Oscars-Bound and Anything But Listless, Three-Time Host Timothée Chalamet Powers the Best SNL in Ages
While he didn’t tap a miniature wrench on a microphone, the A Complete Unknown came to Studio 8H with enough charm and Bob Dylan deep cuts to power all of Manhattan last night.
Photo courtesy of Mary Ellen Matthews/NBC
Right now, few celebrities have a hotter stock than Timothée Chalamet. A perennial A-lister since his lauded, star-making turn in Call Me By Your Name, Chalamet has become one of Hollywood’s biggest slam-dunk names, becoming the face of the Dune franchise, giving memorable, sometimes award-worthy performances in flicks like Beautiful Boy, The French Dispatch and Little Women. But Chalamet’s recent, blockbuster spot as Bob Dylan in James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown has captured the hearts of many. It’s been years, maybe decades since Dylan was this well-featured in the zeitgeist.
And Chalamet has been rewarded for it. According to Variety, he is the current frontrunner for a Best Actor Oscar, which he was just nominated for this week while preparing for his third hosting stint at SNL. His previous trips to Studio 8H were good, yielding popular sketches like “Tiny Horse,” “Rap Roundtable” and “Little Orphan Cassidy.” What often makes a Chalamet-led episode work is the actor’s no-fuss, I’ll-do-whatever attitude. And, given just how special and off-the-wall his A Complete Unknown press tour has been so far, I went into last night’s episode hoping we would get some really off-kilter stuff.
Did Chalamet and the cast deliver on that hope? I think so. There were kooky moments, and all of them will find the right audience. I’ve always believed that the best hosts can pick up the slack when the material is failing, and Chalamet is certainly one of the very few SNL hosts with a membership to that club. Still, last night was a historic night. Chalamet wasn’t the first actor to pull double-duty on the show; he made sure to shout out another man who holds that same distinction: Gary Busey, who hosted in March 1979 and also sang songs (with Rick Danko and Paul Butterfield, no less), in his monologue. Actors like Ariana Grande and Lily Tomlin belong there, too.
Chalamet, of course, played Bob Dylan songs (and was introduced by Adam Sandler!), but he didn’t play any of the songs from A Complete Unknown. Forgoing the obvious temptations of “Like a Rolling Stone” and “Blowin’ in the Wind,” he dug deeper into Dylan’s catalog, playing his “favorites,” like “Outlaw Blues,” “Tomorrow Is a Long Time” and, shockingly, an Auto-Tuned rendition of “Three Angels”—a deep cut from New Morning, my personal favorite record of his. And, Chalamet called upon James Blake to help bring some extra magic to the performances. Chalamet didn’t put on a Dylan accent, either (though his bumper photos did feature him in a lot of green and white, polka-dotted clothing), instead playing each song straight. In my opinion, there’s no better way to honor the man whose life might earn you an Oscar than by singing it lovingly to millions.
Last night’s episode had a great spirit to it, even when there were hiccups (like Lin-Manuel Miranda flubbing a line as Alexander Hamilton, proving that maybe the SNL stage can still humble a heavyweight after all). Dare I say it was the best episode of the season so far? Yes, because Chalamet’s charm exists in the same way Paul Mescal’s does. But, the difference between the two of them, at least in the context of this show, is that Chalamet didn’t have anything to prove on that stage last night. He could’ve bombed and would have still walked out smiling. And, when he inevitably returns to host the show a fourth time, he might just have an Academy Award on his mantle, too. The only glaring downside to the episode was that James Austin Johnson didn’t dust off his quite incredible Dylan impression.
So how did the rest of SNL fare on last night’s episode? Well, as a wise cue card says…
“Live from New York…”
Speaking of James Austin Johnson, I have been quietly manifesting a cold open where he just gets to run wild with his Trump impression. We haven’t really had a moment like that this season, except for the first cold open right after the election. Considering that the United States is currently taking a bona fide nose-dive into a fascist oligarchy, it’s understandable that a lot of people don’t want to hear about Trump, even in the context of comedy. But last night’s cold open was the season’s best so far, simply because it didn’t force a bunch of bad impressions on us in a far-too-long-winded segment. And, as someone who is still not recovered from Hamilton fatigue, seeing Lin-Manuel Miranda show up only to be silenced for five minutes by a blubbering, bumbling, barely-coherent Trump was a good use of a celebrity cameo. The concept of this cold open is simple: a Founding Fathers bit turns into a Hamilton rap about escaping the monarchy, only to be interrupted by America’s current king-in-the-making.
