Remember this as the weekend that begat a tsunami of buddy comedy pitches for Timothée Chalamet and Pete Davidson. Boy, did these boys ever meet cute on Saturday’s episode. SNL did right by Chalamet in his first hosting stint, pairing him for the buik of the show with a partner who kept him loose and ridiculous. If the kids came to worship at the porcelain altar of Chalamet’s cheekbones, their moms had stayed up late to thank God for Bruce Springsteen still looking fine in full body denim. Bruuuuuuce!, the live audience screamed, as young Twitter worried that it was witnessing the awkwardness of boos.
The night started on a crisp note, with a snappy cold open that respected the mileage of its material and kept it moving. Kate McKinnon’s Dr. Fauci and Heidi Gardner’s Dr. Birx were thrilled to share news of the Pfizer vaccine. Gardner was particularly good at capturing the pinched discomfort of Birx, still unsure if she’d be invited over to Biden’s greener grass. Her eyes hadn’t yet lost the frozen terror of Betty Gabriel’s housemaid in Get Out, as she promised that when Trump pitched the idea of injecting bleach, “I almost whispered ‘No.’” Meanwhile McKinnon kept a straight face as full-support bras from Fauci’s adoring fans came flying at her. When exactly are we going to get the vaccine? “July badabadbada,” said Fauci. This 2020 tunnel, man. It’s hard to square the fact that we’re all going to turn the page on the year, but still be trapped within it on January 1.
Everybody: self-medicate with a Chalamet viewing marathon on New Year’s Day! Our gorgeous toy soldier strode onto the stage in a red jacket and giant white sneakers. For the second week in a row, the host called up a clip from Christmas past to use as a springboard. Chalamet shared footage of his mom as an extra in a sketch starring Chris Farley and Dana Carvey. He then cut to her in the crowd, looking adorable and proud and like an excellent citizen, making sure her mask didn’t slip down her nose. Chalamet apologized for his clumsiness as he clomped behind a piano bench, but then broke into a smooth ode to the luxuries of a New York Christmas. Staten Island truth teller Davidson joined him, pining for the days of trimming the family tree with “spaghetti and scratch-offs.” It was the closest Chalamet came to breaking, and you could tell right away that Davidson at once grounded and lit up the actor.
They’d pair up again in two more sketches, once as reality-oblivious Jets fans on a Newsmax sports offshoot. And damn: shout out to Chalamet, who you didn’t once catch reading cue cards throughout the night. Kid’s a pro. But their finest hour was in the XXL Rap Roundtable sketch, where they played GuapLord and Smokecheddadathatassgetta, two face-tatted rappers with sherbet-colored hair who cited Fall Out Boy and the Kia hamsters as their hip-hop influences. The two spoke in splurts and coughs and view numbers. “Yo, hold up, you was in Yo Gabba Gabba?” Chalamet’s Assgetta said to fellow panel guest Questlove. “Damn bro, respect. You a legend.” Finally, Questlove could bear the travesty of these bozos’ existence no longer—and you know he wishes he had a take two on that foot-long whiff of a fake punch.
The best sketch of the night was Dionne Warwick’s new talk show, in which Ego Nwodim killed as the grande dame of not giving a fuck. In the cooking segment, her Warwick sang over the chef and popped an hors d’oeuvre in her mouth without missing a note. Her first guest was Chalamet’s Harry Styles. He gave great wink and exaggerated heat—and you could tell Chalamet was pleased to wear the man’s scalloped blouse and lady sweater. Ms. Warwick’s interest in this stranger sitting before her boiled down to “Why is Wendy Williams being such a bitch to me?” The sketch would close the loop with Chloe Fineman then coming out as guest Timothée Chalamet. If this woman does nothing beyond Master Class celebrity impressions this season, Fineman will have more than earned her paycheck. Her Chalamet giggled; he demurred; he thrust his crotch in the air; he throbbed with nervous, horny, absurd, high-colt energy. Ms. Warwick closed her show by telling the audiences to all look under their seats for a special surprise. When they came up empty, she purred, “That’s right: I don’t owe you anything.” Is Dionne Warwick the new Ellen?
Dr. Wenowdis, make sense of this moment in history. McKinnon paired her pipe with reindeer antlers on Weekend Update. The efficacy and lack of side effects of the vaccine had the doctor feeling frisky, as McKinnon gyrated into her swivel chair and shot giant syringes of our miracle cure at Colin Jost. But the who, when, how of it all? We don’t know dis. If her unraveling felt like more of a bit than its original raw display of vulnerability, the message was still spot-on. “I think what it is is, I stopped going to therapy,” she said of her coming undone. “Because I’m really bad on the phone. I do too many long pauses. I told her maybe every other week, and then I blocked her number.” It’s the light at the end of the tunnel that taunts her and the rest of us now.
Will we ever get back to something like normal? Will we gather in person around the holiday table next year, instead of parsing tone over text and Zoom? We don’t know dis. But we also don’t know how Bruce Springsteen is 71 years old and still the coolest in the world. We don’t know how it is that he could lose someone precious like Clarence Clemons, then go on cooking onstage with the man’s nephew. There are so many mysteries in this world, and some of them are magic.