{"id":226463,"date":"2025-10-20T02:32:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T02:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/226463\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T02:32:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T02:32:07","slug":"saturday-night-live-sabrina-carpenter-aces-a-silly-episode-that-mostly-avoids-politics-saturday-night-live","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/226463\/","title":{"rendered":"Saturday Night Live: Sabrina Carpenter aces a silly episode that mostly avoids politics | Saturday Night Live"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been 50 years, to the day, when Paul Simon hosted and was musical guest of the sophomore episode of then NBC\u2019s fledgling new series, then called NBC\u2019s Saturday Night. So it\u2019s a cosmic twist of televised fate that Simon\u2019s opening duet partner<\/a> from the much-balleyhooed 50th anniversary special is hosting tonight, the third episode of the 51st season.<\/p>\n

Aside from her status as a pop hitmaker, Sabrina Carpenter has an acting pedigree. Girl Meets World, anybody? She\u2019s clearly a favorite at 8H: aside from her memorable appearance on the 50th, she served as musical guest for May\u2019s season finale and her song Espresso was the basis for the popular Domingo sketch<\/a>, also relaunched for the 50th. This time she\u2019s serving double-duty. Let\u2019s see how Ms. Please Please Please meshes with a recently-refreshed cast as the show grappled with a 12-minute late start-time thanks to an overrun football game.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Last season when Ariana Grande hosted, she went viral with her Domingo sketch during which a bridal party warbles through a spin on Carpenter\u2019s song Espresso<\/a>, which inadvertently reveals that the bride played by Chloe Fineman, is cheating on her clueless husband (Andrew Dismukes) with Domingo (Marcello Hern\u00e1ndez). So tonight, instead of a political cold open, the show decided to kick things off with another chapter in the adventures of homewrecker Domingo. In this one, husband Dismukes is turning 30, which prompts Carpenter and friends to detail more cheating adventures to the tunes of Lady Gaga\u2019s Abracadabra and Alex Warren\u2019s Ordinary. They also sing to The Fate of Ophelia, the Taylor Swift track. The superstar was a long-rumored cameo for tonight\u2019s episode as she continues to roll out The Life of a Showgirl, on which Carpenter also appears. Spoiler alert: she never showed.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Carpenter is center-stage and in lieu of singing (she will do that later), she delivers a hodgepodge of bits, many of which tied to the hyper-sexualized lyrics she regularly sings about. \u201cI\u2019m not just horny, I\u2019m sexually charged and I love to read,\u201d she cracks. Her controversial album cover? <\/a>She jokes that hand was actually Bowen Yang yanking her hair back at the 50th. Meanwhile, a moment where Carpenter heads into the crowd was flat. What do you expect when you\u2019re chatting with actual audience members (including a self-proclaimed venture capitalist)? Kenan Thompson comes in to wrap things up; he\u2019s been on the show (23 years) just a tad longer than Carpenter\u2019s been alive (she\u2019s 26).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

SNL\u2019s always gotta cater to the times and with podcasts still a culture-dominating artform, they tackle the trend with this sketch where members of the female cast including Fineman, Jane Wickline and Carpenter all do pitch-perfect impressions of pre-teen boys who love snacks. Meanwhile, since James Austin Johnson\u2019s Trump impression was MIA from the cold open (surprising, especially in light of the day\u2019s headline-grabbing No Kings protests) he inexplicably shows up on the show to talk about candy, too. Johnson\u2019s Trump also gets philosophical about his life, and the possibility of getting into heaven. \u201cIt\u2019s been a good run, and a great time,\u201d he muses of his life.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