The jokes in this sketch aren’t even exaggerations of the real thing. American workplaces are going “back to looking like the TV show The Office” upon Trump’s killing of DEI. Elon Musk was present but, to quote some of his own children, Trump does “not want him in [his] life.” It wouldn’t be right to hit this sketch without bringing up Musk’s recent Nazi salute, and it’s one of the sketch’s best jokes: “He simply was creating a new greeting, a cross between ‘hi’ and ‘hello.’ We’re calling it ‘heil.’” Trump’s new (and very tall) favorite son, Barron, is hitting his head on every door frame; the inauguration was held inside because of cold weather… and fears of assassination; Melania was dressed like a Mortal Kombat character at the ceremony; the clothes and wigs that the Founding Fathers wore was “a little zesty.”
But the highlight comes when Trump refers to his order for the United States to pull out of the World Health Organization as the “pull-out method,” only for him to lament not doing it enough in the ‘80s. “Eric!” Trump shouts. It’s timed perfectly. Trump mocks SNL for not having any cast members with “the jaw” to play recently confirmed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (“got plenty of Zuckerberg options, though”). It’s a good time when Trump starts ribbing a frozen Miranda to the point that the Broadway genius breaks on-air (“He’s in sniffing distance of an EGOT and he’s got to stand there until I’m done. Lindy, Lindy, Lindy, Laura Linney. Lin-Manuel Miranda Cosgrove”).
I do love JAJ’s Trump. Maybe it’s because, in the wake of Alec Baldwin’s impression, one of the worst presidential impressions in the show’s history, JAJ’s turn feels fresh enough to make some noise. Or maybe it’s because JAJ can really capture Trump’s non-linear speech patterns like no other. This cold open was a real tone-setter that I hope the cast can keep up as we descend even further into Trump’s dystopia. Maybe we’ll finally get the price of eggs to come down once we implement his alternative sources, like seagulls and Cadbury.
“You look mahvelous!”
My stance has always remained the same: SNL is at its best when the 10-to-1 sketches shine. And last night, “Grandma’s Birthday” was a real winner. A 96-year-old woman (Sarah Sherman) is celebrating her big day. One of her granddaughters, Chelsea (Heidi Gardner), is bringing her new boyfriend with her, the youngest cardiologist at Johns Hopkins. When Grandma collapses, Chalamet implements his new CPR technique by squatting over her body, taking a deep breath, yelling “Clear!” and then ripping a big, wet fart into her mouth. The shit-smelling massacre brings Grandma back to life, and she’s got a brand new lease on it. She claims that she is now looking through rose-colored glasses, to which the doctor says that it’s probably just pinkeye. “Get this woman a glass of water and an altoid,” the doctor tells the room, before recounting the food he ate prior, including White Castle, all of the ethnic chili at a cook-off, Taco Bell and deviled eggs. One of the family members (Kenan Thompson) is on the brink of death and begs for them to let him go so he doesn’t suffer the same fate as Grandma. Call me immature, but a fart joke is going to get me every time.
“Yipee! Jerry Rubin died last week.”
Season 50 has consistently kept Weekend Update out of the basement of an episode. Well, until last night. As for Colin Jost and Michael Che’s material, nothing really landed with the audience. Che calls it “dark Update” as they talk about the January 6th pardons, the Gulf of America, I.C.E. agents making arrests in churches, deported migrants on planes, white kids winning spelling bees, Lauren Boebert mistaking Marjorie Taylor Greene for a man in the women’s restroom and Elon’s Nazi salute. The Bible used at Trump’s inauguration was the same one used at Lincoln’s, so of course there’s a joke about Trump evading assassination tossed in there. Personally, I think Jost should have gone bolder here. Norm Macdonald certainly would have. And, like Che has been saying all season, “It’s the ‘90s!” Apparently it’s not.
There’s a good moment where, after talking about a Wheel of Fortune contestant winning $40,000 and tackling host Ryan Seacrest, Jost totes a glock and dares someone to try that on Celebrity Jeopardy! Che delivers his best joke of the season, “A new report shows that since last year, the price of eggs has risen more than 35% due to a shortage caused by new laws in red states that force chickens to carry their eggs to term,” but gets no fan-fare from the audience. A shame.
