has to offer: “From the oil to the money to end of list.” He also celebrates his visit to Qatar, where he was gifted a $400m plane, which he would much rather take than an American one: “Have you seen our planes? The radar is down, the screen is blank–Newark!”
After a dig at former SNL musical guest Morgan Wallen (“Get me back to Allah’s country”), Trump breaks the fourth wall, moving into the crowd. He kicks an unsuspecting audience member out of his seat and takes the guy’s spot next to a very attractive woman, proclaiming, “Sevens or more, sit on the floor. Six and below, to the bleachers you go.” He says goodbye for now, promising everyone that he’ll see them in the fall, “If we still have a country. It’s a coin toss.”
Johnson gets to deliver the “Live, from New York…” send-off all by himself, which is deserved given how central he has been to the show this year.
Scarlett Johansson breaks a record tonight, having now hosted more than any other woman in the program’s history. She dives straight into a musical ode to SNL set to the tune of Billy Joel’s Piano Man (at one point it seems like he’s about to come out on stage, but it’s just a misdirect). She’s joined by the entire cast – including Sarah Sherman, who Johansson announces won’t be returning next year, much to the latter’s shock. More sentimental than funny, although it never crosses over into treacle.
On a New York City morning news show, two of the regular hosts (Ashley Padilla and Kenan Thompson) announce that their third co-anchor is out on maternity leave. They welcome Johansson’s substitute from nightly news, who tries to get in on their frothy delivery style by using puns for every story, no matter how inappropriate: “I’ll have what she’s having: a Queens couple dies in an apparent murder-suicide”, “Hasta la Visa, baby – another infant has been deported.” A couple decent lines, but it’s too one-note.
A new Please Don’t Destroy video finds Ben, John, and Martin down in the dumps over the state of the world. Johansson attempts to cheer them up by taking them on vacation and flying them first class. They start rapping about their luxurious trip, right up until Johansson informs them that they’re landing in Newark. Freaked out over that airport’s recent technical issues (“They’re losing the planes in Newark, but the crashing is happening everywhere all the time now”). Sure enough, turbulence hits and the plane starts malfunctioning, convincing everyone aboard that they’re about to die (Johansson voices her life’s only regret: “That The Avengers didn’t make more money at the box office.”). But they are saved at the last minute by the lone air traffic controller on duty (musical guest Bad Bunny). The second solid Please Don’t Destroy this season.
Two couples – Ego Nwodim and Marcello Hernández, Johansson and Bad Bunny – square off over a table in a bar. It’s actually only the women who are fighting, as the men pretend to argue violently in Spanish, only for the on-screen captions to reveal they’re actually bonding over how unhappy they are in their current relationships. The ladies also attempt Spanish, but it comes out nonsense (“Asparagus, nothing and your ankle!”). A clever premise elevates this one.
Next, we get the return of Straight Bowen. Behind the scenes, Johansson admits she has a crush on him. Even though he’s currently in a relationship with Gina Gershon, he still pursues her – giving her husband Colin Jost the boot from an elevator before hooking up with her in the edit bay. Later that night, she shows up at his apartment, only for him to ditch her and ride off with Emily Ratajkowski. She’s heartbroken but has learned a valuable lesson: “Never get your back blown out by a gay guy.” The first Straight Bowen sketch was fine, but it’s been diminishing returns for each new one.
Mike Myers makes one final appearance this season. He meets a couple of starstruck fans while taking an elevator, before being ditched by them when none other than Kanye West ( Thompson) steps inside. You can hear the audience realize this is a reunion when West reminds Myers of their infamous appearance together at “that Hurricane Katrina benefit where I told the world George Bush don’t care about Black people on live TV and you just had to stand there looking stupid”. Asked what he’s been up to since, West answers: “I’m in the KKK now.”
Myers finally getting some comeuppance for that infamous moment almost 20 years ago – which, to be fair, he has often said he agreed with and supported – is wonderful to watch, and this is a deservingly brutal takedown of the psychotic West, who will no doubt be personally infuriated by it. That said, the brief mention of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’s trial feels odd here, being that Myers’s name was brought up during jury selection only yesterday (no connection has been established between the two save a parody of Diddy in one of the Austin Powers movies).
It’s also disappointing that Myers, who has been a regular presence on SNL since the big anniversary special, didn’t reunite with Dana Carvey – a mainstay of the first half of the season – although given their tumultuous history it’s not surprising.
Bad Bunny performs his first song of the night, a very creative production that sees him and his backup dancers dressed as construction workers, sitting atop a metal beam as the city skyline floats behind them.
Newark Airport comes in for yet more ribbing on Weekend Update, courtesy of Nwodim, aka Ms Eggy. Bringing back her mega-popular Def Jam-style persona – which got her fined by the FCC last time around – she drops a tight 3 on the airport’s sorry dining options: “Y’all went and took peanuts off the plane because everybody wants to have an allergy – if you don’t take a Benadryl and shut yo’ gay ass up!” Another great performance from Nwodim, although it’s not quite as good as the one from a few weeks ago, a highlight of the season.
As per Update season finale tradition, Colin Jost and Michael Che do their annual joke swap, where they blind read jokes written by another. Che gets Jost to tell Lorne Michaels to retire already and let him run the show, while Jost forces Che to apologize to Johansson’s face for his tasteless joke about her vagina last time around. Jost seems to have won this round right up to the final run of jokes, in which Che tricks him into saying the N-word, gets him to apply lipstick, and makes him offer to fellate Michaels.
The first day on set of a new movie – a queer romantic drama – sees Johansson and Thompson’s intimacy coordinators struggle to stage the love scene as they can’t understand how two women can have sex. Jokes about gender identity, pronouns, and lesbian porn fall completely flat. Worst sketch of the night by far.
During a promotional interview with the cast of a new hit TV drama, the heartthrob male lead fields softball questions, while the women get thrown totally inappropriate heaters: “What’s harder: being a woman or being Black?” “When’s the last time you took Plan B?” “If you could vote one religion off the face of the earth, which one would you pick?” There are a couple good lines – particularly the ones aimed at Sherman’s character (“You good face, but bad hair – you have mental problem?”), but as with so many sketches these days, it has no idea how to end.
Bad Bunny performs his second song – this time set in a graffiti-strewn women’s bathroom – alongside RaiNao. Things get a spicy when she gives him a very intimate lapdance.
Then the show and the season conclude with a Victorian lady’s luncheon. The spread includes grotesque delicacies such as blood pudding, pickled cows’ feet, jellied eels, candied clams, boiled calf’s head, BLTs (“bunnies and little turtles”), hamster sashimi, donkey’s milk and more. A good spurt of gross-out humor that’s hampered by some technical complications and a bit too much breaking from the cast.
Thus concludes the 50th season of Saturday Night Live. The curtain call feels appropriately big – Jost gives his wife some flowers and a big ol’ smooch, while Johansson delivers a tribute to Michaels – if not the episode. That said, it had its moments and Johansson was as solid as ever.
As to what the future holds for Saturday Night Live – which cast members will or won’t return next year, how much longer will Michaels man the helm, what will the forthcoming British version of the show look like – we’ll just have to wait until the fall to find out.