Quinta Brunson sashayed onto the main stage looking like Betty Boop, ready for her sophomore stint hosting Saturday Night Live. She gave passing glance to her brief tenure working a phone sex line before moving onto the driving bit of her monologue. The 4’11” Emmy-winning star and creator of Abbott Elementary broke into song—her voice a bit quavery to start—in praise of her humble stature. “If you’re looking for a superstar, start looking down,” she sang. “You can flip like Simone, Olympic superstar, or start a war with Drake like you’re Kendrick Lamar. You can be like Tom Holland and marry a 10, or like Sabrina Carpenter and…”
Enter Carpenter in the pink, shiny flesh, cute as a cupcake. She helped smooth out Brunson’s voice and the two were off to the races, singing about about all the fun sights from their point of view, like “toddlers’ eyes, peoples’ crotches, and Jeremy Allen White!” Marcello Hernandez wanted in because hanging around polly pockets helped him feel tall. Basketball hall-of-famer Dwyane Wade was a left-field add to the mix, but a welcome one, mainly because he seemed so earnestly dedicated to his dance choreography.
Brunson’s best scene partner throughout the episode was Kenan Thompson, who was at her side for most of the night. Their finest hour perhaps was “OnlySeniors,” in which they played aging parents bragging to their grown children—Ego Nwodim and Devon Walker—about their new life insurance plan. All they had to was “set up our camera and do stuff to each other.” Sometimes with a ball gag. Or in a swing. Or with the Johnsons from next door, Mikey Day and Heidi Gardner in open bathrobes.
Speaking of Day, he was back raging behind the steering wheel. Alongside his daughter, played with salivating aplomb by Chloe Fineman, he parked next to Brunson on a ferry. His pantomimes of annoyance over her bad parking job escalated to him acting out the word toxic and Fineman dangling imaginary balls over her mouth to tell Brunson she was nuts. “You raised a hoe,” said Brunson, raking an imaginary garden tool.
If the conceit of placing the sketch on a ferry seemed an odd one, the payoff was a frantic Colin Jost appearing in the passenger window wearing a Hawaiian shirt and Thurston Howell’s silk neck scarf. “Hey, you say you love ferries? Would you like to buy one? Please buy it. I’m Pete Davidson, hi.”
