Adam Driver took one other flip internet hosting SNL over the weekend, and whereas his comedy chops had been as soon as once more on full show, it was a controversial chilly open and later a cameo and name again to a 2001 film that had viewers speaking.
Driver hosted the present for a fourth time, with pop star Olivia Rodrigo serving because the musical visitor this time round. After a chilly open that didn’t appear to sit down properly with viewers, Driver did his finest to show issues round. A particular look by actress Julia Stiles additionally helped, when she appeared in a sketch primarily based round her fan-favorite flick, Save the Final Dance.
Right here’s a take a look at the highs and lows of the most recent Saturday Evening Stay.
Save the final cameo
Followers of teenybopper romance movies from the early 2000s had a pleasant shock throughout Weekend Replace when Chloe Fineman got here to speak about her intimate vacation present concept, which simply so occurs to be Julia Stiles’ dance from 2001’s Save the Final Dance.
Within the movie, Stiles performs a teen dancer named Sara who strikes from a small Midwestern city to the south aspect of Chicago after her mom dies in a automobile crash. There she enters into an interracial relationship with Derek, performed by Sean Patrick Thomas, who helps her prepare for a Juilliard Faculty dance audition.
It’s that audition dance that has lived on for 20 years within the minds of many millennials, and the dance that Fineman thinks would make an awesome present for a particular somebody. And to actually assist promote her concept, Stiles confirmed as much as assist carry out the dance.
For sure, viewers reacting on social media had been very pleasantly shocked with the looks and the dance.
Chilly response for the chilly open
For the chilly open sketch, SNL oddly parodied the college presidents who gave testimony final week at a Home listening to about anti-Semitism on their campuses. And whereas the occasion itself drew its own kind of criticisms final week, the sketch — which the present didn’t put up to its YouTube web page — undoubtedly didn’t sit properly with viewers, who took to social media with their reactions.
Critical query: Is there anybody on both aspect that truly thinks that is humorous?
I imply there was loads of comedic materials from that listening to, however SNL in some way managed to cowl it within the cringiest means conceivable.
— AG (@AGHamilton29) December 10, 2023
Can’t consider SNL determined to mock these demanding harder motion on Jew-hatred on campus reasonably than these making excuses for requires genocide https://t.co/nqzZHLzt0q
— Jake Wallis Simons (@JakeWSimons) December 10, 2023
Benefiting from the monologue
With a change in gears badly wanted after the chilly open sketch, Driver took the stage for his monologue, which noticed him sit behind a piano and play whereas rattling off his Christmas listing to Santa. It included issues like a “giant metal Tesla truck” and to kill the {couples} on TikTok who prank one another.
He additionally made a reference to his past role in Star Wars motion pictures when he requested for “individuals to cease coming as much as me on the road saying, ‘You killed Han Solo.’ I didn’t kill Han Solo, wokeness killed Han Solo.”
Different brilliant spots
Driver additionally shone in practically each skit he appeared in after that, prompting Rolling Stone to label him “probably the greatest SNL hosts ever.”
Some highlights embrace Driver taking part in a chocolatier on a home shopping network, a casserole-loving get together host who clashes with one other casserole-loving party host, an outdated childhood friend with a complicated past and a child on an airplane — the place the visuals add to the laughs nearly as a lot as Driver does.
Trying forward
Former forged member Kate McKinnon will shut out the 12 months with internet hosting duties on Dec. 16, whereas Billie Eilish will function the musical visitor. It is going to mark McKinnon’s fourth time internet hosting.
Saturday Evening Stay airs Saturdays on NBC and is offered for streaming on Peacock.
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