Posted in: NBC, Peacock, TV | Tagged: morgan wallen, saturday night live, snl

SNL 50: We Nearly Missed SNL's 3rd Morgan Wallen/"God's Country" Joke

By the time the "goodnights" hit (normally) last night, it appears SNL went with a trifecta of Morgan Wallen jokes - and we nearly missed one.

Just when we thought we had caught both of the jokes that NBC's Saturday Night Live made last night during the Jack Black-hosted show, it turns out that there was a third one that we missed. Going into the show, viewers were curious to see if and how SNL would address the drama from last weekend regarding how musical guest Morgan Wallen exited the show during the "goodnights" by walking off the front of the stage while the show was still on the air. Adding more fuel to the drama was Wallen's subsequent "Get me to God's country" post (full backstory below) – a quote that was referenced in two of the three knife-twists that SNL dropped before the final credits rolled.

During last night's Cold Open, SNL took on Donald Trump's (James Austin Johnson) tariffs rollout from earlier in the week, with Trump showing off some artwork of what he envisioned the McDonald Islands looked like – before adding, "Get me to God's country, right? Remember that?" along with a head shake, before tossing the artwork aside:

During "Weekend Update," co-anchor Colin Jost kicked things off by discussing how Donald Trump's tariffs were hurting Wall Street, noting that "Money is leaving the stock market faster than Morgan Wallen at Goodnights," with an image of Wallen's awkward exit on display behind him:

And here's a look at the third Wallen reference, with Johnson's bass player wearing a t-shirt that reads, "Get Me to God's Country" during the "Bass Lake" sketch:

SNL & Morgan Wallen: A Brief History

Our really brief history of SNL and Wallen begins about five years ago. During Season 46, Wallen was set to be the musical guest alongside host Bill Burr, but that changed when a TikTok video of the country music artist at a house party minus a mask began circulating on social media, disregarding COVID precautions and regulations. In the video, Wallen was seen doing shots in a crowded party where social distancing and masks were not in play and also seen kissing an unmasked woman. Wallen would go on to apologize for what went down, and SNL EP Lorne Michaels would invite Wallen back as the musical guest later that same season during the December 5, 2020, show hosted by Jason Bateman.

Now, we're jumping to this weekend. Musically, Wallen offered strong performances of "I'm the Problem" and "Just in Case" – and overall, everything seemed pretty normal. But things got weird during the goodnight just before and while the credits were rolling. First, there was distance between Madison and Wallen and the rest of the cast. Then, you had Wallen say a few words to Madison – without ever turning his attention to the SNL cast behind him. But the real headline-grabber was how Wallen exited – from the front of the stage and walking towards the camera. It was an odd way for something as simple as a "goodnight" to go down, vibing as if Wallen either suddenly got lost or was looking to get away from SNL sooner rather than later.

Did Wallen have issues with the SNL cast and writers? Were there some other issues at play? TMZ – and other sites – reported that folks close to Wallen said it was all much ado about nothing. Not helping their argument was Wallen's Instagram Stories post shortly after he exited stage right: "Get me to God's country," along with an image of a private jet.

So we decided to jump on Peacock and take a look back at December 2020 to see if Wallen's behavior during the goodnight and end credits was similar to what went down last night. It wasn't. After friendly greetings between Wallen and Bateman, you see Wallen turning his attention to the SNL cast – and the SNL cast reciprocates. In fact, it's your typically nice end that we usually get, with Wallen sticking around on the stage as the network cut to whatever local affiliates were running at 1 pm ET. To be clear, there was no sign indicating that Wallen exited by walking down off the front of the stage.

Kenan Thompson on Morgan Wallen Walking, "God's Country" Post

Speaking with EW exclusively while promoting his "GERD Is No Joke" campaign with Phathom Pharmaceuticals, Thompson shared that he was left wondering what was going on with Wallen, just like everyone else. "I don't know what goes through people's minds when they decide to do stuff like that. I don't know if he understood the assignment or not or if he was really feeling a certain kind of way," Thompson said. Confirming that he "definitely saw it" (with many views noting that it appeared as if Thompson and Ego Nwodim were reacting to watch Wallen walk away), Thompson noted that the move was definitely not how the goodnight usually goes down.

"You see somebody before you get a chance to say hi or say, 'good job' or anything like that, they just dipping. I thought maybe he had to go to the potty or something," Thompson added. "It's definitely a spike in the norm. We're so used to everybody just turning around and high-fiving us, everybody's saying, 'Good job, good job, good job.' So when there's a departure from that, it's like, 'Hmm, I wonder what that's about?'" In terms of his interactions with Wallen, Thompson shared that he "never met" Wallen, either this past weekend or during his first appearance in December 2020. "Seems like a complicated individual, I guess," Thompson added.

It wasn't the first time that Thompson experienced an SNL musical guest who had issues connecting with the SNL team, noting that "Prince did the same thing" (before adding, "I'm not saying Morgan Wallen is Prince"). But for Thompson, the key difference was the SNL team knew going in that Prince was an artist who generally kept to himself or to the universe of people he traveled with and kept around him. "We weren't surprised because Prince was notoriously kind of standoffish. It's just how he was. So we just thought like, 'Okay, now he's gone back into fantasyland," Thompson explained. "But Saturday I guess it was just different because it just felt so abrupt. And it was already such a small grouping on the stage anyway. So it was just like, oh wow, that was pretty visible. You know what I'm saying? It was a pretty visible thing."

As for Wallen's Instagram post showing his jet that included the message, "Get me to God's country," let's just say that Thompson didn't sound like a big fan of it. "The 'God's country' of it all is strange because it's like, what are you trying to say? You trying to say that we are not in God's country? We're not all in God's country? We're not all under God's umbrella? That's not necessarily my favorite," Thompson shared. "But whatever. Moving on, we got a new show. We got Jack Black this week. We're here talking about GERD. We will be fine."

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!