Folks, it’s two for two. After a strong episode last week that was hosted by Emma Stone, a recent addition to the Five-Timers Club, Adam Driver returned to Saturday Night Live last night to host for the fourth time. This was done to promote his impending role as Michael Mann’s Ferrari’s auto emperor and former racer Enzo Ferrari.
In addition to having Olivia Rodrigo, a pop sensation from Generation Z, as a musical guest, this unlikely combination already had the potential to go viral on TikTok. However, the episode cemented Driver’s status as a VIP SNL host—a talented dramatic actor with a keen sense of humor and a willingness to fully embrace any concept, no matter how absurd. (Yes, that includes newborns with enormous man heads and chocolate Santas shaped like dicks, but more on all that in a moment.) We envision Driver sporting one of those infamous Five-Timers Club coats in the future.
First monologue: A Christmas serenade
In place of the customary opening speech, Driver took to the baby grand for a musical rendition of his Christmas list to honor his favorite holiday, “largely because I have a very deep and personal relationship with Santa.” (In case you were wondering if the celebrity was playing with your emotions, he asked for a close-up of his “very big hands.” (Somewhere, Wattpad is blowing up the whole damn thing.) The actor reminded Jolly Old Saint Nick that he was Adam Driver from The Nice List and also Girls. He then requested five pairs of trousers, a Tesla Cybertruck that would fit his “teeny, tiny micro penis,” and the death of everyone from those “TikToks where the couples do pranks on each other.”
The night’s most relatable sketch was this one:
At last, Saturday Night Live has addressed one of the ugliest realities of growing up: learning that your buddies are regularly “trying” for a child, also known as raw-dogging it. (Deborah, nobody needs to know whether you’re a semen.) Three couples met at a chilly log cabin to talk about their personal conception strategies in this satirical sketch that caustically parodied the TMI phenomena. The blister? Driver and Bowen Yang portray a same-sex couple who are determined to have children despite biological constraints. “Do you intend to adopt?” “No, let’s just give it a shot!” Driver’s sardonic remarks, “And that’s on period,” combined with some great details, such as Yang’s “pregnancy” cravings for ham and cocaine and the number of holes they’ve “tested” it in so far (3 out of 7) make this one a witty highlight.
The second-most contemporary sketch of the evening:
Visiting family for the holidays frequently brings you face-to-face with former acquaintances. In this digital short, for example, Jake (Mikey Day) is arranging to get in touch with Keith (Driver), his childhood best buddy. That is until Keith starts sending more and more concerning texts that reveal more and more about what he has been up to over the years. He inquires, “Is it more than 1,000 feet from a school?” when Jake recommends a bar for their get-together. The Man With 600 Kids, a Netflix documentary about a sperm bank janitor who covertly replaced hundreds of donor samples with his own, eventually reveals that Keith was the subject of the show. What lesson does the narrative teach us? Quickly remove the Facebook app.
The sketch titled “Gift to Every Millennial Woman Watching”:
The Save the Last Dance movement indeed gained popularity on social media more than a month ago, so Chloe Fineman’s appearance on “Weekend Update” to perfectly mimic Julia Stiles’ famous Julliard audition scene from the 2001 teen dance movie may have seemed a little out of time. That is until Stiles herself performed a huge, goofy chair dance finale alongside the comic, complete with a ballet leotard. A present for the holidays.
The evening’s greatest sketch:
Consider Look Who’s Talking as a terrifying movie: Actor Adam Driver portrays an “overcooked” infant on his first trip with his mother, played by Sarah Sherman. “You mean fifteen thousand days and eleven months?” When Kenan sees the big-headed “baby monster,” he jokes. Once more, Driver’s act of sucking down a baby’s bottle is likely to enrage a certain segment of the Internet, but what resonates are his eerily realistic portrayals of an infant’s inner monologue—he refers to an iPad as “the Peppa Pig device!” and his mother exclaims, “Christ, he’s gone!” when his favorite teddy bear vanishes during peek-a-boo. “You killed him, you bitch!” confirms this ridiculous joke’s status as one of the finest of the season.
Adam Driver was the night’s MVP
To be honest, no one was quite as genuinely funny or as fiercely game as Driver himself was this week, whether he was portraying a heavily mustached suburban dad caught up in a growing feud over the buffet placement of a Christmas casserole or an infomercial chocolatier whose Willy Wonka-esque creations lean a little too much on the willy end of things. There will be fierce competition for next week’s host, SNL legend Kate McKinnon, who is returning.
