Jake Gyllenhaal remembers how to have fun on a largely amusing SNL
But this week's episode indicates the show needs to reinvent itself in one fundamental area
TV Reviews Jake Gyllenhaal
This week, Jake Gyllenhaal returned to the Saturday Night Live hosting gig for the first time in 15 years, or “400 Marvel movies ago,” as he said in the monologue. Back then, Gyllenhaal was basking in acclaim from Brokeback Mountain and angling to become an action star. But his first SNL stint was plenty adventurous: As he recalled, he performed his first monologue in “full drag, singing a song from Dreamgirls,” noting it was “probably the least problematic thing in that episode.”
Gyllenhaal returned to the show, he explained, because he’d become too focused on Method acting and “kind of forgot how to have fun.” “Acting is a stupid job,” he says, one that “should be about embracing joy.” (Comic bit or truth? In the preview for this episode, I wondered why the show hadn’t had Gyllenhaal back to host. Is it possible he thought SNL was beneath him for a while?)
Anyway, (re-)ingratiation was priority one tonight, and to that end Gyllenhaal grabbed a microphone to sing Celine Dion’s “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now,” with lyrics slightly re-tailored to hosting SNL. It seemed to fire up the studio audience. It’s clear the producers and writers were besotted with Gyllenhaal too. He appeared in nearly every sketch this week, including the pre-films. The results were mostly strong. Gyllenhaal was capable and appealing in everything he was given, although there were a few sketches he should have passed on, new fun-loving eye be damned.
What killed
“Dream Home Cousins” was a solid takeoff on that cockroach of cable and streaming, the HGTV build-my-house show. Gyllenhaal and Mikey Day are the planners who were commissioned to create a dream house for a couple (James Austin Johnson and Heidi Gardner) but had to revamp it because Johnson’s ancient mother and her 27-year-old cat are moving in. In sending up the often highly manufactured conflicts that surface on these shows as a matter of course, the writing went to pleasingly weird and occasionally laugh-out-loud places. (Of course the obese cat should have a stairlift, the master bedroom be reworked for three twin beds, and windows eliminated from the bathroom because maw-maw fears peepers seeing her “make dirt.”) Everyone does strong work, and Johnson hits the right notes as the meek, basically mute husband caught in the middle.
I’m on record as approaching SNL’s game-show sketches with dread: Eight or nine times out of ten, they indicate there’s some level of writer’s block going on that week. But “Why’d You Like It?” was an effective bit of uncomfortable truth-telling on ourselves. Three contestants are asked why they liked a particular image on Instagram, and an apparently clairvoyant buzzer indicates when they’re bullshitting. All three offer copious explanations for their choices that all boil down to one thing: They want to get laid. This is funny because it’s true—nay, a dominant cultural focus. (A clever touch: Chloe Fineman’s prim contestant liked a five-year-old picture of her ex’s sister, hoping it will lead to a mention and she can realize her fantasies about raw-dogging said ex in the bathroom at Starbucks.) It’s a slight premise, but it nailed something about modern social rituals, and it’s the kind of thing the show could stand to do more.
In a very funny sendup of the increasingly surreal thing that is modern corporate human resources, Ego Nwodim, Fineman and Melissa Villaseñor are co-workers enduring an HR session with a co-worker they’re in conflict with. That co-worker: Chucky, the murderous doll from the “Child’s Play” horror series (Sarah Sherman). This workplace contretemps has an additional layer: Chucky’s offended because he overheard the trio in the restroom comparing him to Janet (Aidy Bryant), a co-worker everybody hates. But HR wants to find a resolution! It’s a solid concept executed well: Janet being everyone’s problem is a fun twist, Fineman’s character attributes Chucky’s eavesdropping to the new gender-neutral bathroom policy, and Gyllenhaal is particularly good as the unctuous HR lackey, telling Chucky that he belongs at the company because “each of us has a different story,” even as the doll repeatedly stabs his leg.
