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NBC's Saturday Night Live released an SNL 50 playlist offering viewers a 360-degree experience with each of the night's segments/sketches.
Posted in: NBC, Peacock, Review, TV | Tagged: saturday night live, snl
SNL 50 Boosted by Lizzo, "The White Lotus"/Trump Mashup & More: Review
SNL Season 50 heads into its April break with a show boosted by musical guest Lizzo, an amazing Trump/The White Lotus mashup, and more.
Between Mikey Madison and Morgan Wallen, and Jack Black and Elton John & Brandi Carlisle, NBC's Saturday Night Live has had two shows in a row that's grabbed headlines for a wide range of reasons – from weird end-of-the-show walk-offs to the amazing "Miss Eggy." With the long-running late-night live sketch comedy and music series taking the rest of the month off (returning May 3rd with host Quinta Brunson and musical guest Benson Boone), we were interested to see what host Jon Hamm (Apple TV+'s Your Friends and Neighbors) and musical guest Lizzo were going to bring to the game and the note they were going to end things on before SNL shuffles away from our screens for the next few weeks.
Of the three shows we've had since Season 50 returned, this weekend's effort could best be described as the "warm, comfy" show – but that's not meant as an insult. It's just that Hamm is such a natural on SNL that we've come to expect a show that works – there's a reason he's been a guest star 14 times since his last hosting gig. Meanwhile, Lizzo hit us with raw and powerful performances that put her range as an artist front and center.
The "warm, comfy" theme continued with the sketches —but once again, that's not meant as an insult because the sketches and "Weekend Update" didn't pull their punches. It's more a way for us to say that it was nice to get an SNL that didn't have a lot of "extras" – a show that let the sketches do the talking. In a lineup of sketches that hit to varying degrees overall, there were a few that hit our radar hard. The "Trump Easter 2025" Cold Open was light on the political hits (that would come later), but it was fun watching James Austin Johnson's Trump calling out Mikey Day, Sarah Sherman, Kenan Thompson, and Ego Nwodim.
Please Don't Destroy (Ben Marshall, John Higgins, and Martin Herlihy) proved once again that they can turn any scene – even a police precinct that's on the clock with a "Missing Person" case – into absurdist comedy greatness. And in this case, all it took was excitement over pizza. The highest compliment we can pay the "Medication Ad" sketch is that we're no longer looking at drug ads the same way we used to – and yes, you can guess the health crisis based on the level of dancing, singing, and long walks that the ad has (it's scary accurate).
But the stand-out sketch of the night – one of the best sketches of the season, and one that should be submitted for Emmy consideration – was "The White POTUS," SNL's mashup of the Trump family and his administration and the hit HBO series The White Lotus. SNL hasn't dulled its satirical knife, even after Trump returned to office – in fact, we could argue that its gotten sharper over the past few weeks. But this sketch cut hard and cut deep in ways we haven't seen in some time. In this reality, Johnson's Trump is Timothy Ratliff – with Chloe Fineman's Melania as Victoria Ratliff, Day's Donald Trump Jr. as Saxon Ratliff, and the returning Alex Moffat's Eric Trump as Lochlan Ratliff – with Trump trying to decide whether to kill himself, his family, or both over how his tariffs are wrecking the economy. Instead, he chooses to shoot Uncle Sam.
Meanwhile, Hamm's crazed Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. was Rick – alongside Sarah Sherman as Aimee Lou Wood's Chelsea (though the physical impression felt a little "punching down"), ranting about measles and more. Lizzo's Belinda dropped a great joke about how her $5 million from Gary/Greg (Jon Gries) used to be $20 million – not surprising when we learn that it's Gary/Greg who's been advising Trump on the tariffs – under the name "Howard Lutnick." We had Scarlett Johansson as Ivanka Trump, with Heidi Gardner's Kristi Noem, Ashley Padilla's Pam Bondi, Marcello Hernandez's Marco Rubio, and a very swarthy Vladimir Putin (played by the returning Beck Bennett) also at the resort – and even Kenan Thompson's Tiger Woods makes an appearance during a very "intimate" moment.
Saturday Night Live Season 50: Jon Hamm & Lizzo
8.5/10
Between Mikey Madison and Morgan Wallen, and Jack Black and Elton John & Brandi Carlisle, NBC's Saturday Night Live has had two shows in a row that's grabbed headlines for a wide range of reasons - from weird end-of-the-show walk-offs to the amazing "Miss Eggy." With the long-running late-night live sketch comedy and music series taking the rest of the month off (returning May 3rd with host Quinta Brunson and musical guest Benson Boone), we were interested to see what host Jon Hamm (Apple TV+'s Your Friends and Neighbors) and musical guest Lizzo were going to bring to the game and the note they were going to end things on before SNL shuffles away from our screens for the next few weeks.
Of the three shows we've had since Season 50 returned, this weekend's effort could best be described as the "warm, comfy" show - but that's not meant as an insult. It's just that Hamm is such a natural on SNL that we've come to expect a show that works - there's a reason he's been a guest star 14 times since his last hosting gig. Meanwhile, Lizzo hit us with raw and powerful performances that put her range as an artist front and center.
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