Saturday Night Live review: Natalie Portman show brings laughs across the board
So how did Portman open her show tonight? Following the cold open (read our full take on that over here), Natalie started things off by making a very good joke comparing the entire country to V for Vendetta while then also started off some commentary about how aggressively NBC was promoting the Winter Olympics. Portman actually didn’t in too many words edgewise because of SNL bringing out various analysts to discuss everything from the Games to breaking down some of Natalie’s jokes. We do like SNL getting a little bit meta, especially with their cold open, for the second straight week.
Be sure to refresh this article throughout the show for more highlights on the sketches.
Super Bowl spoof – The funny thing about this sketch is that it made fun of the showdown between New England and Philadelphia by comparing the teams to soldiers and politicians within the American Revolution. The New England colonists (including Rachel Dratch) were of course arrogant and loud; we were a little worried that the Philadelphia contingent wasn’t going to be as funny, but then we got Tina Fey out there in a cameo as one of the colonists. For those wondering, Fey is actually from Upper Darby, hence why it made sense for her to appear.
Stranger Things – Why in the world are we getting a Stranger Things spoof right now? It’s completely random, other than that Portman looks a little bit like Millie Bobby Brown. The entire idea was just having various people come out with different powers similar to Eleven.
Natalie raps again – At the start of this sketch we weren’t quite sure we needed to get another one of these; yet, then she dressed up as Padme and we got an Andy Samberg cameo. While this wasn’t as great as the original one more than years ago, we did still think that there were many a funny moment in here.
Music – Head over here to read more of our take on Dua Lipa!
Weekend Update – The jokes tonight were solid, especially when it came to Michael Che making Colin Jost uncomfortable about whether or not his family owned slave. Also, Kate McKinnon played a ridiculous inappropriate version of Brigitte Bardot. Plus, Willie returned with an incredibly dark bit about the Puppy Bowl and him being intimate with a dead person. Also, Pete Davidson talked about his Dockers commercial. (You can head over here to actually see said commercial.)
Butt Face – Were the writers really obsessed with farts this week or something? This entire sketch revolved around seeing Portman communicate with Beck Bennett’s butt — which was really his alien face — in outer space. This was somehow much funnier than it really deserved to be.
Kids Choice Awards pre-show – We’re not sure what this was really meant to be about other than a co-host losing her voice and doing weird things to fix it.
Jackie Kennedy plays Melania Trump – This was one of the best showcases for Cecily’s Melania that we’ve seen to date. Also, we somehow didn’t seethe Kate-as-Hillary Clinton cameo coming. Given that this is one of Kate’s most notable characters, why was this so late in the show?
Also random (and delightful) — Aidy Bryant bursting through a window as Martha Washington.
Bar scene – The final sketch of the night featured a number of women trying to give advice to each other, while Bryant’s character Bunny turned up as the crazy one to hand out a very different perspective on things. We’d love this more if it wasn’t the same character we’ve seen Aidy play a dozen times already.
CarterMatt Verdict
Portman did a really great job as host blending in with the rest of the cast, and overall, this was a fun show! There were a couple of misses with the bar scene and the Kids Choice Awards, but given that this was the fourth show in a month the writers and the cast really brought it.
What did you think about the show? We welcome you to share your thoughts and reactions to this episode in the comments!
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