Jacob Elordi, Renée Rapp, and Rachel McAdams (!) Enliven ‘SNL’

Rachel McAdams, you’re a sight for sore eyes. On a Saturday Night Live aimed squarely at the Euphoria generation, with Jacob Elordi hosting and self-proclaimed ageist Renée Rapp as musical guest, it was the original Regina George who stole the show. The audience whooped at the sight of her, as she beamed like a Christmas tree introducing Rapp’s second performance. She was then put to good work in an acting school sketch where Bowen Yang’s teacher sniped about the reasons why his students would never make it in Hollywood. (McAdams’s fatal flaw was that she too closely resembled Rachel McAdams, and that was saddled with the unfortunate name Natalie Partman.)

The sketch turned on the entrance of gorgeous success story Elordi, who wasn’t much help to Yang’s struggling students. Talk about auditions and rejections was unfamiliar territory to our boy. What is the word “no” to a 6’5” man with a British accent and bone structure you could grate parmesan on? 

Alas, the gorgeousness of Elordi, who is indeed a walking string cheese of beauty, was the only note the SNL writers knew to play. He noted during his monologue—in which he shrewdly showed a brief shot of the steamy gravesite scene from his movie Saltburn—that he wasn’t much for holding court with words, so he relied on audience questions instead. The only laugh of his amiable opener came when question-asker Yang couldn’t resist noting that he garnered more applause than Sarah Sherman.

Elordi wasn’t given much of a chance to show if he’s funny. But he’s a game gentleman nonetheless, and seemed not to mind being treated like a yummy slab of meat for 90 minutes. An exuberant Chloe Fineman climbed him like a tree when he came in as a spoiler during a bit about a reality show named Crown Your Short King. Later, he stumbled into a women’s-only AA meeting—whose policy was strict when it came to average joes like Mikey Day—and the horseshoe of gals were all to grateful to widen their circle to him. The poor chap was just 78 days sober, torn up over his desire to act out sexually with women when he’s dry but inclined “to wear those poor women like a gas mask” when he’s drinking. Heidi Gardner swore it would help with her sobriety if he’d go into graphic detail, and Punkie Johnson bounced her boobs in appreciation.

The best sketch of the night was Ego Nwodim sending up a Katt Williams shit-talking interview with Devon Walker’s Shannon Sharpe. Promising a conversation of brutal honesty, Nwodim’s Williams boasted that “I am 5’3, I have never told a lie, and I am 6’3.” When questioned over his claim that Kevin Hart was made in the same Hollywood factory that produces Teddy Grahams, Nwodim demanded, “then why the hell he smell like cinnamon?” Later claiming to be the genius behind President Obama’s Yes We Can campaign slogan, her Williams insisted that before he waved his brilliance, Barack was out there peddling the promise of “prolly, prolly, I think we might.”

Ugh, campaigns. There’s a cloud of dread and fatigue looming as the threat of a Trump and Biden rematch edges closer to reality. The wretchedness of it all trumps the absurdity. “Well, you guys, it’s 2024—but is it?” asked Colin Jost at the top of Weekend Update. “Guys, I don’t know if we should do this election. It’s honestly starting to feel like elder abuse. I don’t even blame them. I blame us for allowing it.” Then he proposed a kind of mercy draw, a last-ditch attempt to put both men out to gentle pasture. “Tell Trump and Biden that they both won, and that we’re very proud of them, and they can rest now.”

Maybe Rapp is right to look down on us grown folk. She appeared in one sketch throughout the night, cheekily introduced as “our little lesbian intern” by Yang and Elordi’s red carpet reporters. Explaining her time of servitude, she said “I’ve been going absolutely off in every single interview lately, so now I have to do 40 hours of court-ordered media training.” Rapp would be wise to remember that a season of bravado doesn’t equal charisma, or always lend itself to an enduring career. When Megan Thee Stallion appeared from behind a pink cake during Rapp’s performance of “Not My Fault,” it felt like being treated to a glimpse of an actual star. And during the final goodbyes, it was Rachel McAdams who was center stage. Elordi wrapped his arms tight around the older woman, activating fan fiction accounts around the world.

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