Ego Nwodim has consistently been one of my favorite cast members for years now, dating back before she was Lisa from Temecula. But her trips to the Update desk don’t hit the same as her in-sketch character so often does. Last night, however, she gave her “stressed out woman” shtick a great upgrade, playing Giselle, a “concerned businesswoman.” She’s buying as much fake hair as she can before Trump’s tariffs take effect (“we about to be in a pickle, a bald-headed pickle”). Che thinks there are more important problems in the world than her hair. Then, Giselle reveals that the worst part is that she voted for Trump. It’s a good swerve. My favorite line is “My real hair is not even long enough for a bowl cut, Che. They gotta use a plate!”
Andrew Dismukes stops by the desk to test out his new puppet dad comedy routine. He’s been adding ventriloquism into his stand-up sets, he tells Jost, and proceeds to make simple, cringy jokes about sports and music until things get a bit teary-eyed. The dad tells Dismukes that he’s proud of him, that he amazes him every day and that the SNL comic is his “pride and joy.” “I love you,” Dismukes replies. The bit didn’t sell me until Dismukes went in for a second-helping of the sentimental affirmations. Then, the father and son turn the focus towards Jost, because every Update guest has to get a lick on that guy at least once. “The 16th most-famous cast member of SNL, I hope you know how special you are,” the dad tells the anchor. A great second-half performance by Dismukes on a character that was shaping up to be Update’s worst of the year. Never count Andrew out!
“In a word? Chaos.”
“Bungee” was a fun way to start the post-monologue portion of the show. Physical comedy, when it works, is a real treat in Studio 8H, and this sketch really gets there, even if it’s not particularly groundbreaking or needle-moving. No one is going to be talking about “Bungee” in the same conversations as any of Chevy Chase’s pratfalls, or Matt Foley, or the head-bobbing Roxbury guys. But, as the Season 50 cast still searches for an identity, a nonsensical sketch featuring Chalamet playing a hippie fitness instructor strapped to a bungee cord is gonna do its job. I liked this sketch well enough, if only for the class of women (and a very dry Michael Longfellow) doing droll, synchronized flying techniques that burn less than a calorie per student. The best moment is when, without hesitation, Chalamet instructs his class to do “the Jimmy Carter” and they all go lifeless like a corpse. It really makes me wish that the show would push against the boundary just a bit harder than they do. There’s a good gag with the women flying into a Cinnabon cake, and even the usually unbreakable Longfellow cracks a grin when Chalamet lunges toward him and calls him a “twig-armed, Twilight-ass bitch.”
Had Chalamet not farted in Sarah Sherman’s mouth, “Dog Run” would have been a shoo-in for the best sketch of the night. I love that the best parts of last night’s episodes were (mostly) the dumbest ideas the writers could think of. Chalamet, Mikey Day, Marcello Hernandez, Heidi Gardner, Kenan Thompson, Andrew Dismukes, James Austin Johnson, Bowen Yang, Sarah Sherman and Chloe Fineman all play dogs catching up at a park, throwing up grass, eating it and throwing up again (Thompson), licking their private parts (Fineman), getting the zoomies (Yang), climbing on top of the bench and asserting dominance (Dismukes), humping lamb toys (Day and Hernandez), rubbing their butt across the grass (Gardner), licking faces up and down (Sherman) and wearing a cone that’s “on them now” (JAJ). The dogs pause and stare off into space at a noise we can’t hear, they yell at each other “for some reason.” It’s a premise that is so, so simple, and a great way of showcasing a lot of cast members in one go.
“You are weak like H.R. Pickens!”
I don’t think “New Barista Training” is a bad sketch, but it does take far too long to really settle into itself. I don’t think Chalamet doing his best Def Comedy Jam impression really works, but the kid really goes for it each time it’s his turn to come up with a coffee-related pun for a coffee shop’s chalkboard. He’s one of the shop’s new trainees, Benny, along with Devon Walker, Ashley Padilla and Jane Wickline. Wickline’s presence in the sketch is brief, but she leaves when her character tries to explain the difference between a cappuccino and a latte but describes a Detroit-style pizza. Cassie (Padilla) comes up with decent material, but the workers (Heidi Gardner and Mikey Day) are unimpressed. Then there’s Tom (Walker), whose jokes land successfully with the room. But “New Barista Training” is a sibling of “Rap Roundtable,” in that it’s Chalamet doing a blaccent. It’s a recurring theme when he hosts, but it’s never done much for me. Kenan Thompson does show up as a comic named Reggie McCrae, only to drop a joke about “not going downtown” on his girlfriend until she “cleans up them streets.” And then the workers gift the restaurant to Benny. There’s nothing all that wowing here, but it’s handily the best “worst” sketch of the season thus far.
