Saturday Night Live: Nate Bargatze hosts strong second episode | Saturday Night Live

TThe second episode of the groundbreaking comedy series' 50th season felt like a comeback of sorts on several levels. Popular stand-up host Nate Bargatze was once again given hosting duties after his highly acclaimed debut as a host almost exactly a year ago. Meanwhile, musical guest Coldplay returned for their eighth performance. On the sketch page there were several retreads of past parts; one from last week. And in the final quarter of the show, an SNL favorite made a surprise return.

Following last week's great debuts of Dana Carvey as President Joe Biden, Jim Gaffigan as Tim Walz and Andy Samberg as Doug Emhoff, the star-studded cameo crew returned, led by Maya Rudolph's pitch-perfect interpretation of Kamala Harris together to parody the latest Vice Presidential Debate. The sketch found a clever way to incorporate this election season's diverse cast of characters, taking place between Rudolph's Harris and Samberg's Emhof as he watched Walz take on JD Vance (played enthusiastically by Bowen Yang) on ​​television, with the warmth between Walz and Vance a romantic effect unfolded here.

Samberg did what he does best, grafting his goofy personality onto Emhoff's caricature, while Rudolph acted as the glue that holds everything together. This includes references to Walz's spooky misadventures last week (including his line “I'm friends with school shooters”), which is limited to Rudolph spitting out her red wine. “I should have chosen Josh,” she said, with Samberg’s Emhoff assuming she was referring to possible vice president Josh Shapiro. No, she was actually referring to the wine brand.

Making a connection to the sketch show's storied political history, Carvey then enters the room as President Biden, armed with the president's vocal tics and incoherent remarks (“Guess what…and by the way!”) and, finally, a vanilla ice cream cone. And yes, at some point it actually drips all over Rudolph's Harris. The end result was an opening slapstick, relevant, cartoonish and bitingly satirical.

Bargatze is one of the modern power producers of stand-up comedy. Last year he broke the attendance record at the Bridgestone Arena in his hometown of Nashville, Tennessee. So if you're not sure who he is, that may say more about the craft's fragmented culture than his personal influence on mainstream culture. Regardless, Bargatze delivered a monologue about securing a Door Dash, and it sometimes felt like your friend was hearing the simple repetition of an otherwise normal Door Dash command. It was endearing and unspectacular, and that was probably the point.

Saturday Night Live's history has seen many blunders in mainstream sports like football and baseball, while golf has seemed underrepresented with a few exceptions. This short film focuses on a golfer who can't stop killing animals on the golf course. With each accidental death, the consequences grow larger (including veterans turning away from him and a Nike representative, played by Michael Longfellow, putting their logo on his hat to distance the brand). It's another sophomore outing that wouldn't have been out of place as a Looney Tunes cartoon, but that's not a bad thing.

One of the most acclaimed sketches of recent times came from Bargatze's last appearance in the form of “Washington's Dream,” in which the titular Father of America muses about his silly goals for the new country, with the sketch essentially doubling as a commentary on nonsense cultural formulations that we take for granted. He's back here in a skit that follows the same beats and finds more commentary, including the fact that the meat of cows and pigs is called beef and pork, while chicken is just, well, chicken. Once again, it's the writing style that shines here, as both the first and this second “Washington's Dream” could have felt right at home as a fun “Shouts and Murmurs” entry The New Yorker.

Before the season began, cast member Marcello Hernández was nominated as its breakout star (including as Variety's cover for their Power of Young Hollywood issue). Here Hernández plays the host of a parody of Univision's long-running Sabado Gigante, in which an American (Bargatze, of course) appears as a confused guest. It all went back to one of the most memorable game show skits in the show's history, when Chris Farley played an unlucky contestant on a Japanese game show in 1994. The 90s are actually making a comeback.

The game/premise of this unique sketch is based on whether to carry a dead body off the top of a water slide or simply push it down, which was inspired by a long-time stand-up routine by performer Longfellow. As Bargatze repeatedly played a different version of his laid-back self, the inherent oddity left him wondering why it wasn't aired later in the show. There's nothing a little Coldplay can't fix when the band plays their sappy “All My Love.”

After leaving their Peacock spin-off project New York After Dark behind them, Colin Jost and Michael Che return to their comfort zone behind the update desk by covering the aforementioned VP debate as well as the latest from the Trump skewering the world, including the former president's appearance with Elon Musk at his rally in Pennsylvania. Notable are the jokes that are introspective, with Jost gushing that the next time we'll see Trump and Musk together is when they both host SNL in December, a nod to the show's penchant for occasionally stirring up controversy when it does about her choice of moderation with both Musk and Trump both having hosted recently.

Meanwhile, it was Jane Wickline's time to shine in her second installment as a performer, having been recruited following her turn on the under-the-radar TikTok sketch comedy series called Stapleview had gained a following on the platform. Tonight she made her Update debut as a representative of Generation Z with a charming song about partying with lines like “I'm the plus of someone who's gone.” It was a little stressful to see her fussing with her keyboard She was walking a tightrope, but in the end she seemed to have made it.

Here, a family has a serious conversation about the patriarch's dementia while Heidi Gardner tries to devour a giant burger to win a trip to Disney World. The laughs here were due to Gardner's sloppy eating (which caused cast member Yang to collapse). Still, it felt like another sketch with the flavor of the past; This one may be somewhat inspired by Debbie Downer from 2004; They may have even nodded, considering the skit is set in Disney World.

With a surprise return from The Lonely Island (Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and presumably an off-camera Jorma Taccone), one would have thought that this would have caused more fanfare than it being the penultimate sketch of the night. Perhaps the late broadcast time is due to the raunchy theme, which devolves into a bevy of glory hole gags (“Hear us out…”). Whatever the case, the whole affair makes one long for the days when these were regularly broadcast. Meanwhile, Coldplay takes the stage again for We Pray, supported by Palestinian-Chilean singer Elyanna and Argentinian Tina, as well as a barefoot Martin.

Maybe they squeezed this in for the classic “10 to 1 skit,” as it's called, and had to cut some lines because its simple premise, centered on a coach and the price of jerseys, came and went in a flash and brought out occasional laughs.

Overall, there didn't seem to be a sophomore slump in this second episode. While Bargatze played a version of himself in every sketch, what more could you ask for from a stand-up comedian and non-actor? Both veteran and new cast members had the chance to shine, which can be a rarity due to the nature of the show. We'll see what happens next week when Ariana Grande comes to Studio 8H to support her upcoming role in the Wicked film.