Actor and Road house star Jake Gyllenhaal – along with musical guest Sabrina Carpenter – wrapped up the 49th season of Saturday night live. Here are some of the highlights from Saturday’s episode:
Cold Open: The Summer of Trump
With Donald Trump’s criminal trial entering its sixth week on Monday, James Austin Johnson impersonated the former president in a “very strange and depressing” hallway outside the Manhattan courthouse.
Johnson-as-Trump held a meandering press conference about his vice presidents, with Devon Walker returning as South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and Heidi Gardner as South Dakota governor. Kristi Noembrandishing a gun next to a fake dog.
He closed by mentioning his summer events, including “another January 6th, this time in July […] you see all those guys at the Capitol, but this time in shorts.”
Monologue: It’s the end of the road for season 49
Gyllenhaal’s vocal talent was on full display to kick off the season 49 finale – the last before the memorable 50th anniversary season. He began serenading the audience with a rendition of Boyz II Men’s “End of the Road” and changed the lyrics, claiming it was a last resort to introduce the ending.
“They asked Pedro Pascal, but he wasn’t there. Zendaya said no because he would be out of town. He even asked [Ryan] Gosling will be back, he performed just three shows ago,” he sang.
Hottest sketch: random acts of violence
NYPD Sergeant Jeff McDougal (played by Gyllenhaal) held a press conference about random acts of violence in New York City and had a message: “Stop punching actors in the face.” The sketch followed the news that actor Steve Buscemi was recently targeted, as was Rick Moranis in 2020. In the sketch, McDougal also issued a warning to actors like Seinfeld girlfriends and Gilmore Girls‘ Lauren Graham, and said that actor Stephen Root received a security team.
What didn’t land
‘Cancel a flight’
Gyllenhaal played a frustrated Southwest Airlines customer who was constantly transferred while trying to change flights. The sketch didn’t sit well with some critics. Reviewers at AV Club thought it was very similar to a Spectrum-related sketch from season 47 featuring Succession actor Kieran Culkin. “If the spectacle It is We will bring back previously done concepts, we appreciate it when there is a new angle or twist,” wrote AV Club.
Ripped from the headlines: Biden/Trump debate, 2 cicadas and an exchange of jokes
“Weekend Update” co-hosts Colin Jost and Michael Che criticized this week’s announcement that President Biden and Trump have agreed to two debates this summer. Jost joked, “To visualize the debates, take a bottle of Ambien and Adderall at the same time.”
Che added that Trump asked the two to stand instead of sit, and Che joked, “I think we can learn a lot more by watching them both try to get out of a beanbag chair.”
Later in the segment, Jost interviewed two cicadas (played by Kenan Thompson and Marcello Hernández), as more than a trillion cicadas will arrive in the U.S. this summer, with two broods expected to emerge.
In honor of the season 49 finale, Jost and Che agreed to do a “joke swap,” in which the two write jokes for each other to read out loud for the first time on camera.
Jost was also forced to read a joke about his wife, actress Scarlett Johansson: “ChatGPT has launched a new voice assistant feature inspired by Scarlett Johansson’s AI character in Her, which I never bothered to watch,” he read painfully. “Because without that body, what’s the point of listening?”
Che was also forced to read jokes about rapper Kendrick Lamar, unintentionally starting a war with him.
Musical performances
Sabrina Carpenter took the stage with performances of her latest single “Espresso” and performed a medley of “Feather” and “Nonsense”.
