Miles Teller hosts a sleepy episode that shows SNL is still looking for its new center of gravity.
Photo: Rosalind O’Connor/NBC
Miles Teller has a punchable face. This isn’t an original observation — Teller has been plagued by it in some form or another throughout his career — nor is it a value judgment on his actual personality or character. In fact, the actor came off as endearingly enthusiastic about hosting Saturday Night Live for the second time last night, particularly in his monologue, which centered around his childhood love of the show (much as it did his first time around nor host). He seems like a good dude who sincerely loves the show! And yet the fact remains: the more Teller leaned into his inherent douchebaggery on this week’s episode, the more laughs he was able to pull.
Sadly, that didn’t happen too often last night, and maybe that’s at least in part why this sleepy episode never quite found lift-off. The show kicked off on a tired note with a cold open that took on the last New York City mayoral debate, which at this point happened more than a week ago. The debate has already been fully metabolized on social media and iterated upon through endless posts on TikTok and X. The cold open had little to offer by way of a fresh perspective, and although Teller did a solid Andrew Cuomo impression (the third time this season a host has appeared in the cold open), the remaining two mayoral candidates were played by non-cast members.
Neither Ramy Youssef nor Zohran Mamdani nor Shane Gillis nor Curtis Sliwa was funny enough to justify taking up spots that could have been given to, say, any of the five new cast members still looking for their spotlight on the show. I will never understand why the show is so allergic to actually showcasing its crowded, talented cast, instead opting for pointless celebrity cameos that do nothing except make you go, “Oh, that guy.”
Last night’s episode never recovered from its drowsy start. You get the sense, when watching SNL this season, that the show is looking for its new center of gravity. Unmoored by the star-power vacuum left by heavyweights Ego Nwodim and Heidi Gardner, the cast is clearly straining to find its footing in these early episodes. While featured players like Ashley Padilla and Veronika Slowikowska show definite promise, and mainstays like Kenan Thompson, Bowen Yang, and Mikey Day continue to hold down the fort, season 51 is still missing that essential animating X-factor. This isn’t to say that the cast won’t find it — it’s still early! And when you have a particularly charismatic host, like Sabrina Carpenter in the last episode, those cracks aren’t even visible. Unfortunately, Teller, who either wanted to distance himself from his punchable vibes or wasn’t given the material to showcase it, had a sort of low-key hosting style that was not magnetic enough to distract from the growing pains currently testing the SNL cast
Nevertheless, here are the highlights:
This early-episode highlight stars Andrew Dismukes and Ashley Padilla as directors of a PSA video for the NHL, alongside hockey players played by Miles Teller, Ben Marshall, and Tommy Brennan. The central joke here is that Teller’s character plays for the Nashville Predators, which makes for some uncomfortable lines in the PSA (written, of course, by Dismukes and Padilla’s directors). The heightening of those lines is what’s working best in this sketch, as well as Teller’s mounting dismay at what he’s being made to say.
A trailer for a new Netflix crime series centered around three distraught husbands (Miles Teller, Ben Marshall, Kenan Thompson) whose wives (Ashley Padilla, Veronika Slowikowska, Sarah Sherman) mysteriously go missing on work trips and family visits, of which their husbands were most definitely informed. This digital short is elevated by its very funny specifics, including Teller’s character making a Tinder profile shortly after his wife’s “disappearance” and Thompson getting jumpscared by his own children.
This sketch takes a pretty simple setup (a news broadcast keeps getting interrupted by workers in the open newsroom background) and then crams it with a bunch of physical comedy that is as stupid as it is funny. Teller is utilized especially well here, in all his punchable glory, as an asshole coworker who openly watches hentai on his work computer. MVP goes to Bowen Yang, though, who fully commits to getting electrocuted at the high point of the sketch.
Weekend Update is almost never my favorite part of any given SNL episodes. But I actually appreciated Colin Jost’s super talky introductory bit about the White House trick-or-treating event, in which President Trump once again placed candy atop a kid’s head. “It’s kind of an embodiment of his entire presidency, because it’s just a violation of norms that no other president or person has ever conceived of,” Jost points out, and it’s not really a joke, but it’s still funny. Also, bonus points to Michael Che, who deems Curtis Sliwa “the world’s only White Panther.”
Two people who just hooked up backstage, played by Andrew Dismukes and Ashley Padilla, stop by the Update desk to explain the government shutdown/litigate their relationship/harass Jost. What makes this Update desk bit such a highlight is the chemistry between Dismukes and Padilla, who are genuinely good actors and extremely believable in their respective roles. In under five minutes, Dismukes and Padilla speed-run through their entire relationship, from meet-cute to consummation (in Jost’s office, obviously) to the inevitable blowup. Hope we see more of these two in the future, because they’re delightful together.
• Chloe Fineman and Marcello Hernandez continue their tradition of cuckolding a poor, hapless husband (this time played by Mikey Day) in “Italian Restaurant Date.”
• “Hungover Halloween” never completely came together for me, but “Who did you make out with last night? Same options as before” did make me laugh.
• “Bill Clinton said that? He said that the best perk for him was the movie theater?”
• Bowen Yang stopped by Update as George Santos again, and although it’s not my favorite of his Update characters, the repeated use of the prison phone was very funny.
• I could see Ashley Padilla having a Heidi Gardner trajectory this season. She shines in literally everything she’s in, even the “Murder Press Briefing” sketch, which was a dud except for Padilla’s incredible screaming at the three minute mark.
• “But George, I was actually born very rich.”
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