Aubrey Plaza’s mischief as an intern started lengthy earlier than she performed the sardonic April Ludgate on Parks and Recreation. Throughout faculty, she briefly served as a web page at NBC, the place she spent her time sharing faux information on the excursions she led and sneaking off to vomit away her hangovers. Unsurprisingly, Plaza lasted only some months earlier than being requested to go away, however in her brief stint on the community, she obtained the prospect to path SNL’s design division. “I used to be stalking, lurking within the shadows,” she advised Jimmy Fallon earlier this week.
When Plaza took the stage final night time to host SNL for the primary time, she wasn’t lurking anymore. Throughout her opening monologue, she gave a fabricated tour of SNL Studio 8H, then joined three of the set designers she’d interned with all these years in the past. “Once I was displaying up an hour late and barely working, did you ever count on to see me internet hosting the present?” she requested one in all them. “Bow to your queen!” she demanded.
And pay homage SNL did. Allison Jones, the casting director for Parks and Recreation, as soon as purportedly known as Plaza “the weirdest woman I ever met,” and Plaza’s delightfully offbeat vibe got here to outline the episode. The present leaned into it from the bounce, delivering a number of sketches about bizarre characters vulnerable to weirder behaviors that gave Plaza a chance to play together with her abilities. Throughout a premise about morning bulletins at a Catholic faculty, she performed a nun who’d been by chance electrocuted within the bathtub, died for 2 minutes, and found heaven may not exist. The expertise left her questioning all the pieces. “I’m going to have intercourse tonight!” she shouted, widening her eyes in shaky resolve.
In a sketch a couple of recreation night time, Sasha (Plaza) and her companion, Ian (Mikey Day), ended up horrifying their new neighbors by by chance revealing their darkish historical past whereas taking part in Taboo. Racing to get Ian to guess a secret phrase accurately, Sasha prompted him by reminding him what she was “on” the night time they first met. His guesses—on ketamine, on parole—lastly led to the suitable one: on hearth. The impact felt like a throwback to SNL’s halcyon days slightly greater than a decade in the past, when Kristen Wiig and Will Forte typically pushed the present’s sketches in absurd and grotesque instructions.
Nonetheless, though the present tiptoed as much as Plaza’s vibe, it stopped in need of going too far. SNL has, in any case, lengthy aimed to succeed in and please center America—one thing Sarah Sherman has needed to navigate since becoming a member of the forged final 12 months. Identified for body-horror comedy underneath the title Sarah Squirm, Sherman has discovered methods to tone down the extra excessive aspect of her humor with out forgoing the explanations SNL employed her within the first place. In each Sherman’s and Plaza’s circumstances, the compromise works, however one has to marvel what is perhaps doable if the present didn’t so fervently pursue middle-of-the-road comedy.
Because it nears its fiftieth anniversary—and as even longtime forged members query its longevity after that milestone—SNL appears to be at an inflection level. Provided that so lots of the present’s most recognizable forged members have not too long ago departed, newer members have the potential to reinvigorate it. With youth typically comes experimentation, and it’s led to massive payoffs prior to now, specifically the viral energy of Digital Shorts.
However this season has performed it secure most of the time, tapping big-name hosts and visitor stars so as to add pizzazz as a substitute of giving its newer forged ample room to strive novel issues. Final night time mined nostalgia in a couple of predictable methods, together with by having Plaza seem as her famed Parks and Recreation character throughout a “Weekend Replace” bit. She was finally joined by her boss, Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler), for a second that sweetly related the 2 exhibits. Poehler took the chance to take a seat in her former anchor chair and ship a joke. It was a delight, in fact, but in addition a reminder of the previous relatively than a sign of the longer term.
Every period of SNL has to search out its personal voice. In a season bursting with change, the present has struggled with relevancy and originality; it hasn’t but discovered a strategy to stand out from earlier eras. However as a lot as Plaza’s activate the present nodded to the previous (her time as a web page, beloved outdated characters), it additionally hinted at new prospects.
