Saturday Night Live is back, baby! The Season 47 premiere with host Owen Wilson and musical guest Kacey Musgraves welcomed back several veteran cast members to Studio 8H, including Kenan Thompson, Aidy Bryant, Cecily Strong, and Pete Davidson, and introduced three new featured players: Sarah Sherman, James Austin Johnson, and Aristotle Athari. Some other cast changes include Chloe Fineman and Bowen Yang bumping up to the main cast (yay!) and the exit of long-time cast member Beck Bennett and featured player Lauren Holt.
Surprisingly, this was Owen Wilson’s first time hosting the show, though in 2016, he and Ben Stiller delighted fans with their guest appearance at the Weekend Update desk as their Zoolander characters Hansel and Derek, in which they talked about their other specialty: politics. Wilson got his start in film with the cult-classic film Bottle Rocket, which he starred in with his brother Luke Wilson and co-wrote with director Wes Anderson. Since then, he’s appeared in comedies such as Wedding Crashers, Meet the Fockers, and the Night at the Museum and Cars franchises. He reunites (yet again) with Anderson on the upcoming film The French Dispatch, which was recently nominated for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. He also joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe as TVA agent Mobius M. Mobius in the Disney+ series Loki.
Cheered on by his brothers Andrew and Luke in the audience, Owen kicked off the show with a strong monologue poking fun at his cool, calm, and collected on-screen persona. The show leaned heavily on COVID (the everpresent elephant in the room) and the various ways the media has handled it — but never fear, the show also spent some time in sillier territory, showing the behind the scenes for a mail-in stool testing company commercial and imagining what a Star Trek series starring Jeff Bezos would look like. It was a bit of a bummer that Villaseñor didn’t get a chance to do her Owen Wilson impression with the actual Owen Wilson, but most unexpected was the absence of a Loki parody sketch. (Or maybe the entire show was made up of variants the whole time?) Nevertheless, Owen Wilson served his own glorious purpose as host, and we need to talk about it.
Let’s revisit some of the best moments from the October 2nd episode of Saturday Night Live. Live from New York, it’s Owen Wilson!
5. Biden Unites Democrats Cold Open
Front and center for the cold open was newbie James Austin Johnson as Joe Biden attempting to unite the Democratic Party on either end of the spectrum to support the passing of the new infrastructure bill. On one side was moderates Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema (Cecily Strong) who looks like “all the characters from Scooby-Doo at the same time,” and West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin (Aidy Bryant), the “pain in [Biden’s] keister.” On the more progressive side was Representative Ilhan Omar (Ego Nwodim), who was just relieved that Biden didn’t accidentally call her “Kamala,” and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (Melissa Villaseñor), the “Cruella of the Met Gala.” Johnson, who’s known for his incredible Donald Trump impression, had a very strong first show, appearing in nearly every sketch.
4. Women’s Talk Show
“Welcome back to The Talking, where we discuss everything that women could have an opinion about at 11:30 in the morning.” This sketch was a scary good parody of The View’s recent on-air COVID test result snafu, in which two of the hosts were escorted away from the set in the middle of the show for testing positive for COVID. Here, Owen Wilson plays a doctor who interrupts the show's very in-depth conversation about the stock market to give the hosts their test results and confirm some personal information about them in the process.
3. NFL on Fox
Football is back, and Fox sports broadcasters Joe Buck (James Austin Johnson) and Troy Aikman (Owen Wilson) are ready to tackle it. But, they have to be sure to plug the new family comedy Crazy House coming to Fox this Fall. The two announcers have a hard time staying on track of the Panthers vs.Cowboys game, as each new advertisement they have to read for Crazy House gets more and more detailed. Wilson nails the out-of-touch persona, making Joe cringe as he unintentionally dances around some offensive language.
2. School Board Meeting
People have a lot of questions about the new COVID protocols being implemented in schools, so to make sure everyone is heard, the Lucerne County school district has opened up their latest meeting to the public. What could possibly go wrong? In this sketch, the two board members (played by Alex Moffat and Ego Nwodim) do their best to satisfy the bizarre bunch of people who came to the meeting to air their grievances, even if they don’t have a child in the school system. Things get off-topic pretty quickly, and like a lot of meetings, nothing gets accomplished. Also, Mr. Dot (Owen Wilson) stops by to inquire about a memo which he might have misread.
1. Weekend Update: Pete Davidson on the Met Gala
Pete Davidson stopped by Weekend Update in a lovely Norm Macdonald shirt to tell Colin Jost about his recent experience at the Met Gala, the celebrity-filled event known for elaborate costumes and fashion statements. Davidson joked about his own outfit, which he said made him look like “James Bond at his quinceanera.” He also explains his confusion as to how the 1980s was both the “gayest generation” and “the most homophobic,” how him sometimes wearing nail polish and dresses freaks out his uncle, and makes fun of Jost’s recent role in Tom and Jerry. Colin Jost and Michael Che also dedicated this week's Weekend Update to comedian and SNL cast member Norm Macdonald by showing some of his best jokes during his time behind the Update desk.
For more Owen Wilson, check out The French Dispatch, which will hit theaters October 22nd, and stream Loki on Disney+. Next week, Kim Kardashian West arrives at Studio 8H to make her hosting debut.