It\u2019s spooky movie season, and what\u2019s scarier than having to follow through on (gasp!) plans? Here, Carpenter is paired with Ben Marshall as a couple reeling with the possibility, nausea and anxiety that comes with the prospect in the motif of a Blumhouse-produced horror flick with lines like: \u201cThey want to do drinks here and then go to that viral ramen place!\u201d It all leads Marshall to shriek \u201cJust tell them we have Covid!\u201d It should be noted that he\u2019s the member of Please Don\u2019t Destroy who was promoted to feature player after the trio was split up at the start of the season. He subsequently makes multiple appearances throughout the episode, proving his staying power.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Then a recurring sketch that combines the perkiness and style of 1995\u2019s classic Will Ferrell and Nancy Walls skit Wake Up and Smile<\/a> with the naive raunchiness of the show\u2019s Christmas classic Delicious Dish: Schweddy Balls<\/a> with Molly Shannon and Ana Gasteyer. Here, cast member Ashley Padilla (who replaces Heidi Gardner who previously starred in the sketch) channels Walls, while Mikey Day plays the Ferrell-counter in a QVC rip. They invite guest Carpenter who is selling a travel pillow that, um, looks like a lady\u2019s certain private part. Cue the puns and vagina jokes. The twist here is that opposed to Schweddy Balls, these characters know full-well what the pillow looks like, and are mortified. \u201cBlur this!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

And a one-two-three. Carpenter plays a motivational dancer, whatever that is. The joke here is that she falls and is so concussed, she starts talking nonsense<\/a>, to borrow the name of one of her signature songs. Though, sometimes the best moments are the unplanned ones. Here, a dummy that\u2019s supposed to break through a window falls short, prompting Thompson to give it the heave-ho the rest of the way. The mishap causes Fineman to break character, arguably the most charming moment of the show.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Lorne Michaels knows his audience; he\u2019s always said that one\u2019s favorite SNL cast is whoever they watched growing up. So here\u2019s another nod to middle school kids, this time in the form of an infectious pop song about, well, grinding at a school dance. The show needs to target the youngest viewers in order to stay relevant, of course. Meanwhile, Bowen Yang handily takes lead vocals in the pre-tape, a smart way to utilize him, considering Yang announced earlier in the day that he was skipping out on the live portion since he\u2019s being honored in Los Angeles tonight at the swank Academy Museum Gala. Not a bad reason to play hooky.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Multiple Goegre Santos gags ricocheted through the second Weekend Update of the season with the recent news of Trump pardoning him. \u201cPresident Trump has released what everyone has been asking him to release,\u201d Colin Jost quipped before shouting out Santos.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Hern\u00e1ndez plays his Movie Guy character; dressed like an usher in a thick accent, his movie segment goes off the rails as he actually hasn\u2019t seen much. \u201cBalck Phone 2, ring ring?\u201d he says. \u201cSorry you have the wrong number. I have not seen that one yet.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Meanwhile new cast member Tommy Brennan makes his Update debut, combining Norm MacDonald\u2019s dry delivery with the midwestern charm of Bill Murray with jokes about growing up with a milkman and his retro handsomeness. \u201cI\u2019m from a family of eight kids,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s probably the wrong choice.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

You know how washers and dryers play a little ditty when they\u2019re done with a load? Well, what if they sang? Ladies and gentlemen, that\u2019s the concept of this sketch. Luckily, it knew full well how insane it was. When Dismukes\u2019 character decides to buy one, charmed by the singing dryers, he goes to pay for it with a sack full of money with a dollar sign on it, a\u2019la a Looney Tunes cartoon. If you\u2019re going to be silly, may as well lean into it.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The deliciously stupid train continues here, as cast member Ashely Padilla, who is quickly turning into a female utility player appearing in a number of sketches since last week\u2019s premiere, simply cannot stop farting in front of her well-meaning office colleagues, Carpenter and Marshall among them, who want to celebrate her birthday. The sketch eventually devolves into her asking what everybody makes. \u201cGreat birthday everybody,\u201d she says. \u201cI farted and got demoted.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

In the grand tradition of T Sean Shannon\u2019s Bear City<\/a>, and an array of short films from future directorial heavyweight Adam McKay<\/a>, here writer Martin Herlihy becomes a rare SNL writer honored with a taped piece branded with his name. Timed to Halloween (one of the episode\u2019s only nods to the upcoming holiday), Herlihy harkens back to Eddie Murphy\u2019s White Like Me <\/a>(1984) with a hidden camera social experiment of what people would do if they walked into a theater where the audience was full of Frankensteins. Throw in a Mary Shelley reference and multiple accusations of racism, and you have yourself an aptly weird end to a show that basked in its stupidity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been 50 years, to the day, when Paul Simon hosted and was musical guest of the sophomore…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":226464,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[64,63,134,136],"class_list":["post-226463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}