"SNL" Delivers Hysterical & Outstanding Episode With Charli XCX Pulling Double Duty

Screenshot from Saturday Night Live. Courtesy of NBC.

We're now seven episodes in for Saturday Night Live's historic & milestone 50th season, where so far we've seen the show address this year's presidential election head on with some notable election faces bringing all the comic relief we need like James Austin Johnson as Donald Trump, Maya Rudolph as Kamala Harris, Bowen Yang as JD Vance, Jim Gaffigan as Tim Walz, Andy Samberg as Doug Emhoff, and Dana Carvey as Joe Biden.

With the notable sketches & funny hosts we've seen so far this season, last night's episode with host & musical guest Charli XCX easily stands out as one of the best overall episodes so far this season. It's usually far & few in between to see musical guest crush the hosting gig simultaneously and Charli managed to do that seamlessly. From Charli getting to showcase her natural comedic chops, to a stand-out & cameo filled cold open, a new Please Don't Destroy video, and even another SNL Digital Short (aka a new Lonely Island video), SNL brought out a hysterical & an outstanding episode that comedy fans are absolutely here for.

Here are just a few of the top highlights broken down from last night's episode with Charli XCX and some of the funniest from last night's show!

In this week's cold open, we find president-elect Donald Trump (James Austin Johnson) getting ready to take the oval office again for a meeting with President Joe Biden (Dana Carvey) welcoming him to discuss the peaceful transition of power & offer funny back and forth about their own versions of "the weave." "No joke," as Carvey's Biden continues to repeatedly say, he shows off his version as "the wander" where he can go "here or [he] can go there" while using his arms & wide eyes to gesture going from point to point or loosely funny thought like confusing the word super powers & later studdering into Puff Daddy.

We later get some more fun looks at the next wave of SNL's political faces of Trump's upcoming cabinet featuring Sarah Sherman's debut as controversial congressman Matt Gaetz & Alec Baldwin making a cameo as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Johnson's take on Trump's new cabinet is called "the most epic cabinet of all time" featuring the "most dynamic, free thinking, animal killing, sexually criminal, medically crazy people in the country."

After returning to SNL twice over the last decade as the show's musical guest, BRAT singer Charli XCX made her return to Studio 8H to pull off the daunting task of doing double duty: performing as the musical guest & hosting. And her opening monologue gave the perfect taste of what fans would expect from her hosting debut which was nothing short of entertaining, charming and truly...BRAT.

To kick things off, Charli unpacked a little bit about her musical upbringing from attending "swim practice" at 2 a.m in a warehouse full of gays. She later showed the power of autotune in her career and demonstrated how anything, no matter how controversial or odd of lyrics, sounds better in autotune. And after giving some context on BRAT summer and what it means to be BRAT from the singer herself while calling back to the new Netflix documentary about Martha Stewart, SNL alum Kyle Mooney made a guest appearance to see if he's actually BRAT too.

This weekend's episode marks the second Please Don't Destroy video for season 50 of SNL following the skydiving short with Michael Keaton. And like many of the sketch comedy trio's most famous videos over the years, they didn't hold back in the slightest for being roasted by the week's host & roasting the host back (thinking most recently from Dakota Johnson's nepo baby truce as an example of this). And in this Charli XCX team-up with the trio for this surprisingly cut for time sketch, the singer has a meet cute moment with Ben Marshall, John Higgins and Martin Herlihy in the lobby of Rockefeller Plaza.

The short starts off with a sweet moment between Charli & Ben where they matched hands after running into each other and dropping their stuff, including Ben's novel of mutual interest. After introducing themselves to each other, Charli proposes the question, "Hey, this might be crazy, but would you ever want to....watch where the f*** you're going?" while smiling & winking with that timely delivery. "You just charged into me like a rhino. You dead eyed Ginger" she responds after Ben's confusion. Then Ben responds with a backhanded jab saying "Sorry. I guess I'm just confused. It's November. Weren't you supposed to get put away with the rest of the Halloween decorations?" And the sketch like many of their biggest videos continues to go off the rails further in the best way.

Lorne Michaels & the SNL crew must've been paying close attention to the virality of the most recent Ariana Grande sketch surrounding the mysterious Domingo. The original sketch, titled Bridesmaid Speech, hold the current title as the most viewed live sketch on YouTube so far this season sans Cold Opens & Monologues with 10 million views as of writing. That's not even including the impressive 102 million views its first clip has gotten on TikTok. So knowing how well this sketch performed online, you know the writing team definitely wanted to find another opportunity to capitalize on this unique sketch and they took advantage of it perfectly with its latest musician female host.

In the new sketch sequel, we find Kelsey (Chloe Fineman) & her character's now husband (Andrew Dismukes) celebrating their Babymoon at the couple's Baby Show. Led by Charli XCX's character, she brings up the "Kel-Squad" made up of Ego Nwodim, Heidi Gardner & Sarah Sherman (the same trio from the Ariana Grande sketch) to perform Chappell Roan's "Hot To Go" where the last time they performed Sabrina Carpenter's mega-hit "Espresso" at Kelsey's wedding. And the whole premise is this group of bachelorette friends gets up to sing a song so impressively off key and re-write the lyrics to open up a whole can of worms surrounding the mysterious Domingo (Marcello Hernandez) who Kelsey may have had an affair with on the group's previous trips (beat for beat like the first one).

Since the show's inception, SNL has given their take on dozens of screen test sketches like Jurassic Park, Star Wars, The Lion King, Fifty Shades of Grey & more. And with Wicked coming out this Friday, we have another what if assembled for potential cast members for the broadway musical for the big screen. Here are some funny auditions on display featuring Charli XCX (played by Bowen Yang) & Troye Sivan (Charli XCX) together, Martha Stewart (Chloe Fineman), Al Pacino (Dana Carvey), Sebastian Maniscalco (Marcello Hernández), JoJo Siwa (Chloe Fineman), Bernie Sanders (Sarah Sherman), & Sydney Sweeney (Chloe Fineman).

As if this episode couldn't have gotten any better, The Lonely Island returned with their second digital short of the season in what's been a surprise return since Andy Samberg returned to reprise Doug Emhoff. Given the outcome of this year's presidential election, we likely won't be seeing Samberg's take on the what could've been second gentleman anytime soon. And with a potential contract Samberg signed with the show to be around this season, Michaels is definitely capitalizing on having the Lonely Island trio around this season and what better opportunity to have them do a short then with Charli XCX serving double duty.

In their newest song titled since premiering Sushi Glory Hole titled Here I Go, Samberg plays a middle-aged man who sings a song about his enjoyment for calling the cops any chance he gets (one of these culprits includes a brief appearance of Colin Jost). "I've been itching to do some snitching" sings Samberg in one verse while the chorus goes "Here I go, I'm reporting you to the cops. Fills me with delight. And here I go, I'm reporting you to the cops. And all my neighbors think I'm right." Charli, who plays Samberg's wife, enters and sings about paying her taxes on time & loving the smell of bacon. They end up singing together with some solid choreography & do a full on satisfying key change at the end.

Despite missing Akiva Schaffer (for a split second at the end) & Jorma Taccone in the actual video, we got another epic song by one of comedy music's most beloved trios. We can't wait to hear more about this new album we're almost certain now is coming!

Gladiator II star Paul Mescal will make his hosting debut with musical guest & A Bar Song singer Shaboozey on December 7th!

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