What bombed
In “Spring Flowers,” Gyllenhaal, Sarah Sherman, Cecily Strong, and Chris Redd play flora in a garden who sing praises to spring before a series of increasingly undignified events unfurl. Bowen Yang shows up as a bee to hump flower Jake and work his way down the line. “I squeeze a load of goop out of my butt and people eat it. Pretty kinky, right?” says the bee. You can see exactly where this is going, and what you envision is basically what you get—a cascade of childish sex and fetish jokes. (Kyle Mooney pops up as a weed that asks if he can choke flower Sherman: “I think you might like it.”) There’s one clever touch—Chris Redd’s flower is GGG, down for anything—but even that’s run into the ground: A dog comes by to piss on the quartet, and flower Redd is into it. Overall, the effect was so dumb even E. Buzz Miller would turn away. It’d be nice to see SNL aim upward in its perspective on sex and kink instead of consistently starting from the junior-high basement.
The film appreciation show Lights Camera Achoo celebrates “sick performances in film,” a dubious premise that plays out dubiously. Playing the tubercular Doc Holliday, a sallow, sweaty Gyllenhaal farts, coughs blood into a handkerchief and sneezes gallons of stage blood and snot onto Alex Moffatt and Andrew Dismukes. Body-fluid humor works approximately 1% of the time (see Dan Aykroyd’s Julia Child bleeding out on set and Cecily Strong puking wine all over “Weekend Update”). This wasn’t one of them. (After two years of pandemic, who thought lung disease was a slam-dunk comic premise?) Worse, it ends in about the most junior-high way possible: Gyllenhaal collapses, revealing he has the herpes medication Valtrex in his pocket. So “you’ll always have something to remember me by,” he tells a nearby hooker he’s just slept with. Come on, people. The sketch closes with Cecily Strong’s host signing off, “preferring to remain anonymous.” Can’t blame her.
Stray observations
• This week’s MVP: Aidy Bryant made the strongest impression on a pure character basis: trend forecaster on “Weekend Update,” reviled Janet in the Chucky HR sketch, and the in-person pitchwoman for a certain “Truck Stop CD” (a sketch which would have been better without the emphasis on peeing in bottles).
• Musical guest Camila Cabello brought some day-glo dance action to her first performance and a duet with guitar-wielding Willow Smith to her second. She was capable but didn’t set the stage ablaze.
• “Weekend Update” lines of the week: Michael Che describing a photo of a beaming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell as “watching the Oscars ‘In Memoriam’ package,” and the story about a rabid fox loose in D.C.—”authorities suspect the fox contracted rabies after it was bitten by Marjorie Taylor Greene.”
• The “Cabaret Night” sketch almost killed: Four somewhat sad-sack singers celebrate their underwhelming accomplishments, like using an entire tube of Chapstick before losing it. A promising concept provided some fun moments but was ultimately underwhelming. In a list sketch like this, the comic examples should be rock-solid, and here, things petered out quick (unlike, say, the wedding reception sketch on the Zoe Kravitz episode).
• However, “Cabaret Night” provided the most underrated line of the night: Gyllenhaal’s singer scans the supper-club audience before him and says, “I see a lot of lovely breads and waters in the crowd.”
• It was nice to see Punkie Johnson as the lead in a sketch, and she was very effective as a “Couples Counselor” who’s trying to work with Gyllenhaal and Villaseñor while fielding phone calls and texts from a jealous girlfriend—a solid premise that unfortunately collapsed into Gyllenhaal reading out a series of euphemisms for female genitalia (another example of the show’s junior-high approach to sex).
• For the first time in a long while, I felt like we saw a satisfyingly large percentage of the 21-person cast tonight.
• It was also nice to see Melissa Villaseñor more than usual, although her parts were a bit thankless. Seeing the super-talented impressionist cast as the minimally verbal El Chapo in the trucker sketch was actually kind of a painful reminder of how she’s been underused on the show.
• Gyllenhaal did the goodnights in a sweater evoking Donnie Darko’s bunny. Nice fanservice, JG.
61 Comments
I gotta say, I have pretty low standards when it comes to SNL – even the lousy episodes have some good bits – but this really wasn’t much good at all for me.
