In his Saturday Night Live debut, Colman Domingo cements himself in that rarified class of novices whose technical lack of experience belies a natural understanding of stage gravitas and sketch comedy.
An obligatory search to confirm the Emmy-winning Euphoria star had never hosted the Lorne Michaels-helmed late-nighter was baffling spiritually, even if it was accurate factually. By the end of the night, the ease with which the actor held his own — not a break in sight — was almost enough to elevate middling sketch material, a problem that has plagued Season 51 since its inception.
This was best exemplified by the Sing Sing star’s opening monologue; I would say it screamed effortless cool, but the reality was that the opener mostly crooned it, Domingo’s rich timbre directed R&B sounds, mood lighting and a “sexy slow push” on the camera to communicate: “When you come to my house, the vibes are spectacular.”
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Indeed.
While serenading the Studio 8H attendees, Domingo demonstrated that the sultry effect “works for everybody,” cuing tonight’s affable punching bag Jeremy Culhane to smize for the camera. It worked so well, actually, that a couple was spotted making out in the audience.
“Ooh, they’re straight. You don’t see that everyday,” Domingo quipped.
And while the Four Seasons alum was as charming as he was funny, a majority of the material did not rise to the occasion. Throughout Season 51, sketches have buckled under dragging runtimes, one-note jokes bludgeoned to death and facile concepts; earlier this year, another first time host, Teyana Taylor, was similarly let down by sketches that couldn’t match her depth and range as a performer.
A highlight of the night was “Fashion District Robbery,” in which Domingo appears as an extravagant professor named D’artagnan Meringue; when pressed by a local reporter to describe the individual who committed the crime, the beleaguered teacher can’t help but bring the focus back to his abysmal sartorial choices. He warns of the suspect at large: “Be on the lookout for a mess!” There are some fun tidbits here too: Mikey Day pops in and out of frame to add his two cents, while Chloe Fineman (whose presence this season has been muted) appears in a ludicrously capacious hat.
But after starting off strong, the material started to sag: In one sketch spoofing the Artemis II vlogs, Domingo’s passionate astronaut is derailed by two unserious colleagues (Day and Marcello Hernández) who keep bringing their shenanigans into the frame; in another, Domingo appears as a hammy Neil deGrasse Tyson type on PBS, the jokes in which hinge entirely on the monotonous whimsicality of people cosplaying as library objects.
Two sketches later in the night had great bones but fired in too many directions to have any staying power and salient humor.
There’s a funeral sketch in which Domingo pops up as one of four pimps of the recently deceased, shocking the late man’s grandsons, one of whom he tries to recruit. It’s a blink and you’ll miss it appearance, though Kenan Thompson, James Austin Johnson and Weekend Update co-anchor Colin Jost clearly have a blast playing souteneurs.
Another sketch opts for a Dead Poets Society and Good Will Hunting crossover, except Domingo’s free-spirited bohemian teaching style doesn’t gel too well with math: He throws caution — and arithmetic fact — to the wind. Several rudimentary suggestions for fake numbers follow. A bright spot: When Domingo questions why Andrew Dismukes’ frustrated student is so eager to learn the subject correctly, saying, “Why, so you can go out into the world and get a job?” his deadpan delivery of “Yes” is well worth it.
SNL also opted for two pre-taped sketches tonight. The first featured sad sack white guys finding their confidence at a Black barbershop known as “Uneek Kutz.” Domingo, Thompson and Kam Patterson commit to the bit, and Day’s divorcee comes out of his appointment with a durag and an opinion on the Pam vs. Gina debate in Martin. In the second, an Animorphs spoof finds Sarah Sherman unwittingly transformed into a humanoid frog, stuck “mid-morph” after she sneezes and farts at the same time; the sketch has Sherman’s fingerprints all over it, with its gross-out humor and uncanny visual effects.
As for Weekend Update, both Jost and Michael Che got good jabs in.
“If Iran doesn’t agree to peace, the greatest military of all time (OURS!) will f— Iran right up their Strait of Hormuz. Asalam alaykum, you crazy bastards!!!!” Jost began, reading a fake social media post from President Donald Trump. “Now, I completely made that up. But isn’t it kind of disturbing that you all totally believed that he had posted that?”
He continued, “President Trump did, genuinely, issue a post threatening to destroy Iran’s entire civilization and then ended with the phrase ‘praise be to Alllah,’ and I know that makes Trump sound like a radical terrorist, but remember, Trump has already been to a paradise with 72 virgins,” as a picture of the POTUS and late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein flashed on screen.
Meanwhile, Che quipped: “There is growing confusion over whether Israel being allowed to continue bombing Lebanon was part of the ceasefire with Iran. Ultimately, that decision comes down to the man controlling our military: Benjamin Netanyahu.”
As for the Update bits, Jane Wickline’s deer-in-the-headlights humor is often delightful, but her “Gen Z sexpert” fell flat. While the conceit of the bit is the character’s prudish and befuddling conception of intercourse, it goes all the way into the night, and not in a fun way.
Contrastingly, capping off a great appearance on the desk last week as Snape in HBO’s Harry Potter reboot, Patterson once again delivers in a two-hander with Hernández. The duo play in the nexus point between immaturity and precociousness, as “two kids from the back of the bus” who take turns making astute points about rising gas prices and low-hanging dick jokes.
Meanwhile, another inaugural performer, Brazilian superstar Anitta, took to the musical stage to debut her new collaboration with Shakira, “Choka Choka,” and “Várias Quejas.”
