Saturday Night Live recap: Bad Bunny charms (with a little help from his celeb friends)

The King of Latin Trap has entered the building. Bad Bunny—a.k.a. Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, reggaetón phenom, Cassandro star, and current PR boyfriend of Kendall Jenner—joined an illustrious group this week on Saturday Night Live. Like Stevie Wonder, Dolly Parton, Paul Simon, and Billie Eilish before him, Bunny did double duty as both host and musical guest on tonight’s episode, having previously sung on the show during Regé-Jean Page’s ep back in February 2021.

Promoting his fifth solo album, Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va a Pasar Mañana, which dropped on October 13, Benito went all-in for the installment, which saw a refreshing Spanish-language update to accommodate the Puerto Rican superstar. And to celebrate his big debut, Ocasio invited some megawatt friends to join the fun.

Cold open: Jim Jordan’s pity party

We opened this week checking up on some of the GOP’s most recently scandalized personalities. We had Ohio politician Jim Jordan (Mikey Day) as he spiraled following his failure to secure the U.S. Speaker of the House gig. (“All I want to do is get Congress back to work so I can shut it down again.”) We had Bowen Yang’s excellent George Santos drop in whilst carrying a mystery baby, and Lauren Boebart (Chloe Fineman) phoning Jordan straight from a theater performance of Aladdin, a boob-grabbing hand groping its way into the frame. And, of course, we had James Austin Johnson’s Trump arriving to rub salt into Jimmy’s wounds: “Yoo-hoo, is this the loser’s office?” he barged in, adding: “I prefer the Jordans who win, like the great Michael Jordan or the even greater Jordin Sparks.”

Monologue: a little help from a friend

“People are wondering if I can host this show because English is not my first language. But I don’t know if they know that I do whatever I want,” the Almirante Sur-born singer kicked off his monologue. “So I can host this show in English. I can order McDonald’s in English. I can have sex in English. But I prefer sex in Spanish because it’s just better,” he quipped. There was some caption hokiness as Benito slid into his native tongue (“Speaking in Non-English” swaps to “Speaking a Sexier Language”) but any linguistic stumbles were smoothed over by Bunny’s in-house translator, Internet Padre himself Pedro Pascal, who also offered up some sage SNL advice to the rookie host. (The actor made his own hosting debut last season.) “It’s always charming when you make a self-deprecating joke,” Pedro says, suggesting Benito poke fun at a part of his body or face that’s unflattering. The heartthrob huffed: “I don’t have any!”

Best sketch of the night

There were several great moments of absurdism in this week’s ep, including a pre-taped Please Don’t Destroy bit involving a Shrek-loving Bad Bunny wanting to make a film with the lads dressed as the animated characters as well as, oddly, Michael Jackson, and another featuring Devon Walker and James Austin Johnson engaged in an emotional heart-to-heart on a subway platform while chaos erupted in the stopped train directly behind them. But this medieval Spanish-language short was a standout, starring Benito as the King of Spain who was displeased with the proffered gifts two explorers (including Fred Armisen) brought from America. He wasn’t loving the turkeys or the tomatoes or the pumpkins (“That melon has herpes?!”), but he did very much enjoy the discovered kush. Added the king’s son, played by Marcello Hernandez: “Lead with this. Next time, be like, ‘I found gold! And also, this herpes melon!’”

Most surprising celebrity cameos

Given that Pascal made an appearance in the monologue, we had a feeling that The Last of Us star would be popping back up later on in the show (more on that in a second). But he wasn’t the only megastar hanging out in the halls of Studio 8H this week. After the double snoozefest of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s cameos last week, Lorne & Co. amped things up with surprise drop-ins from two musical superstars: Mick Jagger and Lady Gaga, the latter of whom joined the rock god and the rest of the Rolling Stones at their Hackney Diamonds album release party at NYC club Racket on Thursday night. Jagger gamely guested in two sketches, one as a mustachioed, slap-happy telenovela star and later as a Lothario who’s been secretly getting a convent of nuns hot and bothered under their habits, while Gaga pulled introduction duties for Bad Bunny’s performance of “Un Preview.”

MVP of the night: Marcello Hernandez

Especially with all of the Latin flavor this week, the episode was a great spotlight for Cuban-Dominican stand-up and SNL featured player Marcello Hernandez, who got ample screentime opposite Bad Bunny in several Spanish-language sketches, including the aforementioned telenovela and taped royals segments, plus the return of Pascal’s Protective Mom bit, featuring Hernandez as an anxious son bringing home his non-Latina girlfriend for the first time and Bunny as his equally disapproving tía. (In between the women’s rapid-fire Spanish, the only discernible English words are choice insults like “nepo baby,” “Trader Joe’s,” “flat butt” and “Greta Thunberg.”) Overall, Marcello and Benito had solid buddy-comedy energy throughout the episode, and the former solidified his status as a cast breakout.

Stray observations

• We’re only two episodes into season 49 and there have already been six big celebrity cameos. It seems like an awful lot of star power for a season that is not the historic 50th edition of the variety show.
• Last week’s pop-culture punching bag was Taylor Swift, who was mentioned in every other sketch. This week’s was seemingly Jada Pinkett Smith, who showed up at the “Weekend Update” desk (via Ego Nwodim) to tell her side of the whole separation story. “Nothing makes me feel stronger than publicly cucking my millionaire husband,” she snarked. “Divorce is not an option. I have principles, Michael. If we get divorced, he can mess around and end up happy. I can’t have that!”
• Pedro chucking out all those cookies during the Protective Mom sketch only to refill the tin with sewing paraphernalia was by far the most relatable joke of the night, if judging by the sheer volume of the audience’s laughter.