…largely amusing SNLI know the English language can be fluid and definitions evolve over time but amusing still means funny, right? This was one of the worst episodes of the season. I bet I would have laughed more at Jake’s new Michael Bay movie.Have the writers been saving 5 seasons of bodily fluid/excrement jokes and decided to use them all this week? The flower garden, home reno, singing trucker and Doc Holliday sketches all were centered around or made mention of piss, shit, phlegm and/or blood. Even the Chucky bit took place in a bathroom. I fast forwarded through Camila Cabello…did she sing about piss, too? I’m not a prude by any stretch but at least try to make the sketches funny.
Dream Home Cousins was cute and provided a couple of chuckles due the Kate’s asides, the flowers started with a cute premise but it went on way too long and Update had a couple of solid jokes. The rest of the episode was pretty painful.
That depends on what you find more amusing poop jokes or like people singing Christopher Cross songs? Because if you find people singing Christopher Cross badly then yes Ambulance is funnier than this episode? It’s interesting how amusing means funny yet you never really laugh when you visit an amusement park.
early contender for needle drop of the year.
I thought flower garden was weak until Bowen showed up and started humping everybody.
So far I’ve had pretty much the opposite reaction to every episode you’ve reviewed. When you didn’t like an episode (like last week) I thought it was actually pretty good. When you think it’s good (like this week) I couldn’t pick out a single bit that I thought wasn’t a single idea beaten to an ugly death. I do agree that game show sketches are almost universally awful these days, but disagree because I thought last night’s was awful, too. Diff’rent Strokes to move the world, I guess.
At least one person used to tell Perkins this every single week, so it’s good to see consistency if nothing else.
My funny must be broken because I almost always like the game show sketches. At this point Keenan as host has pretty much made it a recurring character sketch as opposed to just various takes on the same theme.
Your headline should have read “hardly amusing”, as that’s what this episode was. Even your review essentially panned almost every sketch, which contradicts your own headline. The running bodily function jokes strewn throughout were simply grating. Even Weekend Update, which is usually a lone bright spot, fell rather flat. This was possibly the worst episode of the season and one of the worst in years.
Nah the Willam Dafoe one was worse, but not by a lot. This season seems to be a lot of hosts showing up ready to play and the writers not having any material for them.
This season Saturday Night Live seems to be a lot of hosts showing up ready to play and the writers not having any material for them.
I’ll agree. The Dafoe episode was worse, but at least that episode’s Weekend Update segment was stellar. I’ll file Dafoe’s performance under “Great actors who aren’t suited for sketch comedy. (See Robert Deniro)“.
I dug the Camila x Willow song live much more than I liked the studio version. The rest of the show . . . eh. The best thing it had going for it was that Jake was game for everything they threw at him, they just weren’t throwing much that was worth it.
He was game for everything he was asked to throw up, too, apparently.
This was weak, all around. Why so much shouting, sniggering euphemisms, bodily fluids and misplaced cue cards (Chris Redd could try harder to memorize his lines)?
AVClub barely reviews anything anymore and now when they do, they seemingly have an opinion that contradicts most viewers. Great work AVClub
Did anyone notice the line of women in the front row of the audience that was conspicuously not applauding when Gyllenhaal came out? Swifties, maybe?
No, but I thought the choice to sing a Celine Dion song about her love affair with her much older manager was certainly an odd one given his own iffy relationships with younger women.
While I appreciate the mention of the greatest cast member in the show’s history, and even a mentionof one of his characters, I wish you could have gotten the spelling right. It’s “Aykroyd”.Also, you say that most of the large cast was used. But what disappointed me was the absence of Aristotle Athari. This disappointment is especially acute because, upon seeing the opening to the Singers Four sketch, I thought that it was going to be a sketch featuring Athari’s hilarious Angelo character.
I like Aristotle and Angelo, but I think there are 3 sketches about him already, although some went straight to YouTube? I don’t mind if they slow that down and find him something else to do
Yea, last week’s had a cut for time Angelo, and after watching on youtube, the joke has definitely ran its course. I like the character a lot, but they need to find some other hook that keeps it fresh.
