Walton Goggins made an impressive hosting debut on Saturday Night Live last weekend, with musical guest Arcade Fire. Walton has been around for a while, but as of late has evolved from, ‘he looks familiar’, to one of the hottest stars around. Best known for his roles in The White Lotus and The Righteous Gemstones, he brought lots of charisma and a touch of self-deprecation to SNL, as he read headlines about his new heartthrob status – that explicitly call out his tendency to sport greasy hair, as well as his receding hairline. The show packed a lot into this episode, so let’s get into it!
Cold Open
The show opened with a Mother’s Day tribute, as Keenan Thompson, Bowen Yang, and Marcello Hernandez, sang to their moms. It was rather cheesy, until they are interrupted by James Austin Johnson as Donald Trump, who makes them leave the stage, noting that they weren’t the real moms.
The sketch took a nostalgic turn when he mentioned his new interim U.S. Attorney, as Cecily Strong returned as Judge Jeanine Pirro, toting a briefcase containing only a bottle of wine and a glass. Trump and Pirro mention their mutual admiration for Pete Hegseth, as Colin Jost joins them, setting things up perfectly for Cecily’s classic wine-spitting bit.
Pete tells her that yet another aircraft carrier fell into the ocean, causing Judge Pirro to spit her wine in his face. They discuss how Hegseth has quit drinking – when he adds that he also has some news to share. He hands Judge Pirro a bottle of whiskey and asks her to take a drink, as he casually mentions, “I accidentally added Kim Jong-Un to the group chat.”, causing her to spit the whiskey into his mouth.
I loved to see this classic bit as we wind down Season 50. This was Cecily’s first return to the show since she left in 2022, with the exception of the anniversary special – and she was a perfect surprise guest in this episode.
Tiny Baby Shoe
Tiny baby shoe is a musical sketch in which Jane Wickline finds a baby shoe while walking through the park and then starts looking for the baby to whom it belongs. In a Cinderella-like scenario, she imagines herself becoming the baby’s mom.
Walton Goggins joins in, because the shoe actually belongs to him and we see his tiny baby feet. He thinks they should date now, to which Jane replies, “Oh no, I was just looking for a baby.” Then Sam Rockwell joins in as a guy who makes balloon animals, and is also a normal-size man with tiny baby feet.
The moral of the story, as it turns out, is that just because you find someone’s shoe doesn’t necessarily mean you have a connection with them.
I really enjoyed this for several reasons. I was glad to see Jane leading a sketch, evolving her bits on weekend update into a full sketch, and one very early in the episode. It was also fun to see Walton playing this ridiculous character. And Sam Rockwell running away, covering minimal distance with his baby feet, was hilarious.
Service Dogs
I love a sketch that’s infused with live canines, and this one started out with a group of service dogs who, as part of their training, had to sit through a full-length play. However, they play was terrible and the dogs knew it.
Heidi Gardner and Walton portrayed the lead actors in a melodramatic play. The dogs reacted with eye rolls, checked their watches, flipped through the Playbill, and several left the theatre. One of the dog trainers, played by Michael Longfellow, apologized, saying, “Please don’t be offended. This is their first time at a bad play.”
Weekend Update
This week’s Update featured three standout guest appearances. Marcello Hernández returned as “The Movie Guy,” who hasn’t seen any of the movies and guesses the plots. He discusses Jurassic World Rebirth mispronouncing Scarlett Johansson’s name and doesn’t believe Colin when he says that’s his wife. He tells hacky jokes about Garfield and Gatorade Zero. This bit was good, but I wonder how many times we can see it before the joke gets old.
Mikey Day was perfect as “A Guy Who Just Walked into a Spiderweb”. He’s there to talk about how the tariffs will impact consumers, but can’t because he’s overwhelmed by the feeling of the spider on him. This was a different kind of character for Mikey, completely relying on physical comedy and it was hilarious.
Finally, Heidi Gardner plays Dianne, a mom who has only read about New York on Facebook. She gives misguided advice on navigating the city, referring to outrageous stories that she read in Facebook posts. Her mannerisms, as she described who posted the story, were on point, as she “discretely” mentions each poster’s race.
Heidi is obviously phenomenal at doing characters, and this was no exception. While her characters are completely absurd, she can still accurately capture subtle mannerisms that we have all observed and pairs them with her characters perfectly.
Deathly Diner and the Squatty Potty
The final two sketches were decently funny. First up was Deathly Diner, a theme restaurant that doesn’t quite have everything worked out yet. Bowen Yang and Ego Nwodim play vampire servers whose only line so far seems to be, “Be careful, it might be your last”, regarding the meal, the customers’ drinks, etc. The funniest part to me was the nervous ad-libbing by the characters when asked about the restaurant’s backstory, and they have to make it up on the spot, talking about a woman being beaten in the kitchen, but she likes it.
The last sketch was another installment of Midnight Matinee, where a young lawyer (Andrew Dismukes) it’s having dinner at his boss’s house, when excuses himself to go to the restroom and sees a Squatty Potty. For the rest of the sketch, he can’t stop picturing the boss and his wife using the Squatty Potty, and is so traumatized that he ends up jumping out the window.
Parting Thoughts
The show had a lot of memorable moments, from Cecily’s return and seeing her and Colin together again, to Baby Feet and Walton Goggins going all-in on some weird sketches. It really seemed that he was up for anything, except maybe another White POTUS, but that’s okay. Scarlett Johansson returns to host the season finale, with musical guest Bad Bunny. Thanks for reading!
