And while she might not have crushed it to the degree of Grande (something about the Bowen Yang era of the show and Grande seemed in perfect lockstep with each other), Rodrigo was a very good host. Whatever she lacked in sketch comedy chops, she more than made up for as musical guest, world-premiering a new song called \u201cbegged,\u201d and singing in several sketches, including a memorable one about a girl in a zoo on a planet of bug people<\/a> (we\u2019ll get to that).<\/p>\n After a charming monologue in which she also sang, Rodrigo played a scheming woman in a \u201cDynasty\u201d-like nighttime soap opera from the 1980s, \u201cEdge of Destiny<\/a>,\u201d where people kept falling down the stairs. The mix of physical comedy, distant cue cards and having to keep from breaking character as cast members flopped down a set of fake stairs seemed almost too much for the guest host. But she recovered nicely in another solid (and hilariously gross) \u201cShop TV\u201d sketch about a baker (Rodrigo) who makes lava cakes<\/a> that look a lot like anuses.<\/p>\n She also played a woman competing with her ex-boyfriend (Ben Marshall) at a birthday party by pretending to have a date (he does the same with a wacky Ashley Padilla). She also played a cheating romantic partner in a musical sketch about getting busted<\/a>, a rideshare passenger whose driver (Andrew Dismukes) discovers he has a talent for Jamaican dancehall rapping<\/a>, and a TikToker employed by a home security company to take viral videos of burglars<\/a>.<\/p>\n Rodrigo\u2019s songs were tremendous, especially \u201cbegged,\u201d but it was hard for any of the sketches to top Aziz Ansari\u2019s appearance as FBI Director Kash Patel, which drew the biggest non-musical audience reaction of the show when he appeared in the cold open.<\/p>\n As musical guest, Rodrigo performed her latest single \u201cdrop dead<\/a>,\u201d introduced by Debbie Harry, and a new song, \u201cbegged<\/a>,\u201d introduced by recent host<\/a> and \u201cHeated Rivalry\u201d star Connor Storrie.<\/p>\n It was the rare cold open without a rambling James Austin Johnson performance as President Trump. Instead, after a clever opening title card (\u201cYou\u2019re watching A-Span. Of your life disappear. Watching C-SPAN.\u201d), White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt (Padilla) talked about her upcoming maternity leave before introducing \u201cThe man, the myth, the liability,\u201d Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (Colin Jost). Hegseth talked about the war in Iran with its \u201csick air raids. This war has been a movie \u2026 specifically \u2018The Neverending Story.\u2019 \u201d Hegseth fielded a few questions, belittling reporters as he\u2019s done before, answering the question of when the war will end: \u201cThat\u2019s like asking when is sex gonna be over,\u201d he replied, \u201cAnswer: when the man is done.\u201d Hegseth introduced Patel (Ansari), who fast-talked his way through a defense of his alleged drinking and spending. From low hanging fruit (\u201cWe dotted every T and bulged every I\u201d) to a much sharper takedown of Patel (\u201cI\u2019m the first Indian person to suck at their job\u201d), Ansari brought his Tom Haverford from \u201cParks and Recreation\u201d energy, particularly when describing jumping on the couch at a night club screaming, \u201cWho wants the nuclear codes? J\/K, I ain\u2019t got \u2018em!\u201d<\/p>\n Rodrigo\u2019s monologue began by acknowledging how young the 23-year-old pop star really is: they say your favorite \u201cSNL\u201d cast is the one you saw when you were a teenager and hers, she said, was the current cast. After teasing her new album<\/a> out next month, she showed a clip of a commercial she did for Old Navy and mentioned working with Jake Paul on the Disney Channel show \u201cBizaardvark<\/a>.\u201d Paul, she said, once told her, \u201cI really want to beat up old guys on Netflix!\u201d and they both achieved their dreams. Rodrigo then played at a piano a take of her first hit single \u201cdrivers license,\u201d focused on getting a Real ID at the DMV and all that it requires. \u201cPassport, W2, first-born son \/ Gas bill, body count, bra size, how long will this be? I\u2019ll just use my old fake ID,\u201d she sang.<\/p>\n Best sketch of the night: They even have Olivia-shaped popsicles! Unsurprisingly, the best of the night was one of Rodrigo\u2019s musical performances, this time a pre-taped music video about a girl who loves her perfect bedroom. It\u2019s got a purple corded phone, a lava lamp, a beanbag chair \u2026 and it happens to be a habitat at a zoo on a planet of bug people. The wistful, lovely song is accompanied by weird visuals of the aliens, who look like praying mantises, admiring the human specimen through the room\u2019s windows, applauding when she goes to the bathroom and taking pictures. There are enough bizarre touches, such as a VHS version of \u201cA League of Their Own\u201d with aliens in human skin suits, a bug protester and an unsuccessful male mate (Johnson), that quite a bit of world building happens in the short span of the very catchy tune. Can we get this song on Apple Music and Spotify, please?<\/p>\n Also good: Cute \u2014 cake frosting on the nose. Sexy \u2014 mashed potatoes all over the face. Former \u201cSNL\u201d cast member Kristen Wiig had a talent for introducing characters whose one bizarre trait, expertly performed, could drive a whole sketch. These days, it\u2019s Ashley Padilla (maddeningly, she\u2019s still billed as a \u201cFeatured Player\u201d) who is able to elevate a potentially annoying character with a collection of hilarious tics and a lot of boundary overstepping. In a sketch about a broken-up couple (Rodrigo and Marshall) who try to make each other jealous by glomming on to fake new dates, Padilla laughs too loudly, smears mashed potatoes all over Marshall\u2019s face, gives an unhinged speech that includes, \u201cWe are to be married at midnight! Now let us pray.\u201d It seems like every episode of late has had one sketch reserved for Padilla to show her way with these types of self-unaware characters, and this was another great showcase for her.<\/p>\n \u2018Weekend Update\u2019 winner: Podcasters are at war and it\u2019s hard to understand why If you don\u2019t know why \u201cCall Her Daddy\u201d podcaster Alex Cooper (Chloe Fineman) and TikToker and \u201cHot Mess\u201d podcaster Alix Earle (Veronika Slowikowska) are feuding, trust us, you are not alone<\/a>. Their apparent beef, which has been speculated about by very online people and, weirdly, business reporters<\/a>, is now \u201cWeekend Update\u201d fodder, with the women comparing their fight to a \u201cliteral Chernobyl for white women.\u201d Perhaps the best part was Michael Che\u2019s complete bafflement as to who these women are and why they\u2019re mad at each other. Elsewhere, Kam Patterson continued his streak of clunky \u201cUpdate\u201d segments, this time vying for a date with Megan Thee Stallion<\/a> after her breakup with NBA player Klay Thompson. In describing himself, Patterson said, \u201cSome say he\u2019s finding his voice more every week.\u201d Unfortunately for Patterson, there\u2019s only two episodes left in the season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you were to go by \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d hosting performance alone, you might think that the best…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24003,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[14753,14713,14749,14751,14752,14755,8,1072,14748,9,14750,14754,14703,14747,2194,7,36,234],"class_list":{"0":"post-24002","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-ariana-grande","9":"tag-aziz-ansari","10":"tag-ben-marshall","11":"tag-bug-people","12":"tag-character","13":"tag-good-way","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-hegseth","16":"tag-new-song","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-on-stage-talent","19":"tag-padilla","20":"tag-rodrigo","21":"tag-sketch","22":"tag-snl","23":"tag-top-stories","24":"tag-war","25":"tag-woman"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116511977183280108","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/hqdefault.jpg\")
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