Opposite reaction here. I’d say that was the worst episode of the season. We’re probably venturing into D grade territory here. Hardly anything drew even slightest of chuckles. The Flowers sketch was one of the worst SNL sketches I’ve seen in some time. The entire time I’m just wondering when that sketch would end. The Chuckie sketch wasn’t good either. The best part about it was seeing the puppeteers before they sent the show to commercial. Most, if not all the sketches and filmed pieces, had a one note joke that was given away early and then just repeated ad nauseam throughout the sketch. It was just dull. Gyllenhaal was game and I appreciate the effort but that show was bad.
Spring Flowers was the hit of the night.
Michael Martin, it’s just so difficult to figure out
what you TRANS people find funny anymore.
A B, huh? Seems pretty high. Also, maybe it’s my age rearing its ugly head, but those two songs by Camila Cabello were really mediocre. It often baffles me which songs become hits and which songs do not.
the fuck was the flowers episode? We’re they nostalgic for the old Bees sketch? our of ideas? a new writer has a piss kink?
I appreciate not relying on old stuff, even thought the bits didn’t all land, but the host carried his weight. I didn’t count them up but with the sheer number of sketches, new concepts, new characters and pre-taped bits, were pretty impressive, there was one or two also on YouTube—all with Jakey G and he was IN them, not just set off to the side mouthing cue cards while the cast did the work (known as Kim K-ing the episode). Little things, like seeing them dance together after the game show sketch was over, shows the cast felt comfortable with him. You can tell when an actor has had some stage experience. He tried hard to do a good job, singing and jumping from one character to another on a live broadcast. My hat is off to him. Also glad to see Aidy back and chewing up the dialogue, I missed her, and Keenan back on Game Show Host duty. I agree about Melissa. She needs someone to team with her in a recurring bit—maybe her and Athari who both sing, can do something to give them both a recurring shot!? Hoping…
It was pretty funny except the sketch from the weekend update with Aidy Bryant that was just cringe.
Yeah, it wasn’t very funny the first time. This time I pretty much tuned it out.
Being loud and sticking your face into someone else space, really
oh god, am I the only one who finds almost nothing Aidy does as funny? She consistently flubs her lines, seems not to know what she’s saying until she’s on air, cracks and laughs at unfunny stuff constantly, and is just…meh.Not that there’s much competition on this show, but jeez. I’m just, like, done with them. Forget THE WALKING DEAD, Forget SNL. Both too many people, not enough interesting ones, and cold, stale and past their sell-by dates.
Jake Gyllenhaal can really sing. Had no idea. Put him in a musical. a duet with guitar-wielding Willow SmithYes, she did “wield” it. That’s about all she did with it because she sure as hell wasn’t playing it. But it did accessorize her outfit nicely.
He was Seymour in a concert staging of ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ a few years ago against eternal Audrey Ellen Greene.
He really brought the house down as “Mr. Music” in that John Mulaney “Sack Lunch Bunch” special.
So now these reviews aren’t even adding more than a couple of the videos of the sketches in the article?
y’know, this wasn’t a standout or anything but 5 or 6 seasons ago this would have been the best episode of that season.
…a sketch which would have been better without the emphasis on peeing in bottles.Without? That was the best part of the entire sketch! Honestly, it was really the best part of the entire episode, save the home renovation skit. (What can I say, I’m a sucker for 27-year old cats and their medical equipment.)
The reveals on the home renovation sketch were great. Definitely the most consistently funny bit of the night.
Hmm, so instead of the old bitching about how much the cold open sucked now it’s not even worth mentioning?
I have no idea what “I see a lot of lovely breads and waters in the crowd.” means.
I can’t be the only one.
Yeah. Does that mean they’re cheap?
That was my take.
I assumed it was a sort of silly observation that when looking out at the crowd (which I assume was seated at dinner tables) there was a lot of baskets of bread and glasses of water on the tables. Kind of a weird “I’m acknowledging the crowd but not the people in it, turning the usual greeting on its head” sort of way.
HIlarious! I especially love jokes when they need to be fully explained, parsed out and considered for a bit, like 3 days later, to even understand what the Fk they meant.Yeah, this show was not good, by any definition of any words, anywhere.
I really want to see Jake Gyllenhal starring in more musical projects now. I say that as someone who usually doesn’t care for musicals, but Jake put something in my feelings with that opener.
BLLLLEEEEERRGGGHHH
The two cut for time skits on YouTube-“Serious Night Live” and the “Virginia Wolfe” skit-were better than anything that was actually used in the episode.
It took a few seconds of websearching to confirm that the Willow Smith who sang the “Tom’s Diner” sample with the musical guest is the Willow Smith whose parents have been making headlines for over a week. Out of curiousity, did she have the “GI Jane’ cut before or after the Oscars kerfuffle?Though sins of the father and all, but you’d think that it would have been worth a mention.
Willow seemed like she was on the verge of breaking out from under her parents’ shadow, but I feel like the Will Smith Affair (as it has come to be known) set her back quite a bit. Her first song was that ridiculous “Whip My Hair” thing that her parents clearly paid to have produced, but I like a lot of her current work. The the last week served as a reminder that she’s still famous because she’s their child.
I understand all the hate for this episode, I guess? But for me, it was A-effin’-plus. There’s deep social commentary here. Let’s revisit these sketches in five years.
They missed a BIG opportunity to have Jake pull out a scarf in the opening monologue, commenting about it being a bit cool in the studio or something.
This was easily one of the worst episodes. Nothing worked.
The only laughs this episode got from me were prompted by the CDs in the rack in the truck stop sketch. I spotted The First Day by Robert Fripp and David Sylvian at first, which was hilariously obscure, but the closer I looked, the more I found. Let My Children Hear Music by Charles Mingus? Tricky’s Pre Millennium Tension? Oasis, New Adventures in Hi-Fi, Smashing Pumpkins’ Adore? Such a weirdly specific collection of music.
Beastie Boys’ Hello Nasty was on the rack too. A real late-90s vibe going on there.
I don’t watch SNL, but I enjoy reading these reviews and watching the recommended clips. That was a pretty funny top 3, IMO.
This was a jarringly horny episode of SNL. What’s going on in that writer’s room? Is it staffed by a bunch of 15-year olds?
Chris Redd has one go to character, he opens his eyes up wide and says his lines in a sort of spaced out drawl.
Am I the only person who religiously watches SNL but fast forwards through the musical performances? Only Taylor Swift, in recent memory, got me to stay.
this was painfully unfunny and crude, almost embarrassing to watch. The couples counselor sketch was the most basic, lame, easy-laugh hacky material I’ve seen since…well, since the flower sketch before it. Oh, funny, she’s a marriage counselor that goes angry and says inappropriate things to her partner! Like, she is professional here- and then goes street there! See how funny that is? Because she gets her thug on and says she’s gonna kill someone, then asks them to talk about their feelings! See the funny? It’s funny because it’s OPPOSITE what she’s supposed to do! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAThe CHUCKY thing was weird. That’s about all that can be said for making a joke horror movie character a…real life character? So stupid. HAHA he’s stabbing people in HR! You go, Chucky!The couples counselor was so cringe it was awful. Not even “funny bad” bad. Just bad. The rest of the show was not as bad (how could it be) but jesus. The caberet scene…the truck driver…it was all just…god damn. (Dry heaving over here.) I appreciate wacky and crazy Jake G. but they did him no favors. Should have brought John Mulaney in to write for him tonight.
I enjoyed this. I really liked the Doc Holliday sketch, though that could be because my siblings and I used to be obsessed with Tombstone. But it was funny and I laughed out loud multiple times. The reviewer took issue with lung disease being the joke in a post-COVID world, but that’s what made it funnier—everyone’s heightened intolerance for any signs of sickness, let alone ones as gross as these.The Caberet sketch was a bit dire. I never like those sketches where Cecily clearly told the writers “let me do my weird drunk singer thing again.” They’re always dull.Coulda done without the flowers sketch, too. Loved the gameshow and glad to see they’ve put Kenan back in the host’s seat. No one does it like him.
If anyone thinks Gyllenhaal is too “serious” to have fun, they obviously haven’t seen Mulaney’s “Sack Lunch Bunch.” His over-the-top performance oozes giddiness and joy.