To no one’s surprise, Saturday Night Live kicks off its Thanksgiving episode by taking aim at president Donald Trump by way of his late associate, billionaire sex trafficker Jeffery Epstein, as revealed in the deluge of Epstein emails released by Congress earlier this week. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt (Ashley Padilla) tries to get ahead of reporters’ questions by pretending “there was no news this week, nothing happening with the president, no weird information was revealed, no one had any accusations that rhymed with ‘edophile’.”
She flails around until Trump (James Austin Johnson) takes her place at the podium. He tries to spin things by claiming he barely knew Epstein (“As evidenced by the thousands of pictures of us together dancing and grinding our teeth at various parties, always leering and pointing at something just off camera – probably a book we’re excited to read”), parroting former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly’s jaw-dropping take that Epstein wasn’t a pedophile (“Terrific thing to just say out of nowhere, great job, Megyn”), and vowing to release all of the files to paying customers (“I just ordered the one that says ‘Does Putin have the photo of Trump blowing Bubba’, whatever the hell that means”).
Not a particularly clever take on the week’s big story, but with revelations this salacious there’s no need for cleverness. We’re way past the point of satire.
Glen Powell makes his hosting debut. The actor, who currently has a new television series (Chad Powers) and film (The Running Man) out, notes that while many people are tired of seeing his face, one person isn’t: “Your mom.” He charts his long road to the A-list (including a cringeworthy teenage home movie where he lips syncs to Fall Out Boy) and his first ill-fated attempt at hosting SNL four years ago. Before the episode’s hosting change (owing to his film, Top Gun: Maverick, getting pushed back), he and his family celebrated the news by taking a selfie with a random UPS driver named Mitch, who Powell, with the help of his sisters, managed to track down and fly to the studio for tonight’s show. He gets Mitch to join him on stage to recreate the selfie they took all those years ago. Like Powell’s screen presence, it’s perfectly charming.
A group of siblings visit their grandmother at her nursing home for Thanksgiving and surprise her with digital scans of her old photos, brought to life by an AI-powered app. The tech can do simple things such as make her father wave, but it gets confused – and increasingly weird – with more detailed photos. She watches in horror as her mother smokes a hot dog like a cigarette, her father’s bowling pal drops his trousers to reveal a “Ken doll crotch”, and a nuke goes off in the background of one of her baby pics. A decent sendup of crappy AI apps, this could have and should have gone darker.
I Miss My Ex’s Dad is a pop country ballad from Ben Marshall and Tommy Brennan all about how they desperately miss their former girlfriend’s cool fathers (Powell and Kenan Thompson). The mourning is mutual, with the dads eventually joining in. Powell’s dinner table freakout – where he accuses his daughter’s new beau of trying to kiss him (“Once on the neck, once on my mouth, and once on the back”), before stomping off like a pubertal teen – is the highlight.
A bachelor weekend at a beach house takes an unexpected turn when the groom-to-be reveals he invited one friend none of the other guys have met before: world famous comedian Sebastian Maniscalco (Marcello Hernández). Maniscalco barges in and immediately changes the dynamic of the party (or “sleepover”, as the sad sack of the group puts it), loudly performing his act, gyrating all over the place, and sucking up all of the groom’s attention. Hernández’s impersonation is impeccable, made even more impressive when compared with Chloe Fineman’s merely OK Jennifer Coolidge (who pops in at the last second).
Scent of a Marriage is the latest prestige Scandinavian relationship drama. We watch as the stars of the film (Powell and Fineman) perform one searing scene after another, only for them to loudly and joyfully party after every take. This doesn’t build to anything, and it feels a little late to be parodying 2023’s Anatomy of a Fall, but this is still enjoyable, mostly for Powell’s goofy but solid Swedish accent and Johnson’s excellent impersonation of Stellan Skarsgård.
Up next is a new MacGruber! Will Forte returns as the special operations agent, who, while trying to diffuse a bomb at a deep state facility, learns that one of his colleagues is in possession of the Epstein files. At first, he’s down for a reckoning of justice, until he takes a quick glimpse inside and sees his own name in there. If you’ve ever seen a MacGruber sketch before, you know what happens next. A fast and fun surprise for fans of the cult favorite character.
Andrew Dismukes is a new army recruit assigned to the Slay Division, a group of flamboyant soldiers who wear their hair in “freak-ass bobs”. They spend their time dancing around to Tate McRae, doing poppers, and feuding with rival division, the Bang Battalion. Almost the entire cast, plus Powell, come out for this one, all of them mugging to the nth degree. This sketch is drowning in annoying theater kid energy and seems designed to get TikTok hits. Reception is likely to vary by age – gen Z and younger will probably eat it up, while the old timers will want to throw their remote through the television screen.
Olivia Dean performs her first song of the night, then it’s on to Weekend Update. Colin Jost dives straight back into the week’s big story: “An email written by Jeffrey Epstein … claims Donald Trump ‘knew about the girls’, bombshell news that legal experts are calling ‘Duh.’” Later, Michael Che, speculates that the Bubba mentioned in one already infamous email may be former president Bill Clinton, playing a doctored clip from Trump’s January 6 speech where he announces: “Everybody knows I went down on Bill Clinton.”
Next, a wimpy stepfather is jealous over his wife’s badass ex-husband flying to Paris to rescue their kidnapped daughter from sex traffickers. An updated spin on the Jason Momoa Cast Away sketch from two years ago, this doesn’t quite match up to that one. Then, back at the deep dtate facility, MacGruber is furious to learn that his assistant Colton has a backup copy of the Epstein files. After threatening to furlough his sidekick “so hard you won’t know where the fur starts and the lo ends” he decides to let the bomb go off to clear his name, only to learn there are other copies right before things go boom.
At a Friendsgiving dinner, everyone has to pretend to like one of the member’s truly terrible new haircut (she just wanted a trim, but he gave her a skullet with bangs and a “skin square” in the back). This is a real showcase for Padilla, who is just barely keeping it together (the moments where she breaks down in tears and pulls back almost immediately are the funniest moments of the episode). After not making much of her debut last year, Padilla is off to a very strong start this season.
The episode wraps up with a third installment of MacGruber, who finally admits that he is all over the Epstein list. He claims he was only a ground-crew worker on Epstein’s plane and that all he did was service the aircraft and sell a lot of famous and powerful people “a lot of low-grade cocaine and some crystal”. Once again, things end with everyone getting blown to bits, but not before MacGruber gets off a final deez nuts!” gag.
Rather than being the Thanksgiving episode, this was far and away the Epstein episode. That through-line, combined with ace hosting by the comedically inclined Powell, the return of Forte and MacGruber, and a couple of strong showings from various cast members, made this the best episode (minus the brutal military sketch) of the young season.
