Saturday Night Live recap: Ryan Gosling is a character-breaking blast
The Fall Guy star soars in a season-high episode filled with celeb cameos and cast crack-ups
TV Reviews Ryan Gosling
After the comedic tour de force that was Barbie’s Ken—not to mention that himbo fever-dream musical number at last month’s Academy Awards—Ryan Gosling had a lot to live up to as this week’s Saturday Night Live host. And, unsurprisingly, the ever-game, every-giggly actor was more than Ken-ough in his third hosting gig, which featured country great Chris Stapleton as musical guest and was—much to Lorne Michaels’ alleged chagrin—jam-packed with cast breaks.
Gosling has a delightful history of corpsing during his time in Studio 8H, particularly in regard to alien abductions (more on that in a minute), but we can’t remember if we’ve ever seen an SNL cast so thoroughly tickled by a celebrity host. (Even usually poker-faced performers like Heidi Gardner and Marcello Hernandez couldn’t get it together.) While not the most technically exacting episode ever, it made for an infectiously fun, wonderfully goofy edition of the show, sprinkled with random ’90s references (Beethoven? Erin Brockovich?) and more than a few superstar surprises.
Cold open: Close encounters of the horny kind
We’re starting off strong and silly: it’s another installment of “Close Encounter,” which, yes, means the return of the unhinged Colleen Rafferty and Gosling’s Barbie co-star Kate McKinnon. As usual, a trio of abductees (Gosling, McKinnon and Sarah Sherman) detail their extraterrestrial experiences to a panel of Pentagon officials, with Colleen’s testimonies getting progressively more graphically sexual and grossly hilarious.
A few not-so-hidden smirks pop up early, but any semblance of composure is completely lost when McKinnon has Gosling stand up to act out how the Martians reacted to his human private parts, nosing the actor’s crotch like a Collie in heat.
Opening monologue: We’ll remember Ken all too well
Sure, Ryan Gosling is supposed to be promoting The Fall Guy, his new stuntman action-comedy opposite Emily Blunt. But he’s, sadly, still not over Ken, so much so that he settles at the piano for a break-up ballad about the Oscar-worthy character, set to Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well.” (“If I said I was doing fine, you know I’d be lying. Because I was just Ken and now I’m just Ryannn.”)
Just as he starts reminiscing too lovingly about roller blades and fur coats, Blunt drops in to bash various objects (a wine bottle, a whole-ass chair) over his head and remind him just which promo tour he’s currently on. But it seems like Gosling’s wistfulness is contagious: soon, the Oppenheimer actress finds herself crooning about atomic bombs and Cillian Murphy, until the opening monologue escalates into an over-the-top “Barbenheimer” duet complete with back-up dancers and a margarita-drinking Albert Einstein. Best opener of the season, bar none.
The (runner-up) MVP of the night: Andrew Dismukes
It’s clear that nobody was outshining Gosling this week, but between last Saturday’s standout Jumanji bit with Kristen Wiig and this week’s “The Engagement” sketch with Gosling, Andrew Dismukes is having an especially strong month, playing genuinely perplexed and increasingly indignant men. (“I am not a part of this!” “You’re the main part of this, Brad!”) He also, largely, manages to avoid breaking in Gosling’s mere presence, so the lad gets extra points.
The Emmy for Outstanding Makeup goes to:
Bless whichever crew member hid the terrifying visages of Ryan Gosling and Mikey Day as Beavis and Butthead from Heidi Gardner until the very last minute, because watching the actress react in real time to the horror-hilarity of Gosling’s blonde pompadour and Day’s “exposed gums” was the hardest we’ve laughed all season.
Not since Bill Hader’s wheelchair romp with Cecily Strong have we seen a cast member lose it for quite as long or as loud as Gardner does here. And speaking of church giggles, we’ve got to shout-out the seriously stone-faced extras throughout—you’re made of stronger stuff than we are.
And the best hairography of the night goes to:
One of those characteristically nutty post-“Weekend Update” bits, this hospital sketch shows that all the world really needs now is Ryan Gosling and Bowen Yang being dumb in long, bitchy lace fronts. Highlights: Gosling’s best-supporting-actor bangs and Yang accidentally being run over by an elderly, wheelchair-bound Mikey Day.
Stray observations
- Do we wish that “Get That Boy Back” music video was a little more Cowboy Carter and a little less Carrie Underwood? YA YA. But we’re just happy to see the show finally give Chloe Troast something substantial to do, like exacting wacky revenge—replacing his shoes with a half-size bigger every other week, etcetera—against her cheating ex (played by a can-totally-hold-his-own Chris Stapleton).
- After last week’s missed opportunity of having Sarah Sherman play basketball breakout Caitlin Clark, the SNL gods righted that wrong by having Clark herself bounce in to roast Michael Che during “Weekend Update.”
- We’ve got yet another little mini-break on the schedule but at least there’s more Barbie-related goodness coming our way: SNL will be back with a fresh episode on Saturday, May 4, with host and musical guest Mermaid Barbie, we mean, Dua Lipa.
