SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE — Episode 1875 — Pictured: (l-r) Marcello Hernández, host Dave Chappelle, and … [+] musical guest GloRilla during Promos on Thursday, January 16, 2025
Rosalind O’Connor/NBC via Getty Images
The first Saturday Night Live of 2025 kicked the year off with Dave Chappelle and musical guest GloRilla.
While it was GloRilla’s first SNL, it was Chappelle’s fourth time. The comedian first hosted in November of 2016 and returned to host in 2020 and 2022. Chappelle won two Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series Emmys for his 2016 and 2020 appearances. However, since then, he has been a controversial for his jokes about the trans community, especially in his 2021 Netflix special The Closer.
This week, there were very few sketches (after a sizable Cold Open and a very long monologue). While this is understandable, it did lead to a show that felt empty or lopsided, at least for those who watched it in full.
Cold Open
This week’s Cold Open features the talking heads at MSNBC as they try to avoid being distracted by Donald Trump’s bombastic tweets and focus on policy. It is a solidly written sketch with overall good impressions, but it feels uninventive. What does comedy look like in a second Trump presidency? This sketch suggests that comedy may return to 2016-era talking points. Maybe that isn’t a bad thing, but it doesn’t feel great either.
Monologue
This monologue is one (if not the) longest SNL monologue of all time. It clocks in at 17 minutes, which isn’t uncommon for the veteran comedian. His 2020 monologue was also over 16 minutes. Early in this monologue, the Half-Baked star says that he is “tired of being controversial,” and this monologue does have a different feel than much of his recent comedy.
It is an interesting question: does a comedian get to choose to stop being controversial? Can they just change their material, move on and have that be enough? Maybe that is up to the people they have hurt with their jokes. Maybe it is up to the broader audience, the public. Chappelle covers topics that could feel controversial: the LA fires, Diddy ‘parties,’ and Haitians eating dogs in his local Ohio. However, it doesn’t feel mean-spirited. In the monologue, he doesn’t often punch down. This reviewer has been both a Chappelle fan and later detractor. I don’t know if I forgive Chappelle, but I can’t hate this monologue.
Chappelle ends the monologue with a story about Jimmy Carter’s visit to Palestine and the former president’s book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. He calls for Trump to “do better” for everyone, whether they live in “Palisades or Palestine.” It is a moving sign-off and a high point of the episode.
Immigrant Dad Talk Show 2
Marcello Hernández returns as a Latino dad who hates his son. This sketch first appeared in season 49 and is still a crowd-pleaser. This time, he is joined by his “black neighbor Richard” and a white dad from the neighborhood, Kevin, played by Chappelle and Mikey Day. Hernández really sells this sketch with his constantly moving character.
Evacuation Alert
This sketch follows a family set to evacuate from the LA fires. However, the father needs to get a couple of things before he leaves, including all the money he has hidden in the walls and the guns from the safe. While it loses a little steam at the end, it has excellent visual gags and solid laughs.
GloRilla Performs
GloRilla performed her songs “Yeah Glo!” and “Whatchu Kno About Me/Let Her Cook.” The performances have great production value and choreography. However, there are moments when it seems like the track doesn’t match her lips. It is either poor lip-syncing or some sort of technical delay, but either way, it takes the viewer out of it.
Weekend Update
This Weekend Update was what is to be expected: some light gay jokes, a funny Michael Che call back, some political humor, and Colin Jost almost breaking because he is doing a joke he knows he shouldn’t. It isn’t revolutionary, but it fits in with what Weekend Update has been this season. Michael Longfellow comes on to talk about the TikTok ban. The takes and jokes are nothing new; however, his delivery is so appealing. At moments, he feels almost like a young Norm Macdonald.
Arguably, (like many other Weekend Updates) a Sarah Sherman character steals the show. She drops by as the vampire from 1922’s Nosferatu. While the character is funny, it doesn’t actually feel like it has to be Count Orlok. Rather, she got into a bald cap and rubber fingers just to pester Jost and deliver sex jokes. It would have been nice to add in a little more characterization outside of the physical, but the use of shadow and black-and-white freeze frames is fun.
Police Station
In this sketch, Devon Walker has to describe his missing girlfriend to the police, and Kenan Thompson tries to stop him from saying how much he thinks she weighs. It is a tight sketch that is elevated by Thompson’s physical humor. However, a notable absence is Chappelle. In an episode with so few sketches, it would have been nice to include him.
Pop the Ballon
For those who aren’t chronically online, this is a parody of a real YouTube dating show where singles must pop a balloon when they are no longer interested in a potential match. Unfortunately, this sketch is less funny than the actual show. The sketch doesn’t feel like it goes far enough, and the pacing is interesting but not entirely effective. Chappelle appears as the Chappelle’s Show character pimp Silky Johnson and even brings Donnell Rawlings (and Ashy Larry!) Chappelle’s Show was an iconic sketch show, and seeing these characters again is nostalgic, but they don’t do much with them.
SNL season 50 returns next week on January 25 with Timothée Chalamet as host and musical guest.
