Saturday Night Live recap: Sydney Sweeney's hosting debut has boob jokes galore

The question wasn’t, “Is Sydney Sweeney funny?” Anyone who’s watched the actress’s barbed takes on Gen Z teendom as The White Lotus’ Olivia Mossbacher and Euphoria’s Cassie “I have never, EVER been happier” Howard knows that Sweeney can very much do funny. (She deservedly earned Emmy nominations for both roles.) The question, rather, was, “Is Saturday Night Live going to let Sydney Sweeney be funny?”

Those worries seemed well-founded when NBC dropped teasers for Sweeney’s hosting debut, in promotion for the star’s new “Spidey-adjacent” Madame Web movie (her co-star Dakota Johnson hosted the show back in January) and in the wake of her sleeper-hit rom-com with Glen Powell, Anyone but You. Also featuring this week’s musical guest Kacey Musgraves (back in Studio 8H for the third time), the SNL promos leaned heavy on the fact that Sydney is a beautiful blonde with a famous decolletage (“Weirdly, a lot of my fans are men”) and, as was the case with Sweeney’s hunky Euphoria castmate Jacob Elordi, the episode itself didn’t let the performer stray far from her sex symbol status.

Opening monologue: Powell and push-up bras

We start off well enough—well, except for that humdrum Gavin Newsom impersonation in the cold open—with some self-deprecation: “My name is Sydney Sweeney. You might have seen me in Anyone but You or Euphoria. You definitely did not see me in Madame Web.” Good stuff. Where last week’s host, Shane Gillis, deliberately side-stepped his public controversies in the monologue, Sweeney tackled hers head on. That MAGA-themed 60th birthday for her mom? Check. That viral TikToker who falsely claimed to be the actress’s nutritionist? Check. (“I’m in shape because I run, avoid sugar, and do Ozempic.”) And those rumors that she had an on-set affair with her Anyone but You co-star Glen Powell? Double-check, including a fun bit that cuts to Powell himself in the studio audience.

The “Shoot, this is brutal” sketch of the night:

Sweeney apparently has that same “Zooey Deschanel without bangs” quality that if she remotely changes her hair, I can’t recognize her. However, the Bumpit wasn’t the problem in this one-joke wreck, with saw the host and cast member Sarah Sherman as wedding makeup artists whose bride gets bad news mid-session. Sydney’s New Joisey accent confoundingly sounded less Snooki and more South African as the bit went on, and there were a good two minutes and two “Shoots” too many.

The best sketch of the night:

While the majority of the live skits were lackluster, Sweeney fared better in the taped sketches, including a Please Don’t Destroy video about an absurdly tragic death and Chef Boyardee and this spot-on Airbnb faux-mercial, starring Sydney and Chloe Troast as Chanel and Chanel (pronounced “Channel”), the interior designers behind the “bland, generic, downright uninviting” decor of the company’s homestays. Among their signatures: a 12-page garbage packet, a foreboding locked closet and “a single, unsettling photo of the family that actually live here.”

The most eye-roll-inducing sketch of the night:

It was inevitable that the show would play up Sweeney’s blondeness and bustiness, but a Hooters bit just feels too painfully obvious in the year of our lord 2024.

The “Yay, someone else is hot!” sketch of the night:

Actually, the funniest way this week’s episode played up Sweeney’s attractiveness was by focusing on someone else’s entirely: in this silly, steamy bit, Sydney’s got the hots for Bowen Yang who, good news for her, has simply been “playing gay” this whole time because “it’s a shortcut to laughs.” In reality, he pulls women, including fellow sex symbol Gina Gershon. “Straight Bowen” is a wondrously jerky creation (his type is “blonde, smart, heavy naturals”) and Sweeney was fully game for all of the erotic absurdism. Extra points for Yang’s mid-sex scene declaration of “I’m on PrEP!”

MVP of the night: Chloe Fineman

Fineman got significant screentime opposite Sweeney in several sketches during Saturday’s show, but while that “Big Bench” bit was pretty abysmal, Chloe and Sydney’s “intern detectives” sketch had some good inter-generational jokes, with both performers pretty much doing their best version of Sweeney’s The White Lotus character. Armed with nothing but vocal fry and a few social-media apps, the interns are able to crank through cold case after cold case: “We’re 22-year-old girls in situationships. We can literally find out anything about anyone with literally no information.” Given that I once dug up the Instagram of a man named Tyler knowing only that he was blonde and from Texas, this tracks. (We also enjoyed that included jab at Jimmy from Love is Blind.)

Stray observations

• It was a surprisingly animal-forward show, from an adorable appearance by “Air Bud,” several mentions of the late, great Flaco the Owl, and a “Weekend Update” cameo from Charlotte, a stingray who mysteriously got knocked up at a North Carolina aquarium. Played by Ego Nwodim, Charlotte came on to hilariously confront the father of said mystery baby: Michael Che. “It was immaculate in that you immaculated and then I immaculated three times, back-to-back. I would say you broke my back, but I ain’t got no bones!”
• Having the preternaturally charismatic Glen Powell pop up not once but twice throughout Saturday’s show—he returned for the show’s final sketch, playing a boss having an affair with his employee (Sweeney)—was a painful tease. Get the man a hosting gig, STAT.
• Speaking of extramarital affairs, Ariana Grande is back as musical guest next week for the third time, with Dune: Part Two star Josh Brolin as host.