Saturday Night Live recap: Childish Gambino outshines host Donald Glover

Donald Glover can truly do it all.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but the talented Solo actor gave a winning showcase in his first turn on Saturday Night Live, pulling double duty as both host and musical guest. He was funny, confident, game for almost anything, and unafraid to inject the storied sketch show with his unique, expectation-defying, and very specific sense of humor.

Here are the highlights.

Cold Open: “Michael Cohen Wiretap”

SNL was determined to prove that more is actually more with this week’s cold open. Ben Stiller returned as the very anxious Michael Cohen, who was desperately trying to setup a conference call between Donald Trump (Alec Baldwin) and his inner circle to discuss the latest turn in the Stormy Daniels scandal, which was all being recorded by the FBI. What ensues was a tour of Trump’s cronies, featuring many surprising faces. Martin Short cameoed as Dr. Harold Bornstein; Scarlett Johansson returned to play Ivanka Trump and was joined by Jimmy Fallon, who delivered a high-pitched performance as her husband, Jared Kushner; and SNL cast members Cecily Strong, Aidy Bryant, and Leslie Jones turned up as Melania Trump, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and Omarosa. All of that was perfectly fine and gave us a few laughs.

Monologue

Best sketch: “Friendos”

Runner-up: “A Kanye Place”

Kanye West’s recent Twitterstorm ends up getting quite a few people killed in this parody of A Quiet of Place. Glover, Bryant, Strong, Thompson, and Beck Bennett played a squad trying to quietly pass through a field without alerting the sound-sensitive monsters. Unfortunately, that task is made all the more difficult by West’s recent tweets, which everyone in the group couldn’t help but react to. Thompson is the first one who gets dragged away by the monsters when he yells, “Oh, come on!” after seeing West’s signed MAGA hat. However, the funniest bit was Bryant demanding confirmation that West actually released a song in which he raps “poopity scoop” before being dragged away too. The entire bit captured the truly WTF nature of West’s recent media storm, including his controversial TMZ interview. Sure, there are more important things to focus on (as Bennett reminds the group throughout), but this is just so mind-blowingly unusual that you can’t help but stop and stare.

The mandatory Solo sketch : “Lando’s Summit”

“Where the hell are all the black people in space?” asks Glover’s Lando Calrissian in this pointed sketch, which confronts Star Wars’ diversity problem head-on. Lando holds a summit for all the black people in the galaxy, but unfortunately, only three other people show up. “Lots of lizard men wearing vests, just four black people, though,” says a smirking Glover. There were some hilarious lines (“I love alien girls because it’s always a surprise when their clothes come off”), and Thompson delivered a pretty spot-on impression of Forest Whitaker’s Saw Gerrara; however, it wasn’t as sharp as it could’ve been. But that’s a small complaint because I’ll take any chance to spend more time with Glover’s charming take on Lando.

Best musical moment: “Saturday,” by Childish Gambino

Best “Weekend Update” punchline:

Michael Che on the recent developments in the Trump/Stormy Daniels scandal: “How did y’all land on $130,000? That’s such an oddly specific number. I asked Stormy to come on Update to explain it, but her agent said no because if she’s seen on camera with a black guy, her price goes down.”

Cast MVP: Kenan Thompson

As one of a few black cast members on SNL, Thompson appeared in almost every sketch of the night. So he deserves this award alone for putting in so much hard work. Also, as I mentioned before, I did love his impression of Saw Gerrera.

Up Next

Amy Schumer hosts with musical guest Kacey Musgraves. You can probably expect a sketch or opening monologue that takes on I Feel Pretty’s critics.