65 Comments
This is the most fun I’ve had watching SNL in a while. I was hoping Kate would molest Ryan’s bubble butt again, but other than that I have no complaints. All the skits were hilarious, and the Beavis and Butthead thing was like something out of vintage 1994 The State. Ryan was a trooper and showed a much more versatile comedic range than I expected. I don’t blame the cast for breaking, this material was hilarious.
It’s a shame because I actually thought there were some funny ideas for sketches, but…at what point is it enough with the breaking? He’s done this every time he’s hosted, in almost literally every live sketch he’s in, and it always becomes the only thing anyone takes away. Is this still cute? For a lot of people, I guess the answer is “yes,” but I don’t know. Again, it’s almost literally every sketch.I don’t even think Colin Jost and Michael Che are terrible, but they already smirk and giggle their way through their segment, and I’m not sure my takeaway was “we need this throughout the entire show.” For Molly Kearney, I’m sure they’re a perfectly nice person, but…this has to be it at the end of the year, right? We’re almost two years in, and they’re still playing the nurse who says things like “the doctor will be out in a minute.”
I like seeing people break. When Molly Kearney accidentally hit Bowen with the wheelchair everyone lost it. I love moments like that.
I’m old enough to remember “That’s great bass!”. I love when they break that fourth wall.
I guess I’m in the minority and can’t wait until the “maybe comedy isn’t for you” trolls come out, but breaking always makes me feel like I’m watching a third grader’s home skit…
It just seems like a cheap way to get laughs from the audience. Because it’s almost guaranteed to work.
How often do you think people break on purpose for easy laughs, rather than breaking unintentionally because they’re having a good time?
“It just seems like a cheap way to get laughs from the audience.”I think it’s more likely that the audience is laughing for the same reason the cast is–it’s funny. If they were breaking just as a ploy to get laughs they’d do it every week and every sketch.
I think it’s good in small doses, but there is a certain point where it goes past and you’re just like “it’s not cute anymore, you’re just bad at this”
Agreed. I didn’t hate all the breaking in this episode’s sketches but I was still like, damn Ryan, keep it together!
Same. Not remotely cute.
There’s no “maybe” about it tbh
AGREED. I’m a straight-up amateur, but I act in local theater and if I broke that much during a performance, I’d never get cast by anyone. And I would deserve it. It’s not cute. It’s unprofessional. Get the yuks out during rehearsal, then get into character.
I thought this was a strong episode, even if like in other episodes there was a dud or two in there. I appreciate not everyone likes corpsing/breaking but it’s usually endearing and makes me laugh with them when it happens at least. From what I understand Lorne Michaels hates it so I can understand there being a camp that finds it amateurish or distracting. Will agree maybe it was too much of it this time, but don’t blame them, the odd choices (why beavis and butthead? Mckinnon describing what the greys did with Goslings junk etc.) were very funny.
It always makes me laugh, even though it’s definitely too much sometimes. Heidi Gardner just losing it when she saw Butthead was impossible for me not to laugh at. I’d do terrible on this show.Also, I appreciated Kaitlin Clark being there and the jokes at Che’s expense, but she’s not anywhere near the ranks of Peyton Manning or Travis Kelce as far as sports stars that can pull off being funny (though that’s a tough ask of almost any sports personality that’s not a wrestler) so that just felt awkward to me.
Ryan breaks, but it never really derails things. He’s not Fallon or anything.
It reminds me of that episode of 30 Rock where Tracy Morgan watches old Carol Burnett clips of the cast breaking character, and so he keeps trying to do it on air to get some laughs.
Yeah, and I’ve heard that a fair amount of the “breaking” on Carol Burnett weren’t spontaneous either.
If it were constant like with Fallon it would probably bother me more. This felt more like the cast having a bit too much fun. I do wish Jost and Che would dial it back. Their annual Christmas cross-roast is a perpetual highlight of the show but that kind of interaction loses its effect when they’re commenting on each other’s jokes every week.
If you don’t mind it with Gosling, then great, everyone’s entitled to their opinion. But it *is* pretty constant with him. Obviously he’s not a cast member like Fallon, but I can’t remember too many live sketches across three episodes now where Gosling keeps it together.
I loved how silly and goofy the Doctors sketch was.
I thought it was a sequel at first to the midwife sketch where Bowen played another long-haired weirdo medical professional, which I also enjoyed. It was funny how Ryan Gosling was forcing Bowen to eat all those cookie crumbles while refusing to take a bite himself, I wonder if that was intentional or not.
You don’t get abs like his eating cookie crumbles.
You gotta mention the new Papyrus skit!
It didn’t appear in the live airing.
Papyrus was advertised during the show, and we loved it.
That explains why the YouTube clip didn’t have an audience track.
Poor Kyle, even after leaving the show, still gets cut for time 🙁
I love that they ended it in Comic Sans!
Clark couldn’t have come last weekend; she was wrapping up her career with Iowa. When would she have rehearsed? How would she have focused? She had no time for nonsense. Her title game was the very next day. She was worth the wait. Loves how Jost played along.
They weren’t saying Caitlin Clark herself should have made an appearance last week, they were saying Sarah Sherman as Caitlin Clark should have appeared in last week’s March Madness sketch.Personally I don’t think they need to cram a cameo just because they can, but I understand the reasoning.