“If you have a $50 bill, we can give you 50 singles.”
We got three pre-recorded sketches this week, and all of them were good! The best sketch is the first we see, “Medcast.” Men between the ages of 20 and 45 just aren’t seeing doctors anymore, so a company, One Medical, devises a better way to get them proactive about their health: a podcast. Doctors dress up like podcasters (Andrew Dismukes shows up in a very on-the-nose Theo Von get-up), turn their examination room into a fun, conversational space and offer well-meaning support to their patients. There, they get real intimate with their guests about alcohol consumption, sexual activity, blood pressure and hernia tests administered during conspiracy theory rambling. “Medcast” wasn’t the only podcast-themed sketch of the night, but it’s as funny as the very good, Charli XCX-assisted “Banger Boyz” from earlier in the season.
My favorite SNL ideas are the ones that absolutely shouldn’t work. “Oedipal Arrangements” is an example of that. The concept is quite simple. With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, get a fruit arrangement for that special woman in your life: your mom, who you’ve got real sexual chemistry with. Seeing Heidi Gardner and Michael Longfellow (who’s been getting a lot more airtime recently!) really locked in here is what makes this sketch really shine. “They call it an Oedipal Complex, but when you’re together, there’s nothing complex about it,” Ashley Padilla says in a voiceover. Incest humor rarely ever works, but “Oedpial Arrangements” is more ludicrous than taboo, and Gardner and Longfellow make it stick.
As the clock struck 1 AM, we got an “SNL Animated Short”! out of left field, especially as the show’s runtime was practically over. Being so late in the episode, it did feel almost like an afterthought, but a three-minute sketch about God (Chalamet) creating the world is something I didn’t know I kind of needed. We get to see just how God came up with volcanos, kangaroos, masturbation, the Solar System and frogs. It’s good, inoffensive stuff, co-written by Streeter Siedell and Mikey Day. My only critique is that the show should have ended with “Grandma’s Birthday” instead.
“It’s always something.”
In “AI Software,” a school fears that it will be turned into a Target or for-profit jail if its students’ grades don’t improve, so a teacher begins implementing an AI-generated podcast as a way of helping them learn better. The hosts, played by Chalamet and Bowen Yang, call each other “bae,” say “legit” a lot, speak French and try to break down American history and science through stories about hooking up with a fake woman named Trish. There’s a good gag about AI being unable to render hands properly, and listening to Chalamet and Yang talk about photosynthesis was fun. The guys do a good job imitating the often clunky and inhuman speech patterns AI typically generates, and there’s a really good moment when Chalamet questions his own artificially intelligent identity. “Who am I?” he asks. “I’m someone who had experience working in the textile mills in Lowell, Massachusetts in the 1800s.”
Not Ready For Primetime Power Rankings
1. Sarah Sherman
Between Timothée Chalamet farting in her mouth, her licking Mikey Day’s face, taking a nap during a bungee class and playing a student at school that’s soon to be a Target, Sarah Sherman’s fingerprints were all over last night’s episode. She also did the mid-week promo with Chalamet. I’d argue this is one of Sherman’s best-ever episodes.
2. James Austin Johnson
He showed up in “Grandma’s Birthday” and “Dog Run,” but James Austin Johnson was terrific in the cold open. It was sharp, smart and didn’t drag on too long. I wish we’d gotten a Bob Dylan impression from him last night, but maybe the show is saving that for a rainy day (women #12 & 35).
3. Heidi Gardner
While Heidi Gardner was in “Dog Run,” “Medcast,” “An SNL Animated Short,” “New Barista Training” and “Bungee,” her best spot came in the uncomfortably dark “Oedipal Arrangements.” Gardner is still the de facto leading woman of this cast, and I’m genuinely going to be bummed when she inevitably calls it quits on her SNL tenure. It’s rare for a cast member to have such a commanding presence on the show and be so comfortable doing the grunt work of bit parts. She’s a true SNL workhorse.
Goodnights
“I love Bob Dylan. This is for you, Bob.” —Kenan Thompson
SNL is off for two weeks until it returns on Sunday, February 16th for the long-awaited, three-hour 50th anniversary special. And that’s the way it is! Goodnight.