SNL After Party (S50 E15 Air Date 3/8/25) - "Drink the Blood Jenny, it's Free."
Host and Musical Guest: Lady Gaga
Host and Musical Guest: Lady Gaga
Okay, so, look. I’ve been busy lately and have not been reporting on the many, many SNL special events lately. I’ve missed writing on a bunch of episodes and even the overall spectacular 50th anniversary shows. (That one on music by Questlove was phenomenal).
I have no excuses, but there it is and here we are. I won’t rehash the past, instead let’s just slink into this week’s After Party to see how Lady Gaga did pulling double duty as host and musical guest.
Cold Open
James Austin Johnson’s Trump “mediated” a meeting between Marco Rubio (Marcello Hernandez) and Elon Musk (Mike Myers). Like earlier this season with Dana Carvey, it appears that we are continuing the former Wayne’s World case guest residency.
JAJ is reliably great as Trump, noting that “Space X which is doing incredible things in terms of explosions”. Trump tries to mollify Rubio’s hurt feelings by telling him he is the GOAT..the scapegoat. “But it’s still a type of goat.”
A Trump rant triggers Rubio to stare off into space as the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme plays.
Once Musk arrives, Myers pulls a Dr. Evil gesture when he notes his net worth has dropped one hundred billion dollars.
It’s a solid, funny cold open. We are off to a good start.
Monologue
Lady Gaga’s opening monologue is breezy and comfortable. She takes a pot shot at herself and the lack of popularity of Joker 2, noting she won a Razzie award for it. She notes that, with her Grammy and Oscar wins puts her well on the way to an EGORT.
The monologue felt short, but served up the right tone.
A Long Goodbye
Gaga bids farewell to her boyfriend (Hernandez) and an adorable French Bulldog pup as she prepares to leave for Paris to attend culinary school.
Hernandez gifts her riding luggage, which she proceeds to rid to the airport, encountering annoyed traffic and a riding luggage gang, “The Sons of Samsonite”
This is a delightful and 11:50 level absurd sketch that everyone seemed to be having a lot of fun with. Gaga shows she is a natural at comedy here.
Pip
The Saturday Night Live Midnight Matinee returns with this short about a small mouse who, with the encouragement (musical and emotional) of fellow high school student Gaga sets out to win a weightlifting competition.
The entire pre-taped piece is ridiculous and fun. The montage of the mouse training (including a bit using a globe as a treadmill) is such silly fun.
Towards the end, it takes a tragic - and hilarious - turn.
This is a mouse sketch that roared.
Wonderful Tonight
No one was more excited for Gaga to be on the show than Bowen Yang, and he pulled out all the stops in this oddball sketch where he and the host are on a date. As they take to the dance floor, the two sing a duet based on Eric Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight”.
The lyrics, however, are somewhat changed.
And the two swap dialog between lyrics, such as Gaga telling Yang, “Before this goes any further, I should tell you my heart belongs to someone else…Organ Donor 2685. Thank God for motorcycles, right?”
This is a crisp sketch with great writing, and it’s very well done.
Funeral Home
Ego Nwodim and Andrew Dismukes are planning the funeral for Ego’s deceased father. Gaga and Heidi Gardner are the funeral home planners who insist on pushing a Roaring 20’s themed funeral.
This one doesn’t really go anywhere, and puts slight brakes on a show that has had great momentum.
Still, it’s not bad and has a few chuckles, and a fun quick change.
Plus Kenan shows up and is kinda silly. So, not bad at all.
Mascara Commercial
In this pre-taped commercial, L’Oreal pitches a runny makeup designed for women who want attention.
It’s entertaining (and, in her own words, Ashley Padilla takes it “full nuclear” by laughing hysterically while her makeup runs).
And, no, there’s been no error. We still haven’t gotten to Update. Feels like this week’s sketches are wisely shorter than usual.
Weekend Update
See! I told you we didn’t miss it!
There are the usual array of topical jokes, and jokes where Che tries to take us back to the 90’s.
As for guests, Kenan drops by the desk as former NBA player turned ESPN commentator Kendrick Perkins. His facts are all wrong, such as claiming that “55 year old” LeBron James just won the Tour de France. It’s a fun desk bit.
But not as fun as Mikey Day’s appearance as “Lord Gaga” the Renaissance era husband of Lady Gaga who appears to be unaware of his wife’s accomplishments. The bit is hysterical for a couple of reasons. One is how Day keeps ham-fistedly inserting Lady Gaga song titles into his comments, well aware that the audience will react with groans. Day delivers this perfectly.
But not as perfectly as his lengthy attack on how no man could live with himself if week after week he had to look in the camera knowing that his wife made much more money than him. Colin was on camera the entire time, and it’s a priceless bit.
Making Jost the punching bag on Update is so, so smart.
Birthday at Friendly’s
You know those musical sketches they do when John Mulaney hosts? This is like one of those, but with no music and demons.
In this, a group of friends (Day, Gardner, Yang and Dismukes) are at a Friendly’s restaurant (100 locations ion the East Coast). The gang lies so the servers will sing the birthday song to Gardner.
This lie fixes Gardner’s path to a road of insanity.
This is one of the more bizarre sketches in a long time, and I applaud it for its madness and creativity.
But just remember, that Lamashtu will see through you!
Little Red Glasses
This is a commercial with three women (Sarah Sherman, Gaga, and Nwodim) of a certain age who wear little red glasses to feel younger.
My favorite line of the sketch is “I have a Celestial Seasons credit card!”
Not bad for the penultimate sketch.
No More Slay
A group is out to dinner, and they keep saying “slay”. This leads Gaga and Yang to sing about the need to stop saying “slay” and using other slang.
It feels that the cast has suddenly aged and is yelling at kids on the yard.
The singing is fun though.
The Goodbye Wave
Best Sketch: This is tough. I really enjoyed A Long Goodbye, and Friendly’s was so original and fun, but Pip made me laugh through the whole piece, so I am giving it to the mighty little mouse.
Worst Sketch: There were no truly awful sketches this week, but ultimately this came down to the Funeral Home and No More Slay. And, though I suspect the live audience would disagree with me, I’m going with No More Slay here.
Random Notes:
-The show has really amped up its bumper game, with material that compliments the preceding sketch. A small touch, but nice.
-Lady Gaga’s two numbers were outstanding. Abracadabra (introduced by a VERY enthused Bowen Yang) was an incredible production number. Her second performance (Killah) was brilliantly staged using Studio 8H’s backstage area in part. This one seemed to have real David Bowie vibes. Like her music or not, you can’t deny the Lady puts on a great show.
-Of the featured cast members, Padilla seems to be the only one who is really making headway. Jane Wickline isn’t getting much screen time, and (apart from Update) doesn’t seem to be doing a lot with it. And, is Emil Wakim even in the building?
- I mentioned this earlier (and, a friend and I were discussing this at lunch today), something about this week felt different in a good way. There was a lot of content, and it was all pulled off pretty well. Did the 50th celebrations realign some energies?
This was only Lady Gaga’s second hosting gig, but she’s a natural. She seems so comfortable in this arena, and worked well with the cast (particularly Bowen).
This was a refreshingly fun episode. I would be a “little monster” (sorry Gaga and Mikey Day) if I game it a low score.
Grade: A-
As always, we grade SNL episodes in comparison to other SNL episodes. Not TV in general.
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