Bold choice to go with the merch-only ‘Skull’ and ‘Death Rock’ versions of Beavis & Butt-head, instead of the canonical AC/DC and Metallica.
They weren’t actually Beavis and Butthead though…
True, but if you look closely you’ll notice that they’re dressed very similar. It’s not the focal point of the sketch but I thought it was a fun easter egg for B&B fans.
Solid episode. Not sure I’d go so high as a solid A, but it was definitely a good one. Most of the sketches were actually good and the bits of breaking just added to the fun. And it was definitely a genius move to (apparently) not let Heidi Gardner see Beavis and Butthead until the live sketch, because good lord did she not just break, she shattered. I’ve never seen her like that and it was hilarious.Also, any episode with Chris Stapleton gets a big boost from me. I’m not particularly into country music in its many forms, but I go out of my way to watch/listen any time he comes on.
Between this week’s Beavis and Butthead and last week’s sketch where she awkwardly flailed through the wall with a giant globe on her head, they’ve really been getting Heidi Gardner.
She’s felt like one of the weaker cast members (just above the ones you know won’t be around next year) but has really been getting her moments this season.
Is this Bowen Yang doctor character a call back to his “I’m a kind of doctor” line from the airplane sketch last year where they argued about who was second best for delivering a baby, lawyer or engineer?
We’re starting off strong […] the return of the unhinged Colleen
Rafferty
Counter-argument: No. Rafferty was funny for like one sketch and every subsequent appearance has been diminishing returns since then.
South mouth made me chortle
I agree, every one of those sketches just boiled down to “new terms for female genitalia.” This episode reads like no one had a good idea for a cold open, so they threw something together that they remembered made Gosling laugh and ran with it.
Narrowing that down had to have been a chore, though, since apparently EVERYTHING makes Gosling laugh.
Yeah even Kate seemed like she was over that character/shtick.
The juicer & the deucer made me laugh.
Papyrus 2 not being in the full episode is a great shame. Very good followup. Also they made him do the Blade Runner goddamn it for fun.
I hate when the show does that: they pack an episode with celebrity cameos and/or cast member corpsing, both of which they encourage the audience to cheer wildly for thus taking time, and then they’re surprised when the show is running behind and they have to cut something. They showed the band vamping two weeks in a row because of this.
Best episode in a long time.
I often wonder, when there are spontaneous moments, what dress rehearsal was like. Heidi certainly must have seen that Butthead makeup a couple of hours earlier, and Che certainly had to have full knowledge of the Caitlin Clark bit.
I think it is not uncommon for them to have someone stand in for a celebrity cameo in dress.
they may have not gone to the trouble of the prosthetics for rehearsal.
Vulture had an article about it and interviewed her, they did have the full makeup and prostheses for dress (sometimes they actually put the dress versions in the re-runs so they try to make them as much as possible like the live one).
https://www.vulture.com/article/snl-heidi-gardner-beavis-and-butthead-sketch-interview.html
Che probably did have prior knowledge, he probably wrote the jokes that were making fun of him, himself. Meanwhile it seemed like an intentional, if hilarious, decision not to let Heidi know what Butthead would look like until she turned her head.
I forget which sketch, but I saw Sarah Sherman in a blonde wig and literally thought it was Margot Robbie in a cameo which of course would have made perfect sense.
She looks way more like Emma Stone, especially Emma Stone as Billie Jean King.
This episode was so good. When even the cold open is good, you know you’re probably getting a good show and they didn’t disappoint.
I actually wanted to like this episode even though I’m not a Gosling fan. In partincular, the hospital skit showed a level of originality I haven’t seen in years (also creepy AF).But the breaks are inexcusable for professionals of this calibre. At best a C.
Get bent you fucking loser. It’s a comedy show, fuck off.
Oh come on, you’re taking SNL way too seriously
Do we wish that “Get That Boy Back” music video was a little more Cowboy Carter and a little less Carrie Underwood? YA YA.
“We” do? Why? The point of the song was to serve as a vehicle for the comedy, and it was fine as it stood. Not to be like Cowboy Carter, whatever that means.
I don’t even know what Cowboy Carter is so that was especially weird to me.
Setting aside that no one could get through a bit without laughing…SERIOUSLY – did the writers for this show finally come back from the strike? Were they just letting interns dig up rejected bits and try to polish them off up to this point in the season? Why are we only now – near the end of the season – finally getting decent material? Really only two mediocre sketches (the Erin Brockovich and the nightclub bit). The NewsNation/Beavis and Butthead sketch had me dying, and maybe they should have done one more full dress rehearsal for Heidi’s sake! But overall, far better-written than the rest of the season so far.
Getting upset that people laugh is peak looking hard for something to be mad about. Which is easily the dumbest way to waste your life.
I’d agree if we were talking, like, in general. But in the context of sketch comedy (or any staged performance for that matter) breaking character too often detracts from audience enjoyment. Ever watch a stand up laugh at his or her own jokes before anyone else has the chance?
I don’t think anyone told Heidi what the Butthead makeup would look like until she actually looked.