It’s a pity some may have given up on Saturday Night Live during the cold open, at the agonizing sight of James Austin Johnson’s President Trump and Dana Carvey’s President Biden sitting knee to knee in the White House. These are not laughing times. Even Carvey’s great turn as Biden—stumbling around for words, eyes popping up and out in gee whiz confusion—is starting to feel tiresome. “It’s my own version of ‘the weave,’” he said. “I call it ‘the wander.’” But then Sarah Sherman entered stage left as Trump’s ridiculous pick for Attorney General, Matt Gaetz. She was nearly unrecognizable underneath those eyebrows drawn like toddlers’ birds, plastic cliff of a forehead, and Elvis hair. (Alec Baldwin popped up as Trump’s proposed head of Health and Human Services RFK Jr., but his cameos at this point are starting to feel rote.) There’s a contagiousness to the delight Sherman takes in full-tilt buffoonery. And once we got Trump and Biden off the stage, the episode was off to the races.
Host and musical guest Charli XCX is a right bitchy sundae. As a sketch partner, she had good edge and a light touch. As musical guest, going solo on stripped-down stages for both numbers, she had a mesmerizing authority. (Julia Fox was an inspired choice to make the first intro; Bowen Yang an affectionate one for her second performance.)
In her monologue, Charli seemed free of nerves and pandering. She tried to help the old among us finally understand what it means to be Brat. She pointed to the double brat moves of Martha Stewart rejoicing in the death of journalist Andrea Savage, who once wrote unfavorably of her, and then Savage declaring the next day, “I’m alive, bitch.” What a treat to see Kyle Mooney, who appeared with Charli in the hallucinatory favorite “Christmas Socks” sketch a couple of years ago, back in Studio 8H, wondering if even a mensch like him could hope for Brat status. “Favorite kind of club?” she quizzed him. “Probably turkey,” he said. Charli XCX ended her monologue with the promise, “I’m here, so stick around, we’ll be right